Alloy wheels aside, the TLC one should bestow on one's vehicles is not a natural thing, but learned. I've been driving to work through the back roads and over speed humps too slowly for some other drivers and have been overtaken and 'taught a lesson'. If not the alloys then there are the springs that break.

I've taken steel wheels to the body shop several times to be rolled true. The last time was when a widowed family friend kerbed a wheel and put a dent in the rim. I took it off to the body shop for her for rolling and spraying, and because the tyre was near end-of-life had that changed too. The shiny new wheel was then put in the boot as the spare. The next time I saw the car she'd taken it in for servicing and the wheel had been taken and replaced by a dirty old one with worn tyre. I made sure that I serviced her car after that.

Alloy wheels aside, the TLC one should bestow on one's vehicles is not a natural thing, but learned. I've been driving to work through the back roads and over speed humps too slowly for some other drivers and have been overtaken and 'taught a lesson'. If not the alloys then there are the springs that break.

I've taken steel wheels to the body shop several times to be rolled true. The last time was when a widowed family friend kerbed a wheel and put a dent in the rim. I took it off to the body shop for her for rolling and spraying, and because the tyre was near end-of-life had that changed too. The shiny new wheel was then put in the boot as the spare. The next time I saw the car she'd taken it in for servicing and the wheel had been taken and replaced by a dirty old one with worn tyre. I made sure that I serviced her car after that.

Yes, it's called driving with mechanical sympathy, something which (in general) females do not have an abundance of (Bobbin excepted). Waits for comments about being sexist....

However, the trend for larger alloy wheels and stupidly low profile tyres does not help, and there does seem to be some horrendous pot holes around at the moment.

Hah I missed this - I've never buckled a wheel, even on a pushbike. Mr B, on the other hand, has done this twice, on two cars.

I think this is in part responsible for the increase in SUV and soft roader sales, usually come with sensible size wheels and tyres tough enough to soak the worse of the roads and complaint suspension to complete the task.

Mechanical sympathy as Hillman notes is a learned trait, we learned it in our young days because we could only afford older half worn out cars (we bought our own generally unlike many of todays youngsters) and when we broke them we rolled our sleeves up bought parts from the scrap yard and fixed them in the open in all weathers...not being too stupid we learned what not to do PDQ.

Vanity wheels with low profile tyres. 'Sport' suspension probably doesn't help.
Some of these modern wheels seem to aspire to look like spindley silver tuiles.

Wheels are easily buckled, it would appear. On my previous (company) car - Focus estate TDCi - a routine service revealed three buckled alloy wheels, which had to be replaced: there was absolutely no visible damage, it was all inside out of sight. I never crash over potholes and take speed humps as gently as I can and I always check tyre pressures regularly. The luggage area tended to be fairly full, but there isn't much I can do about that! Also, none of the damaged wheels showed any signs of kerbing, they were simply buckled out of shape by regular wear and tear, thanks in no small part to the proliferation of speed humps, an infernal idea imported from the UK and now blighting streets all over Spain like a plague.
The humps are all different sizes and specifications, and road signs, if erected, advise us to lower our speed to 40 30 or 20 km/h. There are many large, chamfered square ones, the bane of my life, supposedly to make life easier for drivers of HGVs and buses, since a wider wheelbase can avoid contact, but which are all but impossible to cross in a car on "one side only" (lane widths preclude this) and the consequent inevitable "straddling" will no doubt take its toll on the tyres as well.

but they aren't that fragile surely that routine "wear and tear" causes damage?

I don't think so either. Either the dealer is trying it on or the driver has had a serious mishap.

Re Steering around pot-holes??? Of course, but how many go through them on purpose rather than not seeing them? Interesting point. I followed a vehicle on a quiet rural road that seemed to seek out puddles and small ponds, in clear daylight, and when there was an option to steer around them. You have to wonder at some peoples lack of mechanical sympathy and foresight. Or it might have been a hire car?