The perils of potholes – are your wheels taking a battering?

Research from LV= Road Rescue shows that as many as 16% of drivers have been left with damage to their vehicle as a result of potholes on Britain’s roads in the last 12 months alone.

The study, which was released last week, shows that pothole problems are getting progressively worse with an ever-growing £12 billion road repair bill across the UK. Councils are increasingly having to put their hand in their pocket to pay for insurance claims as a result of pothole damage – with some £5 million of compensation being paid out to drivers since 2012.

A separate investigation by Britannia Rescue in 2013 found that the total size of Britain’s potholes measured approximately 295 square miles. To put this into perspective, that’s the equivalent of a pothole the size of two Isle of Wights or 4,245 Wembley Stadiums!

Unsurprisingly, LV= Road Rescue found that the most common problem arising from poor road surfaces was tyre damage. But even if your tyres survive that hidden pothole down the country lane, your wheel alignment might not fare so well.

Incorrect wheel alignment as a result of hitting a pothole can cause premature tyre wear, increased fuel consumption and places additional strain on your suspension system – a costly problem to rectify. Correctly aligned tyres can add up to 12,000 miles to the life of the tyre, so it’s important to have your tyres and wheel alignment checked regularly to save you money in the long run and, more importantly, to ensure the car is safe to drive. For more information on the signs of wheel misalignment, read our previous blog post: Wheel Misalignment – How Will You Know?

We recommend getting your vehicle's wheel alignment checked every year. However, if you knowingly hit a particularly nasty pothole and experience wheel misalignment symptoms such as your steering pulling to one side or uneven tyre wear, pop into your local Kwik Fit for a wheel alignment check to ensure your alignment is optimised.

At Kwik Fit we are installing Hunter four-wheel alignment equipment in a growing number of our centres. Hunter Hawkeye alignment technology is widely regarded as one of the most accurate wheel alignment solutions available. It uses a series of high-definition imaging sensors to measure the position and orientation of each wheel with pin-point accuracy.

Kwik Fit offers Hunter wheel alignment at over 400 centres nationwide. Find my nearest Kwik Fit centre