Evening fellow Briskoda peeps.......

 

So this weekend I am off to the continent to my missuses family in Poland and returning via Berlin for 3 nights.....

Now before this i had a little trouble with one of my rear tyres that was slowly going down over a period of 2 psi a week. Took the thing to one place and they replaced a valve and did a inspection of the tyre.....with no result...

My mechanic is a good mate hasn't ripped me off and the only person i trust with my cars....he sent me off to a nice little tyre place in Cheltenham and they decided to inspect it....still they couldn't see anything.....all of a sudden i spot something on the inside wall of the tyre.....a slight bulge......(this would of never been spotted with a simple inspection with the tyre attached)....now what is even worse is that they remove the tyre and show me the thing had once been run flat.....tyre wall broken, slight bulge and a little hole.....ask him what would of caused it and the words Pothole's haunted me once more......(long story but suspension and road springs were destroyed on my vec by potholes).

 

Either myself or the previous owner had run over a pothole or two that made a mess of the tyre.....but i do know they had run it flat which caused the tiny hole.....so £130 quid later and a new goodyear and things are now sorted and i am glad that this was before my trip.....

The point of this story is that there are way to many potholes that can damage tyres.....(tyre place also mentioned a very slight buckle in the alloy)...and with low profile tyres, this will always be a risk.....but the bulge on the inside wall was the biggest thing that concerned me as without me having OCD   i would of never pursued it...they did give me a nice discount for spotting it myself   though...

It's the quality of the roads around the area (and the rest of the UK to be fair). Many years of under investment by consecutive governments and shoddy repairs of potholes have left us with a third-world road system. Having watched Top Gear episodes in Africa where the Chinese have built mile after mile of smooth black tarmac, I think we should be asking them for some of the same!

If you sell your soul and your mineral rights for the next 100yr to the Chinese they'll build you some nice roads too.

My road has a 150 metre stretch of road between 2 junction, it is also a bus route.  Last year I counted 22 holes that needed attention and called the Pothole line at the local Highways dept.  The Highways inspector came out and marked them all for remedial work with his paintmarker, they were never done. This year the holes have got worse and about another 10 holes have appeared over the winter, so I called Highways again. A different inspector came out this time and marked them all up again and some contractiors arrived in June and started patching them up, it took them 4 days in total but they have only done half of the marked holes, still waiting for the rest to be done.  The way I see it it would only take 2 days to plane and completely re surface the whole 150metres but no, they insists on just a few patches here and there.

I've also asked neighbours to report the Potholes to Highways but none of them can be bothered, they just say "It will be done eventually".  I'm just cheesed of with the Highways dept. and the neighbours, especially one particular neighbour who is now whinging about his BMW alloy thats cream crackered and going to claim damages from the Local council. ******!

Edited 22 July, 201312 yr by Soot1e

I've just come back from driving in Poland and my god the roads were smoother than ours..... I mean this country was a former eastern bloc country where the roads were pot hole hell from what I remember......several years of EU investment and 1000km's of new motorways and express ways, even the village roads seem smoother than ours.....I’m not saying all there roads are perfect but amazingly a lot more than ours. My gf even agrees and she grew up in an area where roads were just mud pits...

 

The shocking part of it all was that her mother informed us that there were UK contractors helping to restore there roads in specific areas. Whether or not they were EU hired, paid for by our taxes is a question I cannot answer.....

 

I'm on a mission this weekend to picture all the potholes around my area and send them to the council.

 

If there is spray paint around a pothole that means the council is aware of this situation and will be sorting it out soon......this could be in the next 3 to 6 months......You cannot claim (from what ive been told) once the pothole has been spray painted, so good luck to your neighbour….

 

There was one thing I noticed in Germany, whilst driving through the country, they seemed to repair there roads instantly. This could have been barrier repair or cracking to the surface and also when they repair the roads it seemed, from my observation, that they remove most of the layers of the road and replace it with new….no road work camera’s and full information on how long the distance and time of the road works are……something like this could be adopted here but again I don’t know if there roads are run by the state or the regional councils…..

 

Edited 1 August, 201312 yr by MazVrstfsi

If painted and marked to be repaired you can claim when they know but fail to take action in a reasonable time.

(A member here in Scotland got a settlement and the Yellow Mark was what proved they knew the defect was there but allowed it to go un repaired.

 

So you need to check that.

You might speak with your council, but are the roads you are talking about the councils responsibility or is it Truck roads and the job of those being paid to check and maintain those

 

Go to the pothole websites and see which in your area are already reported.

Probably already pictured and grid references/locations available.

 

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/272686-motorway-blowout-2-wrecked-evergreens-fitted-oh-dear

 

george

The Polish roads were paid for by Germany initially when I went there in 1996.  As George says, if the potholes are marked up are aware and you can claim for wheel damage after a certain time, not going to tell my BMW neighbour though.

BMW man did ask ME when they are going to repair the other holes , FFS.

Edited 1 August, 201312 yr by Soot1e

I hit a pothole a few months ago in the wilds of County Durham. I immediately stopped to check I hadn't broken anything and all was well. .....

 

 

except......

 

 

.........a few weeks ago I had a service and was told that there was a small split on the inside of my front tyre and the wheel was slightly buckled!!! I was shown the split but mentioned that the car didn't have any wheel wobble at all, even at rather high speeds. They reckon that this was quite possible but I really need a new wheel as it was definitely not quite round when they spun it round. I even let the mechanic go for a drive and he agreed it didn't feel bent, but it clearly was. Anyhoo I stumped up for a new tyre (quite reasonable) and a new wheel. Sadly this was an AMG wheel and it cost a small fortune :( :( Even sadder, is the fact I can't remember the exact location of the pothole to report it and try and claim anything back from the relevant council :( :(

The Polish roads were paid for by Germany initially when I went there in 1996. 

 

Initially they were when the wall collapsed but for many years the Polish government needed to fund themselves.....eventually they became a member of the EU and all sorts of investment was applied to there road systems..... Alot of it now comes from French, German and British investment, in return for the migration of Polish workers to the EU. Even before then, there were lots of Polish workers which included my mum and cousins...... But there is a stark difference between us and the continent about there road systems. They look after theres and we lets ours crumble......shame really!