potholes!!!

I'm a Stevenson commuter now, and I've seen A LOT of stranded cars with flat tires the past 2 weeks. I actually had a flat one morning--took the car to a shop and he told me that the alloy wheels commonly used corrode, which compromises the tire bead. He pulled the wheel, ground the wheel, inspected and re-mounted it for the princely sum of $20! So if your tires are losing air, check for that.

 

you might actually be able to get reimbursed by the city for the cost of your flats and everything. i know last winter they did something like that because there was so many complaints. who knows with the economy and chicago have not enough money to even plow 3/4 of the streets in their city though... definitely be worth checking into.

 

I was traveling down I-88 east at Highland Ave. last night. At least the two left lanes were so riddled with pot holes that traffic had to slow to 10 mph to dodge. From experience last year, tollway authority not willing to reimburse for tire/wheel damage. I've lived here my whole life and I've never seen pot holes this bad.

 

Same here. I hit two really hard yesterday, one getting onto 38 from 83 and another on Touhy. Both times I thought my car was done for, but fortunatly I didn't notice any damage. I saw a LOT of people on the side of the roads though.

 

There was a story on the news a few weeks ago about the city of Chicago reimbursing folks for pot hole damage. Long story short - good luck! You have to fill out all sorts of claim paperwork, and then it has to be approved as a valid claim by two different city offices, then you wait until your claim gets heard by the city council. If they approve your claim, at most you'll get 50% of what you asked for because of the theory that you had some negligence for not steering around it or going too fast to do so - or some bulls&*^ like that. All in all, the average wait was over a year and the best payout was 50%.

 

Same here. I don't remember having to worry about potholes nearly this much. And I definitely don't remember seeing this many big deep potholes. There are orange cones in quite a few, but not all of them.

 

Thanks for the tip, I have one that seems to be slowly leaking now.

 

The exact same thing happened to my '91 LS400 about ...wow, 13-14 years ago. Hit a pothole traveling down Lincoln Ave, blew out both my front and rear driver side tires. I hobbled it off the side of the road, it it look Lexus roadside 3 hours to get to me.

 

same here hit a pot hole was 2 inches deep dinged my front rim .... contacted my local council they said to me they didn't put the pot hole there so there not responsible for the damage ............ bastards ..... give it a shot you have nothing to lose good luck

 

Looky Michigan Avenue :
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

The cold and warm weather doesnt help, but Illinois has decided to make everything blacktop. It does not hold up as well
as cement and can't handle trucks as well without cracking and reshaping itself.


TT

 

The wonderful thing about blacktop is that instead of having a pothole, you end up with a bump !

 

I hit a monster pot hole last year on Willow Road near Costco, thought I'd fallen into a sink hole. Blew out a front tire (split the sidewall to be exact)

I submitted my claim to the state (they technically own Willow Road), and about 8 months later they told me to take a hike!

Fortunately (or unfortunately) I had bought "tire insurance" from Tire Rack... which I later found out was a huge racket! They wil replace the tire 100% the first month (it is billed as 3 year warrenty). The fine print says it goes down 1/36 every month, so when you are in your last year, you might get $30 or less. I was right on the bubble - 1.5 years into it, and basically got my money back. I suppose if I tried to run a security checkpoint and got all 4 it might have been worth it.

 

How is it we can send man - or woman - into space but can't make a compound that can patch a pothole? Illinois has some of the worst roads I ever traveled when it comes to craters. I guess the toll money must go to more important projects like Blago landscaping in his yard? It's amazing how state roads that damage our vehicles are our problem. However if a gravel truck drops a rock and damages your vehicle it's the company that owns the truck's responsibilty to fix your vehicle. Maybe not a perfect analogy but it does make you wonder how pot holes can be left not repaired for weeks and it's your fault you hit the road crater that a goverment vehicle drove by 500 times and never reported. Just another example of tax dollars not at work. Sorry first post was a rant, this subject has history with several front end allignments.

 

Because these are very different problems and technologies involved.

If you insist on a space analogy, then compare it to fixing a hole in the Shuttle's thermal protection system (just yesterday NASA released the 400 page accident report about the Columbia disaster). You will quickly learn that NASA too is struggling with that issue: They do have a "solution" now, but they're much happier if they never have to find out whether it would actually hold up through reentry.

Welcome to FChat, where we put every word on a golden scale.

 

I hit a nasty one on 55 this morning... was pretty amazed that I didn't end up with a flat or some other form of damage. Glad I've decided to leave my two nice-ish cars garaged this winter and stick to driving my ****box Celica.

 

Because spacemen don't get paid to fix the same thing every year, over and over again. On that note, it seems to me that concrete roads hold up better than ashpalt. Am I right, or is that my imagination? Why not more concrete roads then?

 

Yep!!!


Could it be the blacktop/ashpalt lobby?? I understand they have to put blacktop under the concrete roads they build in Illinois. Does that suprise you??

TT

 

You might want to read up on the cosmonauts and their days in MIR. Linenger's "Off the planet" is a good read for starters.

 

Had to pay $230 to replace one of my tires due to a pothole the other day Noticed there was a bubble on the sidewall...