This is a common occurance on A2s on 17" wheels! One member of the A2OC having had two damaged in this way.
It is the penalty for large wheels, low profile tyres and stiff sports suspension.
No excuse for the pothole though!
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What is the point of alloy wheels?
They cost more.
They break.
They corrode.
They leak air when old.
People nick them.
I assume people like the looks of them. Personally, I don't, but is it worth paying all those other penalties for looks?
I feel they fall into the same category as low-profile tyres,
spoilers, and lights on the windscreen washers.
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I have to specify alloys on my cars. To me, then just finsh the looks off.
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Both my cars have had alloys as have Dad's. Even Mum's has and it was completely unintentional.
They were on teh car when we got them so didn't directly cost more
They haven't broken
They haven't corroded
They don't leak. I've not had to top mine up for ages
They've never once been stolen.
Personally I think they really finish the look of the car. I'm not talking stupid 22" ones but standard factory ones. I don't think I'd buy a car with standard (read boring) wheels again.
Of course, this is of no use whatsoever to Matt who I wish good luck in sorting out his claim.
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I assume people like the looks of them. Personally, I don't, but is it worth paying all those other penalties for looks?
Yes (for some). No (for others). What a boring world it would be if we all agreed on matters of aesthetics.
And if you go down the route of not buying something nice because it might get nicked, prepare for a long and slippery slope ;-)
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What is the point of alloy wheels?
They look better than the "mad max style" black steel wheels after somone has stolen the plastic trims off of them.
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What is the point of alloy wheels? They cost more. They break. They corrode. They leak air when old. People nick them. I assume people like the looks of them. Personally, I don't, but is it worth paying all those other penalties for looks?
If vehicle owners want to spend their money on these toys, that's their business, not ours. I have alloy wheels on my bicycle, because I find they offer performance advantages, but I long ago learnt how to build a wheel so that I could replace bent rims without discardin the other pieces, and I don't expect anyone else to pay for the damage. My choice, my bill.
But when a car's alloy wheels break on roads which a steel wheel would have survived, why do the drivers assume that the rest of us should have to foot the bill? Every penny paid out for damaged alloys has to be either recouped in taxes or taken out of the road repairs budget.
This is compensation culture gone mad © *
* That phrase has probabbly already been copyrighted by The Daily Mail
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This is compensation culture gone mad
Actually, the principle was established in the 1930s. Goods were being unloaded from a ship in dock when they were dropped, injuring a passer-by. The dock company was found to have been negligent, and they agreed to pay damages to the victim. However, they said that they should only pay for the injury that would have been sustained by the average passer-by.
The victim disagreed. He suffered from a rare medical condition which left him with a thin skull. He claimed that they should pay the rather higher damages to compensate him for the suffering which he had actually experienced and to pay for the care that he actually needed.
The dock company said that they were terribly sorry but how could they foresee that someone with that rare condition might be hit?
The court said that if you are negligent, you accept your victims as you find them. If they suffer from your negligence more than others would, tough. If you want to avoid that risk, don't be negligent.
[This is my recollection from lectures some time ago. I'm happy to be corrected by those more legally able than I.]
So if our legal culture has gone mad, it's taken a while for it to be noticed.
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Forgive me NW but that is quite possibly one of the most annoying things you've ever said on here.
The last I heard was the road users pay for the road maintenance via road tax.
It makes no odds what wheels you have. It's his car and he wants them. He drove on a defective and dangerous road which buckled his wheel. (Incidentally, quite why steel wheels are seen to be unbuckleable - it's a word - is beyond me. You can buckle them very easily)
So it's Matt's fault the road is badly maintained and his fault his wheel was buckled? He paid his tax. The roads should be 'roadworthy'.
Maybe we should all start deducting the cost of road repairs when we next buy our tax.
I too hate this compensation culture and to be perfectly honest, wouldn't care if the word "compensation" was scrapped from teh English language but it works both ways.
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Forgive me NW but that is quite possibly one of the most annoying things you've ever said on here.
Now that I don't believe!
;-)
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No - I realised once I'd posted that she's got my blood boiling more before now.
Ok - one of the most mildly irritating things you've ever said ;-)
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Patently, I take your point about the "take-your victim as you find them" principle.
But there are two types of negligence: malfeasance (something done badly) and nonfeasance (something omitted). The principle you mention certainly applies to malfeasance, but I don't think it's so straightforward for nonfeasance.
My father used to talk to me a lot about this stuff, because he was head of road maintenance for the local council (in Ireland, so some legal differences). Malfeasance and nonfeasance were very difft issues there: if they repaired a pothole, they had to get it right or be liable, but if it deteriorated through neglect they had a lot more leeway.
Aside from the serious problems caused by public utilities digging up the roads and einstating badly, the basic problem they faced was how to use limited funds to best effect. They could go around patching every pothole and maintain and adequate patchwork quilt, or they could direct most of their funds towards resurfacing and patching only the more severe potholes. I think they were right to do the latter.
The problem, though, is what exactly counts as a severe pothole? How should the threshold be set? It's all very well to say "no pothole is acceptable", but the increasing volume and weight of of HGV traffic is causing a massive increase in road damage, particularly when combined with the increase in road openings arising from the growth in telecoms and replacement of old pipes etc.
The pothole which Matt hit sounds like a whopper, but many are more borderline. Any road maintenance team will develop its own thresholds based on some combination of size and depth and angles of entry, and no doubt they co-operate on sharing knowledge and expertise.
The problem, though, is that a pothole which a steel wheel might have survived unscathed is much more like to damage one of these fragile alloy wheels, especially when combined with the now fashionable low-profile tyres which reduce the cushioning effect.
When drivers choose more fragile wheels which are at a greater risk of damage, who should bear the cost of that risk?
I'm not suggesting that folks should be banned from having that sort of combination. But just as a car owner expects to face higher maintenance bills for having a complex and highly-tuned engine, shouldn't they also have to foot the higher bills which arise from choosing a fragile wheel-and-tyre combination?
Why should everyone else foot the bill for the damage suffered by folks who choose vehicles which are exceptionally vulnerable to damage?
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NW, There is no difference in the law of negligence (AFAIK) between doing something you shouldn't and not doing something you should. I think the docks case was a lack of maintenance causing an accident, but I am a little hazy on that one.
Clearly, local authorities cannot be expected to maintain a snooker table smooth road network. Equally, however, the pothole that prompted this thread was a whopper; note that it killed the tyre also. Is it unreasonable to ask the LA to look for small potholes and repair them when they progress to medium size? After all, a stitch in time saves nine...
You are quite critical of alloy wheels, but I can assure you that they are not paperthin fragile little dears. They can withstand quite serious potholes, and I speak from personal experience. I have not yet [touches wood] managed to damage an alloy wheel beyond minor scratching. To break it as described will have required a major impact.
The difference, I suspect, is that an alloy wheel will break when a steel wheel would deform. That deformation would of course remain hidden but would IMHO be a risk. Which is worse? Arguable both ways.
$$'s summary of the position seems to be that a pothole on a minor road that the LA does not know about does not give rise to a liability. A pothole on a major road, or a major pothole on a minor road that the LA is aware of, does. Compensation culture gone mad? I think not; that sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
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Patently, a quick correction: I meant misfeasance not malfeasance. (Misfeasance doing something wrongly, malfeasance doing something you shouldn't). They are old common law principles, though a bit of research shows that they have been partly abolished in the context of road maintenance by the Highways (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1961, which was consolidated into the Highways Act 1980 (sections 41 and 58 at tinyurl.com/8pc7t and tinyurl.com/a34ze )
So I think I was right on the general principle, but wrong on its application here (interesting related case law in Gorringe v Calderdale Council in the HoLords, at tinyurl.com/bqm4z )
I agree that $$'s summary of the current situation sounds like a generally reasonable proposition. My concern is simply that I saw in Ireland what happens when a compensation culture takes hold, and I can see a danger of more public funds being diverted into compo here -- with the compo bil increasimg not because the council is doing any worse a job, but because drivers are choosing fragile wheels.
As IanJohnson put it above, "It is the penalty for large wheels, low profile tyres and stiff sports suspension"
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>>Why should everyone else foot the bill for the damage suffered by folks who choose vehicles which are exceptionally vulnerable to damage?<<
I know the argument is on much higher levels than I can comprehend but the road should be able to be used by all without damaging the vehicle.
Simple as.
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I know the argument is on much higher levels than I can comprehend but the road should be able to be used by all without damaging the vehicle.
OK, take an extreme example to illustrate the point. Say I have just had built for me a superlight vehicle, where everything has been constructed out of exotic materials and tolerances and strengths pared to the minimum. It costs millions, but it's super-fast, sips fuel, and looks the business, but it's very very fragile. Amazing machine on a track, but I decide to use it on the road as well.
It's so fragile, in fact, that it breaks very easily. So when it hits a ripple in the road and needs a wheel replaced, I shouldn't be at all surprised that tens of thousand pounds worth of kevlar and carbon fibre is headed for the bin. Do you think that it should be up to everyone else to pay this inevitable cost of my exotic transport?
Coming down to earth, Ian tells us that Audi A2s are known to be particularly vulnerable this way. Not as vulnerable as my lightweight speedster, but a lot more vulnerable than a standard car. Is it purely the council's fault that roads which other vehicles can survive break these intentionally-weakened machines? Shouldn't the owners being sueing Audi for selling them a vehicle which is not strong enough for normal use?
This isn't really part of the thin-skull argument. That applies when something unexpected and out-of-order happens like something being dropped on my head - nobody should ever drop things on other people's heads.
But some degree of imperfection is to be expected on the roads -- they are never going to be billiard tables. The council has a duty to stop the roads getting too bad, but should it eally be held liable for the consequences of any tiny imperfection?
Simple as.
Not so simple really.
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Yes. You as a road user have paid tax enabling you to use the roads.
It's not your fault the road was badly maintained.
Simple as.
Not so simple really.<<
Trust me. It is. ;-)
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Yes. You as a road user have paid tax enabling you to use the roads. It's not your fault the road was badly maintained.
Sorry, I forget these days everything is someone else's fault.
Roads not like a billiard table -- sue the council.
What a wonderful world where everyone can sue someone else if things ain't absolutely perfect.
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Well before you start getting uppity, I'm almost sure I recently said (if I didn't, I meant to) that the compensation culture is ridiculous.
Answer me a question. What do we pay road tax for?
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What a wonderful world where everyone can sue someone else if things ain't absolutely perfect.
Ooops! Alternative dimension now entered!
::[patently leaves argument, shrugging...]::
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What do we pay road tax for?
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What do we pay road tax for?
Amongst other things, to have the roads maintained. (T'other things including wider costs of car usage, contrib to general taxation, mainatining the vehicle licensing system, policing the roads, etc)
But maintenance does not necessarily mean perfection. (If it did then I could make a fortune out of the imperfections in the footpaths by wearing high heels more often.)
Maintenance can also mean "good enough", and there's where the complexities come in.
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No, NoWheels.
The flaw in your argument is that minimum standards are set for the design of road vehicles and for the design of roads. These work together. The car designer has to make the car able to withstand the rigours of a normal road. And the roads maintainer has to keep the road normal.
Your superlight car would be too flimsy to be allowed on the road. And quite rightly.
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The flaw in your argument is that minimum standards are set for the design of road vehicles and for the design of roads. These work together. The car designer has to make the car able to withstand the rigours of a normal road. And the roads maintainer has to keep the road normal.
But we aren't talking about normal use: we are talking about the limits of what may be acceptable, which by definition ain't normal.
Are you really sure that the standards work together that closely? Are there actually any standards relating to the ability of these cars with paper-thin tyres to withstand the sort of sub-optimal conditions which may actually be encountered on all public roads?
I rather doubt it that there is anything very srict, or lowered suspension would have been outlawed long ago.
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What if you hit one of these potholes on your bike causing you to lose your balance and have a serious accident. Are you telling me you would not seek compensation?
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What if you hit one of these potholes on your bike causing you to lose your balance and have a serious accident. Are you telling me you would not seek compensation?
reevsie, you obviously haven't done much cycling! Potholes sufficient to wreck bike wheels are a routine thing. Most cyclists just learn defensive cycling techniques to avoid hitting them at speed.
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reevsie, you obviously haven't done much cycling! Potholes sufficient to wreck bike wheels are a routine thing. Most cyclists just learn defensive cycling techniques to avoid hitting them at speed.
Oh i have done plenty of cycling, for 2 years i used to cycle 150 miles a week to and from work,(the fittest i have ever been!) so I know what riding a bike on the roads is like! But its difficult to forsee every pothole you come across, especially in the dark.
You still didnt answer my question btw.
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Reevsie, you cycle 150 miles a week? I used to do about that much, and I was very fit. Long time ago, tho.
I had several wheels mulched by potholes, and I always just rebuilt them -- sometimes after straightening the rim, sometimes with a new rim. I always just took it as the luck of the draw -- a bit of skill and care helps avoid most opportunities for damage, but sometimes your luck runs out. I reckoned that if I wanted wheels which survived those bumps I could get heavy steel ones ... but that if I wanted the advantages of alloy bike wheels I shouldn't expect the council to upgrade the roads.
What if I hit a pothole and had a serious accident? I dunno. I never did have a serious accident on my bikes, but none of my friends who did get injured ever thought of sueing the council, so I guess I wouldn't. In Dublin in those days there was a compensation culture taking off, and I never had much time for it.
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What is the point of alloy wheels? They cost more. They break. They corrode. They leak air when old. People nick them. I assume people like the looks of them. Personally, I don't, but is it worth paying all those other penalties for looks?
Ehhhhhhhh !
Everything breaks if you use enough force, I've never broken an alloy wheel yet in about 200,000 miles of driving. I would also say that unlike steel wheels, alloys are more or less imune from being buckled, unlike many steel wheels which spend years of their life driving round buckled.
Yes they can corrode if reasonable care isnt taken of them, but in the same timescale steel whells will rust like hell.
They leak air when old ????????????
People nicking things is obviously not a reason not to have things, it is best to take adequate precautions to not have things nicked.
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What is the point of alloy wheels? They cost more. They break. They corrode. They leak air when old. People nick them.
In theory, they should be lighter than the equivalent steel wheel. This reduces unsprung weight, thus allowing stiffer suspension without a harsher ride.
In practice, as the late, great Setright pointed out in his book Drive On!, form has overtaken function, and no-one seems to either know or care whether alloy wheel are actually significantly lighter than steel, or bother to adjust the suspension accordingly...
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In theory, they should be lighter than the equivalent steel wheel. This reduces unsprung weight, thus allowing stiffer suspension without a harsher ride.
As you say, most alloy wheels aren't lighter than the equivalent steel wheels, unless you consider exotic, expensive alloy wheels.
There is a long standing myth that good handling is only obtained by having stiff suspension. In fact, taking it to extremes, the reverse is true.
If you had a rigid car with rigid suspension and rigid tyres, most of the time, only three of its four wheels would eventouch the road! Disaster!
For predictable handling, the change in vertical tyre load (and hence the change in lateral tyre force produced) as you go over a bump should be minimised.
This is obtained with soft suspension.
But, you need to stiffen the suspension to reduce body roll and to reduce any kinematic effects affecting the tyre / road contact as the suspension deflects. On racing cars, you also need stiff suspension to keep the ground clearance correct to get the aerodynamic effects to work.
So, suspension stiffness is a compromise between reducing dynamic tyre load and countering other effects.
The logic for reduced unsprung mass goes a bit like this;
1) To reduce dynamic tyre load, soften the suspension
2) To keep control of the unsrung mass with a softer suspension, reduce the unsprung mass
You can, if you wish, consider this in the frequency domain;
To maintain the same wheel-hop frequency with a softer suspension, reduce the unsprung mass.
Number_Cruncher
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What is the point of alloy wheels?
You get less problems with steering wheel vibrations with alloy wheels. Alloy wheels are far more circular and far more concentric than steel wheels.
--
L\'escargot.
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>> What is the point of alloy wheels? You get less problems with steering wheel vibrations with alloy wheels. Alloy wheels are far more circular and far more concentric than steel wheels.
P.S. And there is also likely to be less axial run-out of the rim with alloys than with steel wheels.
--
L\'escargot.
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P.S. And there is also likely to be less axial run-out of the rim with alloys than with steel wheels.
What is "axial run-out of the rim"?
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Where a steel wheel is fabricated, an alloy wheel is first roughly formed, and then the hub mating surfaces are machined - then, relative to the hub mating surface, the tyre seating surface of the rim are machined. This machining of the functional surfaces of the rim allows a closer tolerance to be kept even when using relatively crude machine tools.
Also, as the steel is more ductile than the alloy which tends to be brittle, a steel wheel is more likely to buckle under an impact, and remain buckled with the tyre still inflated. An alloy wheel is more likely to break, typically by chipping some material from the rim, resulting in a deflated tyre.
Axial run out is where, as the wheel rotates on its axle, the tyre seating surface moves in and out from the centreline of the vehicle. Another way of saying it is that the plane of the tyre seating surface is not normal to the axle. Following a car with a lot of axial run out, you would see the tyre wobble from side to side, and when the car goes at just the wrong speed, it will shake the whole car from side to side.
Radial run out is where the radius from the axle to the tyre seating surface varies as the wheel is turned. Another way of saying this is that the centre of the tyre seating surface does not lie on the axle. This tends to make the tyre bounce up and down as it rotates.
Alloy wheels are more likely to run true from new, and be replaced after an impact, so, in use, are much less prone to run out problems.
Number_Cruncher
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Thanks for the explanation :)
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Axial run out is where, as the wheel rotates on its axle, the tyre seating surface moves in and out from the centreline of the vehicle. Another way of saying it is that the plane of the tyre seating surface is not normal to the axle. Following a car with a lot of axial run out, you would see the tyre wobble from side to side, and when the car goes at just the wrong speed, it will shake the whole car from side to side.
Hoping that Number_Cruncher will not object to this clarification........
"Is not normal to" means "is not at right angles to, or is not square to".
--
L\'escargot.
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Hoping that Number_Cruncher will not object to this clarification........
Perish the thought! There are no objections here - in fact it's very decent of you to help remove some of the technical jargon and obfuscation that I find so difficult to avoid when writing.
Cheers,
Number_Cruncher
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$kill$kint definitely knows his onions on this one. Your chances of success seem to hinge on the class of road. Good Luck!
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