Potholes = Spawn of Satan ?

[bcar240]

If you didn't catch on from the title. This is about my pure, unbridled hatred for potholes. forced into this one(if you can see it) at about 35 mph by crazy driver going other way. This happenedThat was back in August, and it took me about 2 months to find replacement wheel, still working out misc suspension problems that are still there. Just recently, hit another monster and bent another rim. No pics of this, but it is bent on the inside lip. Tire leaks down to 10 psi in a few hours after filling. I am very mad at this point. I would normally try to blow the potholes up, but that would only make them worse. Anyone else share my sentiments or have any stories?

[Arrow]

I HATE THEM WITH A PASSION! I personally haven't had many problems w/ them but a good friend of mine had both of his tires pulled off of his rims by hitting a pothole (and he doesn't even have aftermarket rims!)

[1991S13]

Maryland roads SUCK...so I have had quite my share of run-ins with potholes...

One night Im just laid back, driving along, doing around 45 when out of no where I hit a MONSTER pothole...jerks the wheel out of my hand and I swerve to the shoulder, and its a shoulder with like a 4 inch drop off. I'm only about 3 minutes from home so I take her home, get out and a 2 inch chunk of rim is missing, and my tire is deflated.

Since I got the Konigs, I drive niiiice and slow on the back roads.

[574-240sx]

I hate them. It gets worse the further north you go. I only have dented one rim and it was pretty much trashed. There is a crater coming into my subdivision. Everytime they fill it all the pot hole tar stuff gets all over my car and it becomes a even bigger pot hole weeks/months later.

[bcar240]

I feel everyone's pain. potholes must be some sort of punishment. Both the ones I hit were at the extreme edge of the road. I was driving really close to the side both times because of the other driver was in the middle of the road.

[wangless]

can somoene explain to me the science behind pot holes ?... like WHY they form.

anyway, i hate them too... i think i hit one too many that it threw off my alignment... and maybe have even caused me to blow out a tire lol...

DAMN THEM

[captainoftheknights]

depends on your region but water is the main cause. a crack forms from normal wear and water gets in and frezes in the winter, it expands and makes the cracks worse.thats the big reason more happen up north.the bug cause of pot holes here in tx is buses and heavy truck trafic

[gepeto]

You guys should come to Montreal.Potholes are )Q"(*$()$" bad here for a few reasons: Extreme weather changes. I'm talking celcius but to give you an idea, a week ago, it was 8 degrees C outside. Yesterday, it was -24. This causes cracks. When there is a huge amount of cracks in the same spot, as a car (or usually a truck) rolls over it, the asphalt will break (water can get in the cracks and freeze and make them worse too).

It's so bad especially during the winter. I have seen some potholes this week that would totally destroy a car at 50mph. Some deep enough that you would rip off your front bumper if you fell in them. I wish I had some pictures.

I saw a pothole so bad, the width of a lane. It was so bad they didn't even patch it for now they just put a metal plate over it !

All of that + calcium = I'm driving a Civic CX for the winter..

[accel junky]

Wow, your wheel got jacked up worse than I have ever seen. Sorry to hear it.

[WeldingHank]

what makes them worse here in the north are snow plows. the edge of the plow catching the crack and just ripping the road open.

[bcar240]

yeah, like they said, potholes begin with freezing and expanding of the ground under the road which cracks the surface, and when cars drive over the cracked parts they collapse to form the hole. The first one I hit that cracked my wheel so bad was because there was a drainage ditch going under the road there, and the side of the road was simply collapsing into the ditch. It was probably a 8-10" drop where I went off. If I had gone much farther off the side it would have been a 2-3 foot drop and my car would be toast. At first I just thought I popped a tire, so I actually drove with it like that for about 1/4 of a mile to my friends house to change the tire. When I took the rim off I was like WTF. It was funny when I took my wheel into the shop, the mechanic had to call all his buds over to look at it and they were all just like "holy s***."

I was at a gas station the other day with my bro and there is a really busy road right next to it. There was this total BEAST of a pothole there, and it was great to watch people drive through it. They would like hit their heads on the roof. Drivers could see other cars hit it but had no other choice but to go through it. My bro said he saw a few low cars throw sparks.

[SpecR]

After the wrath of torrential rains in SoCal recently, tons of potholes have been popping up on the roads and freeways. CalTrans will be busy for a long time.

[wangless]

After the wrath of torrential rains in SoCal recently, tons of potholes have been popping up on the roads and freeways. CalTrans will be busy for a long time.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

on a side note, what about if the water doesnt get cold enough to freeze ?

[bcar240]

good point, lol. I guess they can also come from washout under the roadway or I guess damage from something. Like a wreck that scrapes up the road. The main characteristic of potholes is that they only get worse.

[HIM12514]

Potholes do suck, I hit one in my pontiac a while back while they were working on a main road in town. But we have one monster potholes by our taco bell. I swear that thing is at least 6 inches deep. Some friends and I were watching to see if anybody would actually hit it, and a Denali comes out of the drive through and hits it with the back drivers side tire, when it did that the side he hit one sunk, it was crazy.

[420_240sx]

I join you in your hatred for potholes....one pothole on a country road almost got me busted driving without my license, racked my nerves pretty bad.

It was like 4 am in the morning, I was driving home in my car, which I wasn't supposed to be driving to be driving and i found out what a little pothole can do. So I was like a mile away from home, and I'm cruising along a country road right on the outskirts of town, only going like 40, look down to switch tracks and I felt the smash.....stopped on the edge of an orchard about 3/4 of a mile from my house. So I get out and sure enough, my tire is blown out, and my dad wakes up in 45 minutes to go to work. Well i had no choice but to clench my teeth and forget about the rim, i just worked it off the shoulder and rode the blow out the rest of the way home...I got home, parked it and put a jack under it to make it look normal...

Well, my dad didnt notice and I had to shell out 25 bucks for a junkyard rim (ripoff!). So I guess the moral of the story is dont drive w/o your license, ill stop doing that as soon as I get my license

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

there are some potholes in jamaican that you could lose a geo metro in. I'll find a pic and post it here.

[Tsukai240]

oh yeah i remember you posted this in my thread about why i shouldn't buy an adr wheel. yeah thats B.A.D. they still havent fixed it?!?! try contacting your local news paper and tell them your story.

[bcar240]

Ya, I remember that, lol. I replaced the cracked wheel, finally found a shop that had some left. But I got problems now with trying to find a shop that still has some because I have to replace the bent one too. Really sucks, cause I wanted to get a new set of wheels in a couple years, but I can't afford it right now and I keep having to sink money into replacing these. The pothole is still there, bad as ever. I am still trying to contact the right people on this, I get different explanations from everyone I talk to out there and I don't live there except in the summer. If they were to fix that pothole, it would take probably $20,000 at least, cause they would have to rip up the road and build one of those culvert things there and repave it. I guess they would just rather pay out to a few people that hit it than fix the problem, typical bureaucracy.

[Meantime]

Used to live in NJ, potholes all over the place, although NJDOT was pretty quick about fixing them.

Now in FL...I could count on one hand the # of potholes I've seen. Warm weather rocks.

[180fan]

Potholes do suck. However, I don't consider them the spawn of Satan. I do consider meter maids, though, to be the spawn of Satan...

[PantherRacer]

I guess Floridians just build roads good cuz potholes don't need warm weather I tell ya...like Maximus said you could lose a geo, and DON'T let it be the rainy season, you don't see em and they MULTIPLY. omnibusses get stuck and all! need a monster truck to get around on these roads main.

(Maybe we just need to make the roads properly lol who knows)

Let's form an anti-pothole club and sit around and gripe about em while doing nothing!

[seyath]

I'm about to go to work. I just came back from the bank, was forced into a pothole by an Expedition driver and lost the rear-right tire. The thing is completely destryoed. Worse of all, I had to drive home like that because I didn't have the tools with me to remove the sound system from the rear to get access to the donut(I know, I know...dumb...)So know I need to get a Pirelli 6000 to replace the one I lost. Dammit, I was saving up for a c/f hood and hatch. I guess that's gonna have to wait again....

[Onizuka]

I have nothing else to do on my hour commute so I count pot holes.

19 on the way there, 27 on the way back of the big large unavoidable type (including rediculosly recessed manholes that are worse than potholes).

I dont care how bad anyone says their roads are, pennsylvania is the worst. They will build a road wrong and just keep doing ****ty patch jobs on it for 25 years before they tear it up and build another crappy road on top. If they have to cut the road to access something underneath, instead of closing it back up properly they either dump way too much or not enough asphalt and call it a day. The only nice peice of road in the entire state is the brand new multi-million dollar 5 mile peice of route 202 they just built.

[PantherRacer]

hey that's the same as over here! but they don't fix it when they cut the road.and they never built the road to handle 18 wheelers and somehow they got over here so that's Another problem

[_neokeoki]

i remember those holes of death when i was in the states.. i havent seen one here in japan but they have small, bumpy and uneven roads everywhere..

[Arrow]

I hear you on Pennsylvanian roads being terrible! I lived in Erie for 10 years and go up there to visit family about twice a year, and the roads truly do SUCK!

I'm glad Japan has good roads _neokeoki, you're apparently living in a 'special place' w/o the evil pot-holes of doom...

If I haven't said this before... : I hate pot-holes!

[chandler]

there is a guy on an audi forum that I go to he hit this chuck hole at 40mph and all of his airbags blew , the lip of the hole measured 5 feet, and was about 14'' deep at the center, now thats bad

[drifter_for_life06]

i share the same hatred for potholes, this winter storm that just hit the Mid-Atlantic dumped some snow around me n i hit a pothole in a snow-covered parking lot in my '94 Blazer n it flipped

[SimpleEnigma]

The streets around Raleigh, NC can get pretty bad.....the quality of the road depends on which street your on...I440 which circles Raleigh (speed limit 60-65, of course no one follows the speed limit :-)) has some pretty big ones