 Pothole Carnage
Few would argue that the last two winters have taken a destructive toll on the roads condition.
The winter’s seems to have “dissolved” the surface, leaving us canyons to navigate on a daily basis. This pitiful situation is the car driver’s nemesis delivering untold misery to thousands of driver’s everyday, and seemingly the condition will not change anytime soon since our roads over the last ten years or so have been subject to “patching” rather than repairing, leaving us the driver with a legacy of gravel dumped in a hole rather than a keyed repair. www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk specializes in chassis calibration, or in lesser terms wheel alignment. Our company has seen many distressed owners over the last few weeks, all victims of the “pothole”. Here are a few images of this weeks victims.
Bent wheels, blown out tyres and broken suspension visibly tells you where attention is needed but I have a warning?....... The energy needed to transmit this sort of damage does not stop at the tyre or wheel or indeed suspension. The chassis positions that support the wheel can also be displaced, so in this probable event handling or future tyre wear problems will evolve so it absolutely imperative that any repair undertaken includes a measurement of the Geometry positions. That word “Geometry” sends everyone running but bare with me….. The modern car is surgically built so that we can all enjoy superior handling but in order to ascertain this the chassis (Geometry positions) are very defined. An impact like those displayed would almost definitely displace those positions, so if the Geometry positions are not confirmed during the repair you could be in a whole world of hurt when tyre wear appears soon after the insurance has deemed the car fit for the road.
A sense of scale
From the idyllic manufactured Geometry position for each angle for each wheel there is a tolerance, a “give or take” from the perfect positions. If I say the tolerance is give or take the thickness of four sheets of A4 paper then you have an idea of scale, now things become more realistic to why any part of the repair should include a measurement of the chassis.
By Tony Bones
www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk
Partner of Tyres on the net www.blackboots.co.uk
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