Claiming costs of repairs from pot hole damage

Beckyy

Has anybody had any success with doing this?

On Monday I was turning right at a roundabout, when I got on the roundabout there was a very large pot hole in the right hand lane. I couldn't swerve around it as I would have caused an accident. I next drove my car on Tuesday for a short jounrey and one of my rear wheels was making a strange noise, I assumed there was just something caught in it, so dismissed it at the time as I was almost home.

Yesterday I went to pick my MIL up and when leaving hers my car started to make some VERY unhealthy sounds. I immediately pulled over, and we walked to the garage 5 minutes away. They towed my car in and found that I had a collapsed wheel bearing. They said I wouldn't have got to my destination, and could have had an accident if I'd have tried to drive any further. It cost £160 to repair.


ETA: My local Council is Moray.

Is there any chance of me being able to claim this back from the council, or would it be more hassle than it's worth? I have the reciept from the garage, but no proof as such that the pothole caused the damage.

hubert_cumberdale

woah £160 for a rear wheel bearing jeez what have you got an aston martin

i doubt you will get anywhere with it unless you can prove that the council has previously been made aware of this issue and supply proof

im amazed a pothole damaged a bearing it was probably going anyway for that to happen

Beckyy

Quite the opposite... only a little Ford Fiesta! There is a chance it could have been on the way out I guess? But I've never had ANY problems with it (had a new set of tyres a couple of months back), and it was a pretty massive pot hole. I think I was charged so much as they had to tow the car in and 'recover it' as I was unable to drive it to the garage. I was charged £90 labour, about £45 for the actual bearing. Plus VAT. The car was with them for around 4 hours.

I've had a look around on fixmystreet etc. and have added the pothole, but it hasn't bee reported anywhere before that I can see, so I guess there's no chance for recovering any costs!

hubert_cumberdale

45 for a bearing is a lot are you sure it was a bearing i bought to front ones for an audi a4 a little while ago and they were only £11 each

theres no harm in trying to claim for it try and get a engineers report

johnnyroper

it was a while back but i successfully claimed off the council for tyre,wheel and lower arm damage i had to fill in a claim form and send in a picture of hole with ruler in demonstrating the depth and give the overall dimensions.

daniel80

Hi on Tuesday my wife hit a pothole in the dark. Outcome 1 new tyre and 2 damaged wheels. To replace like for like it would cost about £900. We could not afford this so we bought a good budget tyre and instead of replacing both alloy wheels i was able to take them to a specialist and get them repaired all for a total cost of £200. We are going to try and claim from the council, if i thought we had a good chance i would of gone like for like but even then i know it could take ages. I have receipts for the wheel repairs but due to keeping the cost down not for the tyre[cash job] We phoned the council and reported the hole which they admitted they already knew about as it was reported the day before. I went up today to take pictures and measurements which were length 56 inches width 32 inches and depth 7 inches. Oh and now the hole has a road cone stuck in it. What do you reckon our chances are.