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Stinking Potholes............................

5K views 22 replies 9 participants last post by  meow77 
#1 ·
Don't know what your experiences have been.

The Insight is not what you would call a smooth ride almost like sports car you feel all the bumps. Especially potholes... I've driven over 2 nasty ones both messing up my alingnment; wasn't impressed with the weakness of the suspension.

On the other occasion I went over a pothole and the stinking tire blew... it was a tire in relatively good shape thought I could get it repaired but the damage was also on the side so I had to get a new tire...

Not impressed at all how potholes so easily mess up the alignment of the car. I no longer care and drive with wreckless abandonment and if I drive over a pothole so what...

However WEAK alingment!
 
#2 ·
Hi,

I thought that we had the biggest potholes here in Laval and Montreal (Quebec, Canada). Specially this winter in Montreal.

I had the exact opposite experience than you had.
For example, I have runned into holes that had both the front and rear tire (one side) blowout in the cars ahead of me. I was driving and all (4) cars in front of me where pulling on the side of the road. I woundered why and then "bang-bang". I ran into it myself. I had no tire or suspension mishap.

I can tell that the car will emit a metal knock sound faster than any other car given a hole but with the high tire pressure and les car weigh IMHO it prevents damage to the rims/tire/suspension. It could depend on the speed, I rarely drive beow 70 km/h

I had a lot of putholes running into but no damage yet. Cross my fingers.

You wrote that the damage was on the side. This shows that the tire was crushed all the way to the rim when you hit the bump. It should not have been so with a high tire pressure. Could your tire pressure have been too low at the time.

Winter low temps at night and higher temps on days make the tire lose pressure.
 
#3 ·
So where are you located MEOW77? Will have to make sure I don't drive in that area. :twisted:
 
#4 ·
Avoiding the potholes is key. Just like avoiding collisions is better then hoping to survive them. Stay at least 4 seconds behind the car in front of you. And look way ahead when you drive don't stare at the car in front of you like 99% of drivers do 90% of the time. It takes vision training and changing your driving habits.
These habits will avoid being surprised by things in the last second while driving.
We must all keep improving our driving habits the rest of our lives.

With practice no luck is required.
 
#5 ·
Well my tire pressure was is 40 psi all 4 tires... so the tire was decent... I don't like driving higher than that in the winter.

I don't think the tire pressure is a problem. I think you are very fortunate to not have ruined your suspension. It's happened twice to me already... and I think if you run over a nasty pothole I don't care which insight it is you'll be paying a visit to your honda dealer for an alignment.

I went back when the tire blew to look at the pothole I had driven over and it was a nasty one however I don't think the larger cars on the road would have had a problem with it.

I live in Canada Willie...
 
#6 ·
In winter new deep pot holes with sharp edges can appear where there weren't any the week before.
Larger then OEM tires absorb more impact energy and could prevent damage from some potholes.
 
#7 ·
Oh,

I forgot that my tires for winter are not OEM (they could not be in the snow we get) and are Nokkian 175/70 R14. So they are of larger diameter and wider.
They do give a better comfort ride than the OEM although they give less MPG and therefore might protect the suspension items.
I keep 42 psi in my tires.

Meow77, can you give more details to the suspension parts that may have been damaged (front and/or rear and part names).

And around where in Canada are you from (province/city?), if you do not mind giving this info.

Thanks
 
#8 ·
Hi Yves.

The part that was damaged is the rear passenger side; back left tire. I don't knwo the exact part number etc.. but the dealer did say there was damage there. Which somewhat disgusted me. How much worse are the tires you use for gas mileage?

I'm in Ontario, Toronto...
 
#9 ·
I have to admit that I hate potholes and bumps, too because you really feel it. However, I haven't had any trouble yet - and there is TONS of construction in Vegas, so I run into potholes all the time. I just try to avoid those streets as much as I can. Right now it's Decatur Blvd. that's bugging me since me and my buddies all live on it and I drive down it often to their house. Sometimes I take a longer route just to avoid the holes. I figure - hey, I get such good gas mileage, I can afford to drive a little out of the way.
 
#10 ·
I've had several problems... First pothole cause my alingment to go off... got it fixed... second one same thing alingment went out...

3rd pothole alignment didn't go out but the driver side tire blew tried to repair it but there was side damage on it.. which tells me the tires are junk... that's 3 incidents so far and I'm not impressed with the flims build of our cars..
 
#11 ·
Hi meow77,

Was the tire that blow out in the back to?

The mpg diff is a little hard to tell:
- Cold weather makes a big drop in mpg
- When put them on, I see an instant drop from 4.8 l/100km to 5.8 l/100km average
- The tires are bigger so the mpg and speed are out: show to little
- The car is 1 inch higher so I expect about a 10% mpg drop just du to the fact that reading are not exact (1 inch in radius more to the about 10 inch radius of the original tires which are about 21 inch in diameter)
- So going from 4.8 + 0.48 (for the 10%) = 5.3 therfore I expect to have to pay 5.8 - 5.3 = 0.5 liter more per 100 km which is $0.40 at a gas price of about $0.80.

I am willing to pay $0.40 for every 100km I drive to get winter tires.

If :
- your damage is only to the back tires and
- you and your payload are about to the weight of the allowed 365 pounds into the car (I am in that situation), maybe your problem is the rear wheel travel. Botomming out of the rear wheels into the body.

I have worked on that last year by raising the rear by an inch and I never bottom out the rear anymore. Tell me if you need more info on that.
I have pictures and could give you more details (help to do it on your car)
 
#12 ·
Hi Yves.. not sure what you mean about raising the back of your car... why would this benefit?

From the gas mileage reports your giving for me personally the gas mileage loss is not worth putting the larger tires on...

The drivers back tire blew out. when I went over the pothole...

I must say it was such a pain getting in a stock tire for our cars.. what a major pain...
 
#13 ·
Hi Meow,

I had a unch that it was the rear. It had to be because the front suspension is normal but not the rear.

1) I noticed at some point that the harchness of the suspension was not harch, it was no wheel travel. It is not the shock absorber that is harsh but the bottomming out of the suspension. When two people are in the car, there is about an inch of possible wheel travel going up. The Wheel axel is an inch near the body stub. When 1 person is present there is not much improvement. Look under the car to see while people are into the car (and maybe groceries)

On a regular car the wheel can move more than 4 inches up to allow the suspension to do it's job.

So I figured that if the wheel could move up a little bit more it would help the suspension not bottomming out. So to me, I did not raise the rear but added more wheel travel (same thing really). This had no effect on the MPG

I had heard a story of someone who ran into a puthole and it bended the rear shaft holding the wheel. This is because when the rear wheel hits something and tries to move up, there is no room and it hits the body, no place to go means something got to brake somewhere.

Adding a spacer of 1 inch added an inch of wheel travel going up. This is while the spring is compressed so it is when the suspension works harder and prevents the wheel axel to hit the body.
I have NO bottoming out anymore now. I hope I explained the benefit=> now the car is like any other car.
I realy think that your tire blew out because the wheel could not go up into the car while it hit the pothole and the tire broke. If there was more wheel travel it would not have been so (actually any wheel travel cause there is none). You would have done like the other cars in front of you. And I see now that the rim damage came from the tire braking and leaving the rim to hit the asphalt.

2) For the tires, I prefer the safety to the mpg. The tires are larger in diameter and provide for an inch higher car to allow less plowing into the snow for better handling on the roads. Before I put those, I even got stuck in my own flat driveway. After putting the tires, I never had problems. It was my 4th winter so I give credit to the larger diameter tires with more ground clearance, wider tires for more contact and traction and very good tread with bigger and deaper tread patern that OEM tires.

I also know that my MPG reading is false with the winter tire because of the increase in diameter. With the winter tires it is are harder to push the car so lower mpg is expected.


I will need new OEM tires soon, where did you get yours? I will look for 185/60 of hte same brand and type.
 
#15 ·
Hi,

Copied and added to, from the hybrid group message:
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/hon ... sage/13343

and a picture at:
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/hon ... arlift.jpg
You will see that there is No paint, even the grey primer was wearen down where the rubber cone from the axel hits the car body stub. It was crushing it all the time.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The mod took me 4 hours total, cost $13, 4 bolts to remove. I had to figure out what to do once things where removed and it is why such time. Else it would have taken me about 2 hours. You really need two jacks for an easy installation.

Donut material: I used plastic plank used to build deck or porch floor. It is a replacement to wood. 1 inch thick, 6 inches wide and usually 8 foot long but I bought a 4 foot long($13). The plastic is entirely from recycle and is filled (no special core).
I used that a while back to jack my 1920 wood made house(center on posts), 3 inch square and 24000 pounds of pressure per post

For each spacer I drilled a hole with a 2 inch hole saw. The type to make a hole to install a handle to a door. With a Dremel tool, I made the hole conic to fit the Insight body tube (2 3/8 one side and 2 3/4 the other side if I remember). Then cut the outside circle with a jigsaw to make the donut spacer. Sanded to look nice. Do two of those. Then clean all the plastic particules in the room (lots)

Once fitted to the body tube, the existing rubber centering ring on top of the spring was a little loose because of the lower position. I cut a strip of plastic from a RubberMaid box to put between the body tube and the rubber ring. This keeps it and the spring in the center. The strip is an arc to fit nicely (use paper to figure out the shape). It was about a foot long and 1 inch wide with the arc around 6 inch.

All pieces (spacer and strip) only have compression forces, nothing moves.

Insight work (See Service manual page 18-26):
- Jack the body of the car. Remove the rear wheels
- Put a jack under each side of the rear suspension beam
- Remove the lower bolt holding the shock.
Remove the bolt from the clip holding the
brake line in the middle of the suspension beam.
- Lower the axels so that the spring is free and you remove it from
the car
- Put the newly made spacers, plastic strips, original rubber centering rings, springs and jack both side of the axel. Put the 4 bolts back. And wheels. Voila.

It was easy and wish I had thought about it before. My wife does not drive and is usually never aware of car issues but she did feel a big difference in comfort. That to me is the best indicatorthat is was necessary.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The spacer only needs to not be loose on the stub. If I had to do it again, I would make the spacer about 1/4 inch larger than the original rubber centering ring.



2) The tires I found where at Costco, they asked for $109 per tires, was your price lower than that?

EDIT ADDED
Tell me if you need more, I could email directly to you if needed.
 
#16 ·
potholes

Overall I'm very happy with my 2001 Insight. Here's the big HOWEVER...

I moved to Vermont last year and have just been introduced to Mud Season. Most of the local roads here are dirt and we've got more than potholes, they're craters.

In the past 9 months my car has developed more squeeks, creeks and rattles that I've ever experienced in such a new vehicle. I try to take care not to fall into the holes, but it's impossible to avoid them all. Even when there are no specific holes, it feels like I'm driving on a washboard.

The car was just serviced for it's 60,000 check. Although we were able to identify one of the creeks, the dealership is stumped about where the other noises are coming from. Nothing appears to be broken. I'm unable to recreate the noises by bounsing or rocking the car when it's not in motion.

For the past 9 months the car has been making a very high pitched squeek when driving at low speed. I've noticed it both when driving straight and making turns. It's terribly embarassing in parking lots where I'd rather be making a testiment to the virtues of this vehicle and not sounding like a toy roller-skate.

A local mechanic who specializes in Saab and Volvo claims that Volvo's have the same squeeking problem.

If anyone has had similar experiences with creeks and squeeks and you've found a cause and/or solution please post it.

The racket is driving me nuts.
 
#18 ·
suspension

Hi all, I am getting ready to sell my Jeep Wrangler so I can get an Insight. I am very worried about ground clearance going from this change, considering in parking lots I would steer tword the pot holes in my jeep :). Anyway I can't get into the yahoo pictures without setting up an acount which I don't want to do.
If you email the pictures to wlfische@ncsu.edu I would apreciate it and I can host them.

Also is there any mpg loss with the body lift, or just with the larger tires?

Also does anyone have problems with speed bumps?
 
#19 ·
Hi,

I did send you the pictures. Actually, I sent most of the originals. I hope you have room to receive a 9 Mb email. It did not bounce back.
You can host them if they are used in a positive manner to the Insight.

No mpg difference with the lift. Larger tires would lower the mpg. And it would not provide more wheel travel going up but give more tire to flex.
I did not do the mod for potholes, it was for simple comfort as we have rough roads here.

About that (rough roads), even PEPSI does a tv ad here that uses this. You see a bunch of teenagers drinking pepsi in a car and a passenger spilling it all over his face while going through potholes. Wish I had it in an electronic form.

For speed bumps, you need to go slowly. It is not a 4x4.
 
#21 ·
Re: suspension

NCSUKarateMan said:
Hi all, I am getting ready to sell my Jeep Wrangler so I can get an Insight. I am very worried about ground clearance...
I have an 02 Wrangler and an Insight. The biggest change for me was handling road hazards. If I see a chunk of wood, rocks or a big tire carcass in my lane, I have to do the following:

Oh no, what the heck is that? Which car am I in? If I'm in the Jeep, steer directly for the object and put it right down the center so I'll pass over it. If I'm in the Insight, darn. Check right, left, change lanes quick. If I can't do that, slow as much as possible before impact and hang on.

I had a truck throw off a retread infront of me on the highway. With cars on both sides of me I had no choice but to hit it. I was airborn for a while as the tread went under the car. It bent up the exhaust and broke off the left front strake infront of the tire. Otherwise, the car was fine. It's actully a tough little car for what it is. The Jeep would have been completely untouched, of course.

But the Jeep won't get 60 MPG!!!
 
#22 ·
In the Montreal traffic, cars in from of me drove over a piece of complexe shape scrap metal. None of them touched with their cars. When I went over it, the piece scratch under the bumper, bounced under the car and got 6 inch long scratches at 4 different locations under the car. All on plastic parts but one of the plastic part is the plastic fuel tank.
I was not happy, all other cars where safe.
 
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