Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning!

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Sat 14 Mar 2009 12:18
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Ravenger
I was reversing my car off my driveway this morning when there was an almighty bang and the right side of the car just collapsed.

Wondering what the heck had happened - a suspension failure came to mind - I got out of the car and found the large metal drain cover in our driveway had broken into pieces, leaving the car trapped by its front wheel, with the bodywork resting on the concrete driveway.

I had to claim on my car insurance to get the car recovered and taken to a garage for inspection. That's a nice £175 excess too.

Looks like it's not covered by the water board as it's on my property, and also it's not even covered by the drains and plumbing insurance I have because my car caused the cover to break.

Now I've got to get the cover replaced, but it looks like I might need a builder to check the brickwork just under the cover first.

I'm just finally getting over the shock and starting to see the funny side.
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Sat 14 Mar 2009 12:24
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - J Bonington Jagworth
"it's not even covered by the drains and plumbing insurance I have because my car caused the cover to break"

So the cover's only, er, covered if somebody else breaks it, or it spontaneously disintegrates? Sounds like they're wriggling to me...

Glad your sense of humour is intact, though!
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Sat 14 Mar 2009 12:26
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Old Navy
Does your houshold insurance include accidental damage cover?
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Sat 14 Mar 2009 12:38
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Altea Ego
your standard drain cover (inspection hatch) is not built to take the weight of a car.

It should be sited out of car tracks or you will need a reinforced cover.
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Sat 14 Mar 2009 13:03
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Ravenger
There's no easy way to re-site the cover, so yes I will be asking the builder about an reinforced cover.

I've been parking cars on that driveway for over 10 years with no problems. The cover was pretty badly rusted underneath, though the way it shattered it doesn't look like it was rusted right through.
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Sat 14 Mar 2009 13:04
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Pugugly
Probably made out of Ductile Steel can shatter when stressed. Bit like me really.
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Sat 14 Mar 2009 13:30
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Halmer
Can you sewer or would that be a waste of time and a drain on your resources? ;-)
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Sat 14 Mar 2009 15:14
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Andrew-T
If it's old enough it may be a casting, but they usually only fail on impact. Sounds like that's what happened though.
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Sat 14 Mar 2009 16:14
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Altea Ego
chances are it wasnt seated in its surround properly. Dirt and grit gets in there and lifts it up, and that sets up stress lines.
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Sat 14 Mar 2009 23:30
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Ravenger
Well a builder came round and checked the drain and said it just needs a new cover. I see that you can get pressed steel replacements that can take 5+ tons so that looks like that's what I'll be getting.

Getting back onto the subject of cars, the replacement car I've got from my insurers is a 3 door Astra 1.6 SRi which was the only car I could get at short notice. It feels very cramped compared to my diesel C-Max, and is much more thirsty.

I'll probably have to hand it in on Monday for an even smaller car though, as it's apparently too 'good' than the insurer will pay for!
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Sun 15 Mar 2009 13:37
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Chris M
Maybe it was the shock that made you do it, but there's no way I'd have got the car recovered and claimed on insurance. If nothing else, you are now £175 lighter and have a 'record'.

Even if you were unable to get the car out yourself using the car's jack, I'm sure you could have got a local garage round with a trolley jack to lift it out for little money. They could have given it the once over there and then. Unlikely to be any major damage done at very low speed.

Edited by Chris M on 15/03/2009 at 13:39

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Sun 15 Mar 2009 15:01
Car stuck in drain on driveway this morning! - Lud
Late at night in an African capital, fortunately when going slowly, I dropped the n/s front wheel of the Fiat 125 I was driving into a manhole whose cover had been taken away by persons unknown for some more urgent purpose. The effect was to lift the o/s rear wheel off the road, so no drive. Three laughing passers-by helped, one sitting on the offside of the boot and the other two heaving at the front so that I could reverse out gently. The car was unharmed (its brakes were already extremely poor as the servo was damaged).
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