Pot Hole Claim M6 J3 Northbound February 2020

davidglewis

hi - on the morning of 26 Feb, i hit a pot hole in lane 3, that sent a massive bang through the car and i was waiting for the tyre to blow out, but it remained intact. i pulled into Corley Services to check the damage but other than a scar on the tyre, the wheel looked ok - i carried on my journey and noticed a severe vibration through the steering wheel. I went to a local tyre and exhaust place who took the wheel off and advised that the wheel was buckled and i was lucky that the tyre didn't blow out.
I booked the car in for new tyre and wheel - its a BMW with 20" alloys and £ 1300.00 later, car was sorted.
Submitted my claim in the highways agency and low and behold they have told me the carriageway was inspected on 25 Feb (the day before my incident) and was fixed on the evening of 26 Feb, so they are stating that they addressed the issue within the 24hr period that they are bound to fix these defects.
The issue i have is that if such damage to the road was so bad to cause such damage to my car, how could this simply appear overnight? 
This stretch of the M6 was at the time under road works whilst they were upgrading it to a smart motorway, with narrow lanes and the hard shoulder barriered off and was also subject to a 50mph speed limit with average speed cameras, so i know i wasn't travelling too fast.
The form i filled in asked for photos of the damage to the road which is impossible on lane of the M6?
I have gone back to them asking for a copy of the inspection report from the 25 feb and also details of the repair that was carried out - afterall i couldnt be 100% specific on where the damage was on the roadway - i could only give a general idea given its location.
Has anyone else suffered such damage - maybe by the same pot hole and the HA spinning the same line?
I am not a claims conscious kind of person but feel that i should be able to recover the costs of this - i have done nothing wrong, but proving their negligence in this matter, i think will probably prove impossible.
David

KimJongUn88

If the inspection occurred on the 25th and the repair tool place on the 26th, that doesn't necessarily mean that the defect occurred in one day.  It may have been present before the HA inspection but was only picked up on the inspection that occurred on the 25th.  If this is true, the HA have discharged their liability.  They have a defence of a reasonable system of inspection afforded to them under s.58 of the Highways Act 1980.  Give it a google. 

AdrianC

davidglewis said:

20" alloys

I think we've found the root cause of your problem.

To confirm it, what profile tyres?

MinuteNoodles

davidglewis said:

The issue i have is that if such damage to the road was so bad to cause such damage to my car, how could this simply appear overnight? 
This stretch of the M6 was at the time under road works whilst they were upgrading it to a smart motorway, with narrow lanes and the hard shoulder barriered off and was also subject to a 50mph speed limit with average speed cameras, so i know i wasn't travelling too fast.

I do 2000 miles a week all over the UK, mostly on motorways and it's not uncommon for them to appear overnight especially where there's roadworks where the road surface is already damaged due to the work. Lane 3 doesn't mean there hasn't been thousands of lorries driving down that particular stretch as on a night time they often put that stretch down to one lane and it was the outside lane that was the open one. You then had the hundreds of lorries heading up to parcel company hubs and distribution centres around Birmingham going over it that night and it doesn't take long before a small pothole turns into a big one with several hundred 44 tonne lorries hitting it.

You're driving a BMW on wide 20" alloys with skinny tyres so you're driving a car on alloys where the majority of the outer band of that alloy is unsupported and aren't as strong as 16" ones would be and you're using tyres with very thin sidewalls which have little ability to absorb impacts meaning that your wheels are at a much higher risk of damage from hitting a pothole than say someone on narrower 16" alloys with a nice 65 or 70 profile tyre. In fact if you took a wheel off and looked at it without a tyre on or looked at a photograph of one it would come as a surprise that they don't end up buckled more often. Literally it's only the outside couple of inches of the rim where the ribs that connect the outer band to the central hub where there is anything that would support that band to prevent it buckling in an impact.

Long story short is that if you run 17,18,19, 20" alloys with skinny tyres in this country then you need to expect that they'll get damaged and you'll be lucky if you don't ever get one.

davidglewis

AdrianC said:

davidglewis said:

20" alloys

I think we've found the root cause of your problem.

To confirm it, what profile tyres?

they are a skinny profile, but i dont see why my choice of wheel/tyre means i should accept that the road has damaged them - i was lucky that it didnt blow out and i ended upside down in the barrier

davidglewis

davidglewis said:

hi - on the morning of 26 Feb, i hit a pot hole in lane 3, that sent a massive bang through the car and i was waiting for the tyre to blow out, but it remained intact. i pulled into Corley Services to check the damage but other than a scar on the tyre, the wheel looked ok - i carried on my journey and noticed a severe vibration through the steering wheel. I went to a local tyre and exhaust place who took the wheel off and advised that the wheel was buckled and i was lucky that the tyre didn't blow out.
I booked the car in for new tyre and wheel - its a BMW with 20" alloys and £ 1300.00 later, car was sorted.
Submitted my claim in the highways agency and low and behold they have told me the carriageway was inspected on 25 Feb (the day before my incident) and was fixed on the evening of 26 Feb, so they are stating that they addressed the issue within the 24hr period that they are bound to fix these defects.
The issue i have is that if such damage to the road was so bad to cause such damage to my car, how could this simply appear overnight? 
This stretch of the M6 was at the time under road works whilst they were upgrading it to a smart motorway, with narrow lanes and the hard shoulder barriered off and was also subject to a 50mph speed limit with average speed cameras, so i know i wasn't travelling too fast.
The form i filled in asked for photos of the damage to the road which is impossible on lane of the M6?
I have gone back to them asking for a copy of the inspection report from the 25 feb and also details of the repair that was carried out - afterall i couldnt be 100% specific on where the damage was on the roadway - i could only give a general idea given its location.
Has anyone else suffered such damage - maybe by the same pot hole and the HA spinning the same line?
I am not a claims conscious kind of person but feel that i should be able to recover the costs of this - i have done nothing wrong, but proving their negligence in this matter, i think will probably prove impossible.
David

as an update to this, i have had various letters and documents from Highways england - they maintain that the pothole was not there when they inspected and then magically appeared in the space of about 15 hours. They have also disclosed that 4 other motorists have reported damage to their vehicles due to the same incident. I see a couple of comments here basically saying its my fault that i have 20" wheels? i really dont think that this is reasonable - this could have caused a much bigger incident and its only due to the run flats on the car that saved me, the tyre walls are harder not softer. HE still are saying that they fixed it in the required timescale so i really have no where else to go unless anyway has any further tips?

caprikid1

"why my choice of wheel/tyre means i should accept that the road has damaged them".
If the road didn't damage them what did ? pot holes , speed bumps they exist, potholes can occur at a rapid rate on a motorway, if in the right place on a busy stretch.

AdrianC

davidglewis said:

AdrianC said:

davidglewis said:

20" alloys

I think we've found the root cause of your problem.

To confirm it, what profile tyres?

they are a skinny profile, but i dont see why my choice of wheel/tyre means i should accept that the road has damaged them - i was lucky that it didnt blow out and i ended upside down in the barrier

Go on, what profile tyres on the 20" rims on your BMW? Perhaps if it's an X7, then maybe up to 50 profile. But even on an X5, they'd be 40 profile at absolute most, probably 35. On a car rather than a softroader, 30 profile...?

And, yes, it does. If you choose to have a car with extremely low profile fragile rims and rubber, for purely cosmetic reasons - knowing full well that we have issues with road surfaces and maintenance - then why should the council tax payers of your area (or central government, given it's a motorway) subsidise the consequences when the inevitable happens?

If you'd had 50 profile tyres on 17" rims, would this have occurred? No. So the damage is the direct result of your choice to have very low profile rubber.

How badly littered was the hard shoulder for the mile or two after this pothole with cars with a flat? How many others in the next services?

Perhaps it's time to accept that the inherent fragility of very low profile sidewalls means you simply need to pay more attention to the road surface ahead of you, and if that means slowing down a bit, that's what you have to do. Or put practicality over your perception of style, and swap to less blingy, more realistic rims.

There are legal guidelines for what is an acceptable claim and what is not. Your claim did not fall into the acceptability, because Highways England can show that they did not fail in their reasonable inspection and repair regime. Therefore the damage is on you. If you do not want to take the hit yourself, does your insurance cover the cost? If it does not, perhaps choose more appropriate insurance at your next renewal, or consider an add-on policy.

Sandtree

davidglewis said:
i dont see why my choice of wheel/tyre means i should accept that the road has damaged them - i was lucky that it didnt blow out and i ended upside down in the barrier

Because you are supposed to be a grown up and so realise that in life our choices have consequences. Fancy/pretty things tend to be much more prone for damage and more expensive to repair which you’ll know when you decide if to buy louboutin stilettos rather than clarkes trainers. 

Thankfully you didnt end upside down as clearly much bigger questions would be asked as to how a car on 30 profile tyres ends up on its roof after a blowout and I am sure you’d claim that you should be able to drive however you like and its someone elses’ fault too.

AdrianC

Sandtree said:

Thankfully you didnt end upside down as clearly much bigger questions would be asked as to how a car on 30 profile tyres ends up on its roof after a blowout...

...at 50mph.

50mph = 22 metres per second. That's about the distance away that we have to be able to read a number plate as a bare minimum to be allowed to drive.

Yet, apparently, spotting a pothole big enough to wreck a wheel and tyre is not realistic from that distance. Or even twice that, if the two-second-rule is being followed.

Scrapit

There's some complete nonsense regarding profiles here^. Quite comical.