The UK's most pothole-proof car

Robert Powell takes a look at the cars that are most resistant to pothole damage and finds out what you can do if your motor is damaged by a causeway cavity...

They’re out there. Waiting on roads across the country for you – and they’re determined to ruin your day and leave you with a huge repair bill.

Yes, potholes are a growing problem across the UK, reportedly costing British motorists a whopping £2.8 billion every year.

But according to new research from Potholes.co.uk, some cars are better at dealing with holey roads than others...

Hole-hardened hatchbacks

Potholes.co.uk analysed 150,000 policies from Warranty Direct’s archive to reveal the manufacturers that produce the most pothole-resilient cars. The site looked for axle and suspension damage attributable to potholes and other road defects. From this it totted up an incident rate: that’s the likelihood of cars made by a certain manufacturer suffering pothole-type damage in an average year.

Here are the results:

Source: Potholes.co.uk

So Honda emerges as the most pothole-resistant make, with just 1.4% of its cars suffering damage attributable to road defects. Toyota and Hyundai come in second and third place with incident rates below 2%, followed by Nissan and Kia in fourth and fifth.

Now, onto the least resilient manufacturers...

Vulnerable vehicles

Here are the ten car makes sat at the bottom of Potholes.co.uk’s list:

Source: Potholes.co.uk

Chrysler emerges as the make most likely to suffer damage from potholes with a 12.2% incident rate, followed by Smart at 10.6%. High-end makes dominate the rest of the top five with Mercedes-Benz in third place, closely followed by Land Rover in fourth and Jaguar in fifth.

So there we have it: if you’re surrounded by potholes, you should ditch your Chrysler now and get hold of a Honda. That’s the theory anyway, but how accurate can these stats really be?

Accuracy

Now, Potholes.co.uk has used a large range of policies (150,000) in this study. But still, surveys like this can only ever be so accurate.

Obviously factors like mileage, vehicle location and vehicle use cannot be taken into account. And all of these variables skew the results as they guarantee that not all drivers hit the same number of potholes, meaning that as an indicator of car-resistance and strength, the stats are far from watertight.

To take an example: was anyone really surprised that Land Rovers experience large amounts of suspension and axle problems given their main use is driving cross country?

The number of cars of each make present in the country would also affect the accuracy of the results. So don’t go ditching your Land Rover for a Honda in the hope of avoiding axle damage when driving across fields quite yet!

Despite these inaccuracies, the study and Potholes.co.uk in general does highlight the growing threat of causeway crevices to the British motorist.

A widening problem

Potholes.co.uk estimates that damaged roads cause as many as one in five mechanical failures to cars and have an average repair cost to the British motorist of £309. However the site has identified claims stretching up to £2,420.

As I reported last year, the Chancellor put £100m aside in the last Budget to tackle the problem of potholes. But even this funding packet will not be enough. Potholes.co.uk estimates that even if every council was given the funding it needed to repair their broken roads, it would still take 11 years to catch up with the current backlog.

And it was for this reason that many people who commented on my last potholes article railed against the summary I included on how to recoup repair bills brought about by damaged roads from the council. One reader, mtjearly said “What is the point of suggesting people sue their council when even if they had the funding it would take councils 11 years to sort the problem out?”

Batcat went further, writing: “It’s entirely the driver’s fault for driving into potholes too fast or failing to avoid them. It’s in the Highway Code: you should never be going so fast that you can’t stop in the distance you can see to be clear”.

A contentious topic – what do you think?

Indeed, the obligation of the State when it comes to dealing with potholes is certainly a contentious topic.

So what’s your take?

Is it appropriate for councils to be paying out £50m in compensation claims in such a tight financial climate? Is £100m enough for repairing our broken roads? Or is it too much? Should we just learn to avoid potholes?

Have your say on the topic using the comment box below.

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