The car wheel that can’t be wrecked by potholes

DRIVING through a pothole can damage your tyres, rock the suspension and even crack your shiny alloy wheels.

So a wheel that is apparently able to ‘eliminate road-based damage’ will be welcomed by motorists used to bumping along our crumbling highways.

Michelin’s Acorus alloy has been developed over the past two years and features tough but flexible rubber flanges built directly into the metal rim where it meets the tyre. These flanges absorb impacts when the wheel strikes potholes, according to Michelin.

Terry Gettys, research and development boss at the company, told Auto Express magazine that the technology could be rolled out to other manufacturers and could also be ‘retro-fitted’ to existing cars.

At the wheel’s launch in Montreal, Mr Gettys said: ‘It should completely eliminate road- based damage. Acorus also performs better than a standard tyre on rutted roads.’

Michelin says it will cost slightly more than a conventional wheel and a figure will be announced at the Frankfurt motor show in September. Any tyre can be fitted to the Acorus and fitters will not need specialist equipment to carry this out.

Councils paid more than £6million to drivers in compensation for pothole damage last year, according to the latest figures. The AA welcomed the development from Michelin but said that the ultimate responsibility lies with Whitehall ‘to spend more on fixing roads’.

In May the RAC revealed that it dealt with more than 6,500 breakdown jobs linked to poor road surfaces in the first quarter of the year, 63 per cent more than in the same period last year.

Problems included broken suspension springs, damaged shock absorbers and bent wheels.