Drove over a large sunken drain in middle of road, next thing I know the van drops to the left and I'm sort of sliding ... I get it over to side of road safely, get out and my ****** wheel had fallen off!

Seems the pot hole snapped the lower ball joint which dropped the van snapping the wishbone, pulled the drive shaft out of the gearbox, ripped the brake hoses off and broke the caliper... its at the garage now, had a massive flat bed lorry, an rac van and another recovery vehicle there to get it picked up the garage are going to take it apart tomorow, just praying that it hasnt damaged the gearbox casing

either way its gonna be expensive, but just seriously hope it hasn't damaged the gear box!!

 

you can take the council to court for that and get your money back! its been done before, make sure u take pics of the pot hole before they fix it

 

Got all the neccessary pictures, council already been called and they sent someone out straight away, he said that because the "pot hole has no sharp/straight edges it would not be classed as a defect" ??? and said that there must have been something wrong with my van cos some other cars were driving over it fine... I just said to him that the garage would assess whether it was at fault or if it was ok and the pot hole was to blame.

It was 3 large drains in the road that have sunk down, theres a drop into it and then it raises back up , so theres no sharp edges to it as such, just a drop then a bump.. hard to explain but it obviously managed to damage my van.

I ******* hope they will pay out, cos its going to be fooking expensive to get fixed.

 

yo craig i used to work on re instatement when i was an office boy at southern water and anything below 2 " is deemed to be dangerous. Yo have got a bad neck now and a scraed of using the van take them for all they got man that is too much for you too fork out on your own. Just imagine that was you on the bike and seriously damaging you leg or something dont give up on this one man.

 

Sparks thats some bad luck mate but you should be o.k. with the gearbox i fixed loads of these transporters with same problem and i havn't seen a gearbox break yet, when the bottom ball joint is worn out you don't need much of a dip in the road to make em seperate, sounds like a nightmare to start with but most of the ones iv'e done only needed a new lower wishbone to put them right, keep me fingers crossed for ya mate

 

Hi Toby, I didn't measure the dip for the drains, but the council bloke said hes sending a van out to measure it (as theyd have to close a bit of the road off as its a main road) I don't know if its more than 2 inches drop, but I hope it is!! I am scared to drive that fookin van now, It's getting sold as soon as it's fixed (partly cos I need to sell it to afford to fix it, but also cos I don't seem to get on with it!)

Tee-rex, the mechanic at the garage said a few "oooh" and "ahhh" and "hmmm thats gonna be expensive" type things.. he said it shouldn't be too bad provided the gear box isn't damaged, but he said on first look it looks like the end plate thing has been damaged, I don't know what that means but he said theres a possibility of it being very expensive. but on the other hand, until its been stripped down and checked out properly, I don't wanna say tooooo much... will know by tomorow night hopefully !

 

lol why were you driving that piece of **** to begin with

 

You 'mericans would never appricieate the german quality of VW transporters! lovely vans, I'll be buying another one ready for next summer (albeit a newer nicer one) it's a good van, I just got unlucky. It's done me well for thousands of miles in the past year.

I'd love a sweeeet looking pick up, but it rains too much here, too much hassle compared to a nice dry van!

 

go eat some tea and crumpets....

whats wrong with havin a truck in the rain?

 

Bike would get wet! The biscuits stored in the back would get soggy too, nothing worse than soggy biscuits!!

 

anything that has vw and tdi on it is bad ***. they get great diesel mileage :YEAH

 

Take loads of photos and keep a log of all events calls and so on ,then take them to the council if they say their not paying tell the you will take legal action, then get the local press on board and wait for the cheque.

My mate works for eon and he says you well in line for ££££

 

I spoke to someone at the garage, they havent stripped it yet but hes had a good look and thinks I might have gotten away with no damage to the gearbox... he doesn't know 100% for sure yet but he says not to worry too much just yet, as he thinks the box is okay. Will know for sure tomorow. but hopefully he's right.

I've got pictures of the damage to my van, the recovery people + recovery note, and i will get a report from the garage once theyve assessed it all... will take that all to the council and see what they say.

 

wow, ur still around go kill yourself bitch!

 

The picture I took isn't really all that great, doesn't really look that bad in the pic... but this is what I drove over, the main one in the middle.. I don't think its 2 inches or more deep to be honest but it is pretty harsh on the suspension when you drive over it..

spoken to a few people this evening and a couple said they know the drain I'm on about and they make sure they avoid it as they know what its like... so its not just me thats noticed it, i wonder if theres any way to find out if any other complaints have been made about it?

Like I say, picture doesn't really do it justice, but this is what I drove over when the front wheel fell off, so it cant be too good...

 

The monkey still looks happy on the plus side.

Your van has been making that fooking rattling noise over bumps for ages now, so they may try and blame you for lack of maintainance.

 

yea im still around, you gonna ****** do somethin? Easy to talk **** from all the way in the UK, isnt it....

 

It's been in the garage to sort that so its not lack of maintenance as such... maybe I can blame the garage for not fixing it properly, I dunno... have to wait and see what the garage report comes back as.

 

Blame everyone. Then point fingers.

 

hope you get it sorted. spoke to a guy at work, and he said, council should have to pay!!
failin that, go and ditch your bike on it, and get a payment :YEAH