[2000Z-71]

So I leave the office at lunch and drive the the fun filled pothole laden autocross slalom known as Pima Road sponsored by the City of Scottsdale in the name of road improvement. So I make a tight left and proceed onto the temporary asphalt on the shoulder that's now serving as the main road. Hit the break between the existing road and the new temporary asphalt just to get a molar jarring THUNK! Now my car is pulling hard to the left and my tire pressure warning light comes on. This does not have the makings of a good lunch hour.

Pull over at the construction entrance so I can survey the damage, sure enough dead left front donut. Change the tire out put the mini spare on and stop to talk with the construction crew. They said that I'm the third one today that it's happened to. Great at least I'm not alone in my misery.

Pull into the service station at Shea and Scottsdale to try and put air into dead donut in trunk. Air comes out from the bead as fast as the compressor can put it in. OK maybe I got lucky and the tire just needs to be remounted. Go to Discount Tire next door. No such luck it's dead Jim, not only that but the sidewall on my left rear is bulged out. Not good, I'm in need of at least 2 new tires.

Get on Discount's computer and ponder why in the name of Zuess' butthole did Inifiniti specify an oddball size like 235/45 18?!? The only thing that Discount had in that size were Michelin Pilots and Bridgestone Potenzas like the care came with for $275.00 a piece + mount and balance. Not only that they're in California and shipping will take 3-4 days.

Plan B, I now have Kumho Ecsta SPT's in 245/40 18 for $125 a piece. I'm sure they aren't as good as the Michelins, but at half the price I'll give up the extra second in run time. Thank you City of Scottsdale for making this the most expensive lunch hour of my life and I didn't even get a lap dance out of it.

[sgarnett]

If it makes you feel better, I really wish my tire and/or rim HAD failed when I hit the pot hole last fall. Seriously. Neither the alignment shop nor I could ever figure out what bent, even after a complete teardown, but something bent enough to change caster and toe by quite a bit. At this point I suspect the K-member or subframe. Sam's offset bushings let me finally get back to reasonable alignment, but that's with the bent side maxed and the other side backed way off to match.

At the time, my caster bolts were over-torqued (compared to GM spec, still within bolt rating) because several people were having trouble with the adjustment sipping. It worked - the caster adjustment didn't budge.

Since then, I've come to realize that on a bump hard enough to damage something, the best you can hope for is damage to something that's easily repairable. My order of preference would be 1) alignment change due to adustment slip ONLY), 2) damaged tire, 3) damaged rim.

It still sucks to hit the pothole at all, though. I was forced into it by an accident in the other lane.

Mitch posted a comment recently about hardened pushrods actually being a bad idea because they'll hold up just fine as the piston and valves destroy each other. Sometimes it's good to have a weak link (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

This post has been edited by sgarnett: Nov 10 2006, 11:19 AM