Potholes are in the election spotlight
As the political parties currently vying for our votes turn their focus to transport, the following headline caught our attention on the BBC website today:
Labour pledges to fix a million potholes a year in England
We’ve no idea if 1,000,000 potholes are a lot, or just a fraction of the actual number of craters that currently plague our highways. We will find out though, as we are currently speaking to every council in the country to find out about the state of their local roads. More on that soon.
In the meantime, though, we want to talk about the damage that is caused.
We repair more wheels than anyone else, 1.35 million and counting, so it’s fair to say that no-one knows more about the havoc that potholes cause than we do.
In the last year alone, the number of buckles and cracks we address as part of our refurbishment process has increased by 39%. Nearly 1 in 10 of all the wheels we see is no longer straight, undoubtedly a result of one encounter too many with a pothole.
We’ve all experienced that clanging bang as we hit a “big-un” but how many of us know that a buckled wheel is not the end of the world. Now we all know that car manufacturers would rather see a new wheel purchased rather than an old wheel repaired (so much for sustainability) but how many of us know that you can easily get a wheel straightened quickly and cost-effectively at your local The Wheel Specialist site?
It's not the end of the road for old wheels, far from it. The vast majority of wheels that aren’t 100% straight or round can be returned safely and cost-effectively to something circular, and the results are transformative. Vibration, resonance, excessive wear and tear on tyres and even excessive road noise are all symptoms of a buckled rim and all can be banished via our straightening process.
We think that a lot of motorists are driving around with bent wheels because they don’t know that there is an easy solution (other than a profanely expensive new wheel).
It’s worth looking at your own experiences – have you had a problem with wheel balancing? Have you had to keep going back to your local tyre fitter to get them to try and sort it out? Chances are your wheels are closer to a 50-pence piece in shape than a circle, and that’s why we want to get our message out there. You won’t “fix” a wheel with a load of wheel weights, that’s just a sticking plaster, it needs to be straightened properly and one of the 22 The Wheel Specialist sites are the destination for a proper fix – and not a lot of people know that…
That’s why we’re launching our own manifesto and why we at The Wheel Specialist are standing for the “B*ll*cks to Buckles Party”. Come on down to find out more about one pledge that will make your life better - 100% guaranteed.
And that has to be an election winner!
