The number of claims from drivers for pothole damage has risen by nearly half in the last two years. Warranty provider MotorEasy, which is behind the numbers, says the cost of claims from hard-pressed car owners is also escalating.
The bad news for drivers comes as we enter what the RAC calls “pothole season”, the period between January and March when cracks in the road surface morph into craters almost overnight.
And breakdown companies are reporting a steady annual rise in pothole-related callouts. The RAC says its patrols attended 53 per cent more breakdowns from poor road surface conditions in the first quarter of 2024 compared with the last quarter of 2023.
What car parts are most affected by pothole damage?
Tyres are the frontline in this war, bearing the brunt of just more than half of all pothole damage (51 per cent), according to garage chain Kwik Fit. Tyre retailer and servicing centre HiQ believes around one in four of all tyre replacements (28 per cent) are caused by hitting potholes.
When a car hits a pothole, the tyre is often pinched between the road and wheel rim, ripping the sidewall. Alternatively, the tyre suffers the equivalent of a hernia where its inner structure fails and the airtight liner is pushed outward, causing an MOT-failing bulge.
Next up are wheels, accounting for 34 per cent of damage. These can be bent by hitting a pothole, suffer cosmetic scrapes similar to kerbing and, in extreme cases, crack, causing the tyre to deflate.
Suspension follows, with 27 per cent of cars suffering pothole damage needing repairs. Although these components have to be strong, as Thatcham Research’s Darren Bright said: “Hit anything hard enough and it will break.” And hitting potholes can cause springs and suspension arms to bend or snap, joints to fail and shock absorbers to leak due to ruptured seals.
Encounters with rough road surfaces can also damage steering arms; this affects about one in 10 cars in which pothole damage is reported.
How much is pothole damage increasing by?
A lot, says the AA. It told us: “While some breakdowns require small repairs such as to punctures, the scale of damage to vehicles caused by potholes has grown. Our patrols are now regularly attending pothole-related incidents which include damaged suspension arms, steering alignment issues and buckled wheels.”
The MotorEasy report adds that the number of suspension-related warranty requests has increased from 9 per cent of all claims in 2022 to 14 per cent in 2024. That’s an increase of nearly a half (45.5 per cent).
The cost has also increased. In 2022 suspension claims made up 16 per cent of all claims’ costs. Now they’re one in five (21 per cent), up by more than a quarter (27 per cent).
Why is pothole damage increasing?
The easy answer is because the condition of our roads is getting worse. Head of policy for the RAC, Simon Williams, said: “Drivers are now twice as likely to suffer a breakdown due to sub-standard road surfaces as they were in 2006.”
But there are other reasons, related to the cars we drive. Darren Bright from insurance industry repair cost consultant Thatcham Research told us: “The type and size of wheel and stiffness of suspension are a big driver to how much damage a car sustains.
“If you’re driving a sports car or a sports model of a regular car, you’ll have stiffer suspension, probably be lower to the ground, have lower profile tyres and larger diameter wheels. For me those are the key drivers. I think I’d rather be in an SUV if I was going to have any type of impact.”
Why is the cost of pothole damage going up?
Bright said: “We’re seeing an increase across the board in terms of parts costs. The average price of a wheel has increased by £150 over the last five years. That’s as much as 10 per cent above inflation.
“Supply chain challenges also play a part in increasing costs. If the garage can’t get hold of even the simplest part such as a wheel for a week, you’re looking at an extra week of being in a hire car while yours awaits repairs, driving costs up further.”
Impact severity is crucial, too. The harder the impact, the more likely the car is to suffer steering or suspension problems. “A lot of vehicles have electric steering racks,” Bright said. “Even mechanical steering racks are high-price components and some of them are unserviceable, so it’s a replace-only scenario which adds to cost.
“There’s also advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to consider. Hit a 15-year old car’s wheel and if it doesn’t have ADAS you’ll simply derange the tracking. But a new car’s ADAS will rely heavily on that tracking. So in some cases if you adjust the steering geometry to correct the tracking, that will trigger an ADAS recalibration.” Which puts up the price.
Which cars suffer most in potholes?
The data shared by MotorEasy from about 20,000 policies reveals the car types most likely to suffer from pothole damage. The most claimed-for car brands with alloy wheel cover tend to be more expensive cars so, as Thatcham suggests, those with more things to fix.
Tesla holds the number one spot. Owners of the US electric cars make on average 2.6 claims during the course of their policies. Mini owners are next with 1.27 claims, followed by Porsche owners on 1.15, BMW on 1.10 and Land Rover on 1.04 claims.
At the other end of the scale, MG owners are least likely to claim for wheel damage, with only one in every 10 owners claiming at all. They’re followed by Hyundai, Kia and Toyota drivers, only a third of whose owners are likely to claim for wheel damage.
How much do potholes cost us overall?
The Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) has been tracking the condition of local authority roads in England and Wales since 2012. Then, local authorities in England and Wales paid out £300,796 in compensation to drivers whose cars had been damaged by potholes. The same survey in 2024 revealed compensation payouts of £24.5 million. That’s 81 times the 2012 figure.
Not all drivers claim compensation or are successful if they try. But they still have to get their cars fixed following an encounter with a pothole.
Garage chain Kwik Fit has been tracking pothole repair payments since 2018. Over that time, it has seen the sums drivers are forking out rise annually from £915 million to a high of £1.7 billion for 2023.
Kwik Fit claims the average individual repair bill has risen from £111 in 2018 to £127 in 2023, a 14 per cent increase.
Where in the country is the worst for potholes?
This depends on who you ask. Fast fit chain HiQ analysed about 30,000 tyre purchases and found that the area with the most pothole damage-related tyre changes was West Sussex. There, nearly two thirds of tyre changes (65 per cent) were caused by poor road surfaces.
Derbyshire was next on 41.4 per cent, closely followed by Hampshire on 41.3 per cent. HiQ found the counties with the best roads were Staffordshire with just 9.8 per cent of new tyres resulting from potholes. Northamptonshire (13.5 per cent) and Devon (14 per cent) were next.
Rival Kwik Fit meanwhile breaks its research down regionally and reports on suspension, steering and wheel damage in addition to tyres. It found that the South East had the highest proportion of drivers suffering from pothole-damaged cars, with 39 per cent saying they’d had to pay for repairs.
London accounts for 36 per cent followed by Northern Ireland (35 per cent), the North West (34 per cent) and Wales (30 per cent).
Kwik Fit believes the North East is the place you’re least likely to suffer from pothole damage on just 13 per cent, followed by Scotland (22 per cent), the West Midlands (27 per cent) and East of England (29 per cent).
Meanwhile, the RAC says compensation claims for pothole damage are highest in Lincolnshire, followed by Essex and Hampshire. The conclusion? We can safely say potholes are a UK-wide problem.
Potholes aren’t just expensive
Damage to cars from impacts with holes in the road are also a safety issue. Kwik Fit’s Roger Griggs said: “Our research shows that in many cases, people are unaware of the damage their car has suffered. A tyre with a compromised inner sidewall or a wheel which has suffered cracking may not be obvious without a thorough check.
“We advise drivers who experience severe pothole impacts to keep monitoring for damage well after the event and if they have any concerns to have it checked.”
Hitting potholes can also be fatal to motorcycle riders and cyclists. The AA added: “Coroners have issued Prevention of Future Death reports to numerous local authorities stating that the poor, unmaintained condition of the local road network played a contributory role in that fatality.”
Hardly surprising then that 96 per cent of AA members say fixing our roads is their number one transport priority.
