Damage to car from sunken road surface - Who is to blame?

mikeyranson

This incident happened two years but due to covid, it has been delayed and each party blaming the other.
I ran into a thames water inspection cover one night in clapham in the middle of the road. The inspection cover had been reported previously by others where thames water did attend to repair by placing a layer of thin tarmac to the top of the cover. However, the damage to my car was not caused by the actual cover but due to the road surface directly in front of the drain had sunk about 5 or 6 inches. On the approach to the drain, my near side wheel had dipped into the sunkan part of the road surface then it was met by the steel edge of the thames water inspection chamber. The wheel dropped into the lower part of the road surface first then head on into a flat steel wall as such, causing an almighty bang.
I immediately pulled over and got out of the car and took the best photos i could as it was middle of the night in darkness. When i got back into my car, i had red warning lights telling me to pull over and switch off engine. After a bit of googling, i found out it was suspension related where immediately, i put the cause to the wallop the car received from this road/drain. with this information, i decided to keep driving as i was in work travelling to site.
The following day, i had the tracking checked which was out and the wheel inspected for a buckle which it did not have. I then went to an independent specialist garage who deals with land rover. Cut a long story short, it was the compressor where a plastic pipe had become damaged, possibly by the force of the wallop where over the years, the plastic had become brittle due to age and the wallop could have been enough to break the connection.
I made a claim to thames water which was refused as they said it was the road surface at fault an dnot their chamber. I made a claim against wandsworth council who also after over a year bouncing emails back and fore still reject the claim stating that thames water is at fault.
The cost of repair was £1400 to myself and i want this re-imbursed. Who do i take to court?
I believe it should be wandsworth council as the tarmac had sunken and notthe drain. But on that note, was the ground compacted correctly around the chamber when installed? was it to specification? did it get a handover cert from wandsworth to say that they now take responsibility of the road around the chamber.?
Could i take them both to court or do i need to prove who is at fault?

AdrianC

If the failure was due to an age-brittled air suspension pipe, then neither of them are liable.

Was there a good reason you didn't see the sunken section of road surface in your headlights?
Or, since this was clearly urban (30mph limit?), in the streetlights?

Grumpy_chap

£1,400 repair to car following a collision (with a hole).  Why isn't your insurer paying you back and then managing any claim against the highway authority / utility company?

AdrianC

Grumpy_chap said:

£1,400 repair to car following a collision (with a hole).  Why isn't your insurer paying you back and then managing any claim against the highway authority / utility company?

Insurers don't cover mechanical failure due to wear/tear and ageing of components.

Sandtree

AdrianC said:

Grumpy_chap said:

£1,400 repair to car following a collision (with a hole).  Why isn't your insurer paying you back and then managing any claim against the highway authority / utility company?

Insurers don't cover mechanical failure due to wear/tear and ageing of components.

This comes down again to if the failure was caused by the impact or by wear and tear

AdrianC

Sandtree said:

AdrianC said:

Grumpy_chap said:

£1,400 repair to car following a collision (with a hole).  Why isn't your insurer paying you back and then managing any claim against the highway authority / utility company?

Insurers don't cover mechanical failure due to wear/tear and ageing of components.

This comes down again to if the failure was caused by the impact or by wear and tear

mikeyranson said:

This incident happened two years
...
I then went to an independent specialist garage who deals with land rover. Cut a long story short, it was the compressor where a plastic pipe had become damaged, possibly by the force of the wallop where over the years, the plastic had become brittle due to age and the wallop could have been enough to break the connection.

"Possibly, could".
"Two years ago"

sevenhills

mikeyranson said:

I then went to an independent specialist garage who deals with land rover.

I guess Landrovers are no longer tough like they once were?

Grumpy_chap

AdrianC said:

Sandtree said:

AdrianC said:

Grumpy_chap said:

£1,400 repair to car following a collision (with a hole).  Why isn't your insurer paying you back and then managing any claim against the highway authority / utility company?

Insurers don't cover mechanical failure due to wear/tear and ageing of components.

This comes down again to if the failure was caused by the impact or by wear and tear

mikeyranson said:

This incident happened two years
...
I then went to an independent specialist garage who deals with land rover. Cut a long story short, it was the compressor where a plastic pipe had become damaged, possibly by the force of the wallop where over the years, the plastic had become brittle due to age and the wallop could have been enough to break the connection.

"Possibly, could".
"Two years ago"

I was not suggesting to make an insurance claim now, wondering why no claim was made at the time, which it should have been IMO.

With regard to the damage to the compressor pipe, either the OP knew this was just wear and tear, in which case there is no insurance claim and also no claim on either the highway authority / utility company either.  OR, the OP was of the view that the damage was caused by the impact and would submit the claim to the insurer on the basis of "this damage was caused by the impact" and it is for the insurer to then defend as "wear and tear" and /or claim upon the highway authority / utility company as appropriate.

BOWFER

AdrianC said:

Was there a good reason you didn't see the sunken section of road surface in your headlights?

This forum, man oh man....
Seriously this is THE most unfriendly, accusatory and downright awkward motoring forum I've ever some across, without exception. 
Seriously, you can't imagine a scenario where they didn't see the object?
No?
None?

k3lvc

BOWFER said:

AdrianC said:

Was there a good reason you didn't see the sunken section of road surface in your headlights?

This forum, man oh man....
Seriously this is THE most unfriendly, accusatory and downright awkward motoring forum I've ever some across, without exception. 
Seriously, you can't imagine a scenario where they didn't see the object?
No?
None?

I'm sure in certain circumstances there are plenty - but in suburban London whilst driving a 4x4 it's all a bit convenient that an invisible hole caused £1.4k damage to something that was already on it's way out and it's taken OP over 2yrs to start proceedings since the original post
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6101830/damage-to-car-from-inspection-manhole-cover-in-road#latest

AdrianC

No, I can't imagine a situation where somebody driving sensibly and carefully, paying due care and attention to the road ahead of them, with a sensible gap between them and the vehicle in front, in a well-lit 30mph-limit* urban environment would not see a massive great big issue with the road surface ahead of them.

I can imagine plenty of situations where somebody driving badly wouldn't see it, though.

* - two years ago, so predates the introduction of the blanket 20mph across London.