Pothole Season: Tips and tricks for dealing with potholes without causing damage to your vehicle

The long, lazy days of summer often lead to long weekend trips to the cottage, road trips and pleasure drives. Unfortunately, the hot weather also leads to everyone’s dreaded road nightmare: potholes. Potholes can cause chunks to come out of your tires, damage your wheels and cause your car to come out of alignment. This summer, instead of causing untold damage to your car and spending your patience and your money on repairs, practice preventative measures to keep the damage to a minimum.

Why is it that every summer we get potholes?

Potholes are produced by moisture that finds its way into cracks on the roadway. So, after a winter of heavy snow, a lot of moisture has found its way into the crevices in the road and every time that the road freezes ice forms in the cracks and expands, which either opens a new hole on the surface or expands an existing hole. The more a road thaws and freezes is directly correlated to the number of, size of and depth of potholes we see in the warm weather.

What can I do to protect my car from potholes?

The first thing you should do is make sure that your tires are properly inflated. Look on the tire for the proper tire pressure (and remember that often the back and front tires have different psi requirements). You should also get a tire gauge for home to check the pressure because the most accurate reading is often gotten from before your car is driven. Driving causes the tires to heat up which increases the pressure and changes the reading that you get.

In addition, it’s a good idea to change your driving habits when navigating roads with potholes. Here are some tips on how you should drive to cause the minimum amount of damage from those pesky potholes:

• Slow your car down and try and avoid hitting them if you can
• If it’s impossible to avoid them (which sometimes it is) keep your steering wheel straight and avoid braking. Braking transfers the car’s weight onto the front two tires which can increase the severity of the damage.
• If your tire loses air, pull over to minimize the chance of wheel damage.

Ontario’s winter climate ensures that potholes are a fact of life. If you prepare yourself for the inevitable each spring and summer, you’ll be saving yourself a lot of headaches, hassle and damage.

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