Pothole damage?

19th July 2010

Hi! My fiancee and I own a 58 reg BMW 1 Series M Sport that recently started displaying a Dynamic Stability Control fault. At the time we were driving the car in a straight line down the A38. We took it to BMW and they said the alignment was out. They tried to correct it but were unable to do so. They now claim the rear alignment of the car has been twisted on the drivers side damaging; the lower wishbone, the track strut and both trailing arms. There is insufficient adjustment to correct it without fitting new replacement parts. This is going to cost minimum £1000. The car is still in warranty and neither my fiance or I have knowingly hit a pot hole. There are no marks on the body work, the wheels, the tyres or the underside of the car. We are finding it very difficult to argue with BMW as we are not mechanics but we do know that car has not had an accident and has only been driven on normally on normal roads!! Can we really have caused this damage without realising it?
We are going to be forced to claim on the insurance if they won't fix it, do we need to know exactly which pot hole we hit?! Will this be a fault claim?
Many thanks

Replies (1)

Potholes.co.uk Expert     posted : 21/07/10 at 9:04 am

Surely these are questions you should be asking your insurance company. If you can't pin point an exact incident, then I guess it must be a wear and tear issue, so I can't see why you think your insurance company would pay out ... isn't that what warranties are for.