No Road Hazard Warrantee

[stevedistefano]

Brand new 2002 LS430, less than 5K miles.

Apparently (per the dealer), the pot hole I hit, causung both right side tires to blow (broken belts) and one rim to bend, is my cost.

I thought (wrongly) that a car with such expensive tires ($273/per - dealer price) would come with a road hazard warantee???

Any experience here to share?

[SW03ES]

No, it doesn't. I can't think of any car company that does, that should be covered through your insurance company.

Think about it this way, why should it be the carmakers responsibility to pay for you running over a road hazard, thats not because of a defect in workmanship or anything they have control over.

Thats what insurance is for. Be careful though, most insurance companies will file that as "collision with the road" and it will be at fault which means your insurance can go up.

Hang on, I think I get what you mean, the TIREMAKER doesnt warranty the tires, thats a different story.

First of all, most tiremakers dont really warranty tires that come new on a vehicle like tires you buy in a store. Bridgestone for instance has a 30 day test drive policy (your tires are Bridgestone I'm sure, or Dunlop) that if you dont like the tires you can bring the car back and have the tires replaced free of charge. This is not usable buy folks like us that buy cars with Bridgestone tires already on them.

Dont pay Lexus for tires, the markup is unreal. Try www.tirerack.com. If you have the 16 inches then you probably have the Dunlop SP Sport 5000. It retails at $110 at tirerack. If you have the 17s (which I assume because of the incident, the 17s are more likely to have that problem) then you either have the Bridgestone Turanza ER33 at $140 or the Dunlop SP Sport 270 at $219. If you have the Dunlops, then I'd go ahead and have the dealer do it to save the aggrivation because with TireRack the tires have to be installed.

[UCF3]

The Car Manufacturer doesn't get the road hazard warranty somebody like Sears or Merchant Tire would have, and since your rim is bent, you're SOL. Sorry.

If you have a full size tire as your spare, I would suggest using that tire as your full time wheel, and get a 16 or 17" rim from a junk yard LS430. That would work.

You could put in a request here and see what kind of a price they come up with.

http://www.autosalvageyards.com/leftrequest.htm

http://www.uneedapart.com/used-lexus-parts.html

You could also ask a body shop or dealer for where they dump wrecked Lexus cars.