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Winter weather, potholes hitting cars hard

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By David Heitz | Tuesday, February 12, 2008 6:48 AM CST | () comments

For Quad-City drivers, the unmistakable sounds of winter driving have arrived: “Chug-chug-chug-chug-chug.”

Or, worse yet, “click.”

Or the dreaded, “Ka-boom!”

Cars that turn over but don’t start, dead batteries and damage from hitting mammoth potholes landed cars in repair shops at a feverish pace in recent days and kept tow trucks scurrying.

Kevin Lamfers, service manager at Lujack Honda in Davenport, said alignment issues have become commonplace at the garage there. “We’ve seen as much as bent tie rod ends to bent rims, hubcaps being broken, ball joints getting loose. With some cars, the mudflaps are loose or torn off, depending on the severity of the pothole.”

At Everett’s Body Shop in Bettendorf, owner Everett Sayles said he has seen everything from failed fuel pumps to blown-out motors caused by a lack of antifreeze. Everett’s also provides towing, which has been a burgeoning business in recent days.

“We picked one up Saturday night after it hit a pothole in Bettendorf,” he said. “It knocked the transmission out.”

Katie Connard, an employee of Fred’s Towing in Davenport, said the company received

60 requests for tows between

6 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday.

Lamfers said vehicle owners need to check their tire pressure every time they get gas during cold weather. “For every 10 degrees in ambient temperatures, you can lose up to a pound of air. So, when we have these big extremes of

60 degrees one day to 20 degrees the next, you can lose four pounds of air.”

He also suggested drivers slow down for the potholes, adding, “The harder you hit them, the more damage you’re going to do.”

Area public works directors said they cannot plow streets and fill potholes at the same time. They ask drivers to be patient for pothole repairs.

“When we say something is an emergency, that term means something,” Davenport Public Works Director Dee Bruemmer said. “It means we have an extraordinary problem that we’re trying to deal with. It’s not going to be comfortable for the driver, and it’s going to be difficult for some time.”

Area could get 5 inches of snow

Most of the Quad-Cities area is expected to get two to five inches of snow overnight into today, with slightly higher accumulation to the north.

From the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City areas, across northern Scott County to the Sterling-Rock Falls area, a band of snow dropped two to four inches of snow Monday afternoon, leading to more expected accumulation, National Weather Service meteorologist Mike McClure said.

Snow should taper off about mid-morning, but flurries could linger into mid-day, McClure said. Most of the accumulating snow was to fall late Monday night into this morning.

David Heitz can be contacted at

(563) 383-2202 or dheitz@qctimes.com.

Comment on this story at qctimes.com.

Plot a pothole

Had your teeth rattled by a car-eating pothole? First, call the city where the pothole is located. Here are the phone numbers: Davenport: 326-7923; Bettendorf: 344-4088; Moline: 797-0425; Rock Island: 732-2200; East Moline: 752-1573. Second, go online CLICK HERE and add it to our pothole map. Find out where the worst potholes are in the Quad-Cities.