# Potholes are evil. Potholes on the interstate are the devil himself.



## Patman (May 7, 2011)

Cincinnati just started a "Pothole Blitz next week. They want residents to report holes to them and they will send out a crew to fill with blacktop same day. THis year is worse than any previous year in a long time and a lot of roads are old and need repair otherwise so they want to avoid as many bent rims as possible.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

If you're lucky it's just an alignment. Unfortunately since there isn't much to align on the Cruze's front end this will most likely need a call to your insurance company.


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## Jim Frye (Mar 16, 2011)

Here, we have a Pothole Hotline and a website for reporting them. ODOT actually closed one lane of I-75 in town, got an asphalt plant to open in the middle of winter, ground down the lane and repaved it because it was so badly potholed. The city has scraped off all of the asphalt layers on some streets to expose the original concrete or brick pavement to get rid of the mass potholes. They have multiple pothole crews working 6 days a week to fill them. Street speeds are at least 10 mph lower due to people dodging the moonscape. About the only vehicle safe to drive around here is a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.


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## brian v (Dec 25, 2011)

I am glad that I do not have to contend with those 3 states and the pot hole problems 
But I won't hold me breath for to long either plenty of potholes to go around !


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## Patman (May 7, 2011)

There is no such thing as overinflating your tires for MPG now with all the potholes unless you like getting bounced around and having your teeth jarred loose. I checked my pressure and I am in the 40s on all wheels with the most 48. I guess I will go back to 35 until the roads get repaired a little around here esp since I do mainly city driving where most the crappy roads are except for I 75 that they are rebuilding!


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

You may have bent a control arm or tie rod, but the damage is likely relatively minor. Most suspension systems are designed to take a lot of abuse.


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## CW_ (Jan 31, 2013)

Yeah, I'm no master mechanic but I know a little about cars and as suspensions go the stuff on the Cruze seems pretty simple. This is one of the rare times that I'm missing my previous car ('96 Blazer that seemed to be impervious to everything except for rust, and people breaking mirrors off of it when it was parked on the street) though, I once got ran off the road by an 18 wheeler in that thing, ended up taking out a couple of road signs, and hit a lot of big bumps, but not a bit of damage to the car.


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## Blue Angel (Feb 18, 2011)

The neighbor's kid knocked on my garage door about a week ago, I was out there working on something and his friend had just shown up with a bent wheel on his Jetta. Poor kid hit a "puddle" on a street nearby not realising it was actually a massive pothole. He had 16" steel winter wheels on the car with fairly tall profile tires, and it bent that wheel like it was plastic, the outside bead was bent more than an inch. Tire "looked" OK but I'd be real surprised if it didn't run a little funny when reinflated.

That warm spell we had a couple weeks back destroyed some of our roads. Wouldn't it be nice if winter was just an on-off switch that Ma Nature could just flip in mid December and then turn off on April 1st? 

CW_, I wouldn't be surprised if your car needs a new strut. The Cruze has a fixed camber design where there's no "give" in the strut-to-knuckle joint, whereas most cars used to have one of the two mounting holes "ovaled" to allow some movement. Without the ability to move relative to each other the bracket welded to the strut body will bend.

I could be wrong... the lower control arm could be bent, but your description of the "pull" makes me think your camber may be way off. It would be a good idea to have the tire/wheel inspected as well.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.


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## CW_ (Jan 31, 2013)

I took a look at it this morning and the inner tie rod on that side is obviously bent, this is almost certainly the cause of the pull since the wheel's actually pointing the wrong way, but I don't see any other immediately obvious issues. I'm thinking of at least getting an estimate from a local shop before taking it back to the dealer (might request OEM repair parts though since the car's under warranty though).


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## Patman (May 7, 2011)

Patman said:


> There is no such thing as over inflating your tires for MPG now with all the potholes unless you like getting bounced around and having your teeth jarred loose. I checked my pressure and I am in the 40s on all wheels with the most 48. I guess I will go back to 35 until the roads get repaired a little around here esp since I do mainly city driving where most the crappy roads are except for I 75 that they are rebuilding!


Reduced PSI and the car is much more tolerable in the city and drove to Dayton from Cinti and got 42 MPG so cant complain. Actually the tires are all @ 40 PSI so a little over inflated but not bone shattering like before.


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## CW_ (Jan 31, 2013)

Apparently hitting a pothole at interstate speeds can cause some pretty nasty damage. What all is wrong with my car is still being sorted out, but thus far it looks like the passenger side tie rod, tie rod end, lower control arm, and possibly steering knuckle are bent, and maybe the subframe of the car (but I'm really hoping *that* isn't it). At this point it's gotten expensive enough that I had to go ahead and turn it in on my insurance, they're giving me a rental car for now, but I want my car back.


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## brian v (Dec 25, 2011)

I like how the Q answered his own Puzzle !


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## Jim Frye (Mar 16, 2011)

I encountered a large crater on I-75 last week and around the bend was a van smashed up against the outside retaining wall and further on down were two vehicles with flat front tires.


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## brian v (Dec 25, 2011)

Dang I am sure going to stay off of I 75 in your neck of the woods .


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## CHEVYCRUZE RS (Mar 29, 2011)

You guys should visit some Downtown Toronto roads lol


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## brian v (Dec 25, 2011)

Thanks for the Tip we will stay out of Toronto ... yo guys put that on yer list stay clear of pot holed Toronto ....haheha


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## CHEVYCRUZE RS (Mar 29, 2011)

I have some cousins up in chi town.....but nothing beats those California roads...man i gotta take my cruze down there



brian v said:


> Thanks for the Tip we will stay out of Toronto ... yo guys put that on yer list stay clear of pot holed Toronto ....haheha


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

Outside Philly last weekend, I dodged a MASSIVE pothole. Saw a car about 200 ft later changing a tire. By the size of that thing, I imagine it did more than just bust a tire.

They shut down a whole lane of the interstate for several miles here during the morning commute one morning because people kept hitting a giant pothole and blowing tires. 

On a more positive note, the snowplows did tear up a pesky speed bump in my area.


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## CHEVYCRUZE RS (Mar 29, 2011)

haha nice, always positive. but damm....those potholes in philly sound pretty serious lol. all the best to you and the philly drivers on getting those roads patched. I know if I drive downtown in my cruze every weekend my coilovers would be toast HAHA!!!! Unless i upgrade to the KW variant 1 kit, then...maybe



jblackburn said:


> Outside Philly last weekend, I dodged a MASSIVE pothole. Saw a car about 200 ft later changing a tire. By the size of that thing, I imagine it did more than just bust a tire.
> 
> They shut down a whole lane of the interstate for several miles here during the morning commute one morning because people kept hitting a giant pothole and blowing tires.
> 
> On a more positive note, the snowplows did tear up a pesky speed bump in my area.


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## spacedout (Dec 7, 2010)

jblackburn said:


> On a more positive note, the snowplows did tear up a pesky speed bump in my area.


This is so true! One set of speed bumps I drive over weekly has almost been completely removed by the snow plows this year. Side note, I noticed if I hit the speed bump at 35-40mph it smooths right out anyway.


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## Agent_Orange (Jan 20, 2014)

Patman said:


> Cincinnati just started a "Pothole Blitz next week. They want residents to report holes to them and they will send out a crew to fill with blacktop same day. THis year is worse than any previous year in a long time and a lot of roads are old and need repair otherwise so they want to avoid as many bent rims as possible.


Wish they would do something like this in Northwest Indiana. With any luck, they will start patching in May...:disgust:


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## Jim Frye (Mar 16, 2011)

One lane of I-75 in town got so bad, ODOT closed it, ground off the asphalt, got an asphalt plant to open for a week, and completely repaved the lane. They just finished a 3 year interchange rebuild between I-75 and I-475 here and the new pavement is splitting down the middle. They are waiting until the ground thaws (probably sometime in June) to take core samples to see what is wrong. Pretty soon our roads will be as bad as Michigan's.


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## anthonysmith93 (Jul 15, 2015)

I know this is an old thread....but we have a parking lot here in town that's busy, there's a Chase, Taco Bell, and a few small stores in this lot, and even in the drives of the lots are massive and DEEP pot holes....I hit one one night (going slow) luckily and it was SO deep I know either the frame of the car or the control arm scraped the ground (it was loud and I felt it)... my car is lowered so it's already scrap-y sometimes, but it was scary and I'm just glad I was going fast enough and it wasn't wide enough to engulf my tire and make me get stuck....No damage was sustained luckily


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