Road Warrior: 'Low profile' can mean high pothole cost

It was meant to be a relaxing couple of hours in Ridgewood, but a series of potholes at the South Van Brunt Street entrance to Route 4 in Englewood conspired against Chareen Kramer’s Sunday lunch date with a friend. As the Cresskill motorist would learn, the loud thud she heard represented more than a simple flat tire.

“The rim … had cracked,” a factor that pushed her BMW's total repair bill to $804 – “a real shocker,” she said.

In addition to wrecking your budget, a broken wheel can wreck your day, especially on a Sunday when nearly all garages are closed. For Chareen, it meant canceled plans and a painfully slow trip home with hazard lights blinking all the way. If it wasn’t for her “run-flat” tires, she didn’t think she would have made it, although other drivers “weren’t happy with me driving so slowly,” she said.

But “run-flat” tires aside, shouldn’t tires and wheels on modern, so-called luxury cars be built to withstand the hardships inflicted by Garden State roads that are consistently rated among the shoddiest in the nation.

If you ask Brian Shanahan that question, he makes a sound that’s part sigh, part groan. As the lead mechanic in the family-owned Washington Garage in Bergenfield, Shanahan knows more than most about potholes – and much of the time he can sum up the problem in just a couple of words. In Chareen's case:

“Low-profile tires,” he said.

That’s the term for a popular kind of large wheel with skinny sidewalls often found on luxury vehicles. Motorists, it turns out, like the look of a tire with a narrower edge.

“They’re better at cornering, but you pay a price for that,” Shanahan said, adding that they’re stiffer than regular tires, which means they’re more susceptible to potholes if sidewalls are scraped or torn when they dip into deep, craggy craters.

That can easily happen if you drive in one of the Northeast’s better-known pothole capitals where the Shanahans have been patching tires and fixing suspensions for nearly eight decades.

“Low-profile tires make cars ride lower to the road, so they’re naturally more vulnerable when they sink into one of these holes,” said the senior mechanic. “Salesmen might say that doesn’t matter much because the suspension systems in these cars are much better now. But the truth is that tires make up the part of the suspension that takes the most punishment.”

If a tire is pounded hard enough to make it quickly deflate, there’s little left to cushion the wheel itself, he added.

“Next thing they know, people are getting this big estimate for what they thought was a tire replacement that might usually cost only $200 or so.”

Costs can quickly cascade out of control. Just ask Kerry Crane, whose training as a dental hygienist did not prepare her for the cavities her BMW keeps encountering.

“Five blowouts in less than a year!” said Kerry. “I’ll never buy low-profile tires again.”

Why did she buy them in the first place?

“They came with the car,” said the North Bergen motorist.

Such features are not always optional. Even when they are, eliminating one option when buying a car might mean eliminating a package of bundled options you might want. And low-profile tires have their advantages, too. Since the wheels are bigger, there’s usually room to accommodate bigger brakes. As for durability, tire makers keep improving their products with better designs and materials.

But judging by sales figures, low-profile tires will likely remain popular — even in Northeastern pothole capitals. So, how else can we protect ourselves?

After her first pothole mishap, Kerry Crane bought a five-year, $2,000 policy from BMW to cover subsequent repairs for nearly all her car’s features, including tires and wheels. At a yearly average of $400, that might seem steep, but maybe not if the pace of her claims remains at five a year.

Motorists could also lower their collision insurance deductibles to $500. Limiting financial liability this way, however, will surely raise premiums. In Chareen Kramer’s $801 example, limiting financial liability this way might have paid $304 of her out-of-pocket costs, but paring back her $1,500 deductible to $500 would surely have raised her premiums -- perhaps outstripping any savings..

She hopes to gain full reimbursement by filing a claim with the state, which in theory bears the responsibility for maintaining its roads in good repair. The state Treasury Department even spells out procedures for filing a claim. But here’s what that website doesn’t tell you:

State law – Title 59 – shields government from most damage claims unless negligence can be proved. If other drivers filed pothole complaints about the South Van Brunt Street entrance to Route 4, Chareen’s chances for reimbursement would increase substantially. Government is required to keep such records. To be valid, though, claims must be filed within 90 days of the damage, and it helps to file a police report.

Isn’t there a better way? How about insisting that automakers and tire companies focus on function over form?

Not according to Brian Shanahan.

“We don’t get to vote for the manufacturers,” said the veteran mechanic. “People should complain directly to their roads departments and elected officials when they don’t keep our roads in good shape. We all should be making calls and going to meetings.”

At $200 to $804, is the cost too little for road warriors to grasp the seriousness of the yawning jaws that routinely devour our tires and wheels?

If so, consider the financial loss that an AAA study attributed to pothole damage that afflicted 16 million Americans last year: A whopping $3 billion!

Email: cichowski@northjersey.com