Whos to blame?

[eugopnosaj 0]

My girlfriend and I have been on holiday in the Lake district and we came back yesterday and stopped at the Watford Gap services on the M1 as the missus' needed the toilet. I pulled into the carpark and before i knew it CRUNCH! The car rolled into a set of potholes and cracked the bumper and splitter on the curb. I wasn't going fast at all but as i came off the power the car just rolled! The carpark is full of them and they are all really close to the kerb, i took photos showing the damage and the road surface.

 

Now my question is have I got a claim here? The splitter has cracked on both sides, the offside taking the most of the damage and damaged and mishaped the lower grill and bumper. The kerb in front shows scars from previous cars falling into the same trap. See link http://photobucket.com/vrwatfordgap?albumview=slideshow

 

On another note i managed 37mpg up there, getting 255miles to half a tank and about 35mpg back getting home with 515miles with enough left in the tank probably for another 20 miles! Not bad for a VR eh!

[VR6 0]

Devil's advocate ... it just looks like the car is low and you've driven into the curb. The potholes you mention don't look particularly bad in the photos.

 

Not disputing what you've said, that's just how it appears from the pictures.

[eugopnosaj 0]

Yeah I know, it was quite hard to get the photos unfortunately, the ones next to me were worse but when I came back to get some photos they were filled.

[Purple Tom 0]

Live and learn I think mate. I never drive any of my cars into spaces forwards because of the possibility of damaging the front bumper in exactly the way you have, it doesn't take much to creep forwards and before you know it, crunch.

 

As VR6 has said, the potholes don't look too deep, but really in my opinion if you drive a lowered car (or even a standard car with a low front end) then its the drivers responsibility to ensure parts of the car don't make contact with the ground/kerb/street furniture. Thousands of cars have probably parked there with no issues, and I imagine the potholes have been caused by constant dry steering as people manouvre their cars in the bays, combined with frost damage/rain etc.

 

Sorry to say that, I'm not criticising your driving either, just saying what I think.

 

Cheers

Tom

[eugopnosaj 0]

That's fine, I appreciate your comments, the potholes are much deeper than the photos show, I went to park the car and wasn't expecting it to roll down the pothole which was when it hit the kerb. I was only wondering whether I would be able to make any kind of claim against the people who own/maintain the car-park but clearly not

[dr_mat 0]

You'd only have a leg to stand on if you could prove that the car park maintainers had been made aware of the potholes at least a month before you rolled into it. But even then I think it'd be a push, since you *rolled* into them. Use a phrase like that and it sounds like you weren't in control of the vehicle.. ;)

I think in the circumstances your best outcome would be to inform the site of the car park condition and give them an opportunity to offer you reparations, but I wouldn't push it if they just said "thanks" and "sod off".. :)