I’ve just hit a pot hole and got a flat tyre! I tired some tyre foam but it didn’t do a thing. Took the wheel off and I can’t see any damage to the tyre, I just hope that the wheel isn’t damaged.
A couple of thing’s to note:
If you have a Euphonic with the CD autochanger in the boot, the standard road wheel doesn’t fit in the boot!
The Owner’s Manual warns about driving on the space saver when the car’s fitted with an LSD. I guess I have nothing to worry about, as I only drove about 3 miles and didn’t go above 30mph.
Why is it always precipitating when I get a puncture?!
Mmmm, the roads around here are a state too… Had to dodge a few pot holes on the way home from work…
I heard somewhere (take with a pinch of salt, naturally!) that the councils are spending so much money on compensating people whose cars have been damaged by pot holes that they can’t afford to actually fix the bloody things. I don’t know if this is true, but if so, you might be able to get a new tyre or two out of them!
Also heard people point out that since speed humps are essentially just inverted pot holes, and so are just as bad for cars, that they should be banned too. It’s not as if the tiny amount of good they do isn’t enormously outweighed…
If you need to fit a mis-sized spare, then you should swap the front & rear wheels over, so the spare goes on the front, and the front replaces the flat.
With a bit of bottoming out aside, if you damage your car going over a speed bump, then you must be going far too quickly. Fair enough, some are not obvious, and do blend in, but if you miss a big hump across the road, I’ve got to wonder if you would see a person (collapsed at the side of the road, for instance).
If you take pictures of the site where the incident occured, and take pictures of the damage, it can’t do any harm to put a claim in, but I wouldn’t get too excited.
I’m not so sure about that… I’ve seen some speed humps that are uncomfortable and make quite disturbing noises at about 10mph… Much the same as pot holes! And that’s in the Corsa. Interestingly the '5 seems to be better at them than the Corsa.I think it might be slightly wider.
My recent encounter with a pothole cost about £1,000. Two Racing Harts (@ £750/pair so I bought 4 Aftermarkets instead), off to WIM, time off work and to swap and balance the tyres. The rims were stuffed but only noticeable when spun on a m/c. If you blew a tyre out you ought to check the rim asap and the alignment too.