Yesterday I hit a rather large pot hole on my way home from work in downtown Seattle. It was loud enough to scare me into pulling over to make sure I hadn't bent my wheel or anything. Everything looked okay so I drove home.

Today as I was pulling out of my parking garage about to head home from work I heard a really nasty sounding rattle. I couldn't place it other than it was coming from the back so I hopped out and made sure the hatch was secured all the way. I drove a little further and the noise got worse so I checked the hatch again, look around the rear wheel wells for any damage and checked the plastic under guards. Again everything looked good.

I started my drive on to 99 and thats when the rattling become so loud I thought my wheel was going to fall off. When I got home I started pulling everything out of the back looking for something to be loose. If you have ever looked at how the rear shocks bolt down from inside the rear you would see that there is a rubber bumper piece, a large flat washer and two 17mm nuts. Guess what I found?

The washer had actually cracked and was sitting off to the side and the two nuts had pulled themselves through the rubber. I am still amazed at the force it must have taken to snap that washer. Has anyone ever heard of this happening before?

At any rate -- if you are driving around Belltown watch out for the pot hole of doom on Wall & 4th

 

andersg split a Piaa rim in half hitting a pothole out in his neck of the woods.

 

go take pics of it, pics of your damage and send in letters for repair money.

Thats really not acceptable!

 

Yikes! I'm never in that area... but thanks for the warning, lol.

You could contact whoever is in charge of maintaining that road, if you have damage that will cost you money (I can't tell by what you described because I'm vehicle dumb). You might be able to get them to pay to fix it. At least that's what my grandmother has done in the past. But you might have to reduce yourself to cranky-elderly-complaining to get the $, lol.

 

Yeah, what Davie06TC said. (I was typing as he posted that)

 

ouch.. have not heard of that happening... and i can sorta picture the spot your talking about.. been a while since i've looked at that area of my car...

but ya you can file a claim with seattle DOT..... it'll take a while i'm sure... but document everything and including pothole location.... and you should get $$ back

 

It didn't really cost me anything but my time and patience but I am going to call the city and complain about the pot hole. It seriously spans almost the entire lane so it is some what unavoidable in the morning traffic.

All I did was cut the rubber around the nuts, loosen, new washer and tighten them back up

 

oh come on... claim more... get new shocks or something out of it ... j/k...sorta...

they do have a "pot hole hotline" .. supposedly within 24-48hrs of a report... it'll be filled

 

I have koni yellow sport shocks already ... but I could always get a second set and give them to someone hrmm....

 

same thing happened to me here in so cal






took pics of everything and the company working there paid for everything

 

umm... if your looking for a volunteer :D

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

lol

 

Ouch! Good to know you were able to get the repairs taken care of. Maybe I should get them to pay me for the 10cent washer

 

That would be hilarious.

 

i would get some of your other components checked out while you are at it... if it hit it that hard it would not be to far of a stretch to defunk the hub bearing or some of the balljoints... i would deffinitely have it looked at... there are a lot of critical yet mostly unseen parts that could have been damaged... not trying to scare you just trying to warn.

 

great,...i have nicks in my rims from pot holes...dang 35series rubber

 

I hit that this evening though it was at a rather slow speed thank god but it rattled me something furious. Good thing I'm taking the car in for it's 60k checkup

 

I bent a rim on I-5 in Everett last year. The construction company paid for a new one.

 

Where exactly was this pot hole so we can avoid it or at least make sure we do not hit it.

 

I had a run-in with one of these infamous pot holes. Luckily, I still had stealies on at the time, because it ripped the tire wide open & bent the crap out of my right front wheel. Fixed it with a big f'n hammer and a new tire.

 

Potholes can easily be fixed and show up after this kind of nasty winter. But the city/county/state doesn't know about them unless someone tells them. (Or unless you live in our town where the maintenance guys drive around all day looking for something to do.) All they need is a little asphalt patch stuff and it's fixed in a jiffy!! Let them know the location, and maybe they will repair it.