Potholes can wreck more than your tires and rims

Potholes, potholes, everywhere. Flat tires you already know about - those are as common as, well, potholes. But the craters you crawl over are damaging more than that - and your bill could be stunningly high.

You know all about how much potholes suck - and you don't need to read a story on a website to know that. But they're more than problematic, they're dangerous and costly - to the government trying to fix them and you.

Kenny Walters at Kenny's Lakes Area Auto Experts in Walled Lake has done a lot of work the past few weeks on tires but also on the cars. The damage is worse than blowing a tire or bending a rim.

"This is your lower control arm it could break right here at the ball joint or it could bend right here, If it breaks here this is your axle and this is going to rip out of the transmission," Kenny said.

The monsters bite - big time. One car ripped right through the metal. That'll cost the driver several hundred bucks alone.

"This is the sway bar link that attaches from the strut to the lower control arm," he says, showing a bent control arm. "This is supposed to be straight."

When you have a flat, you can see it. So how will you know if you have a bent control arm? Kenny says it will be very obvious.

"You'd know it, if all of a sudden your car is driving differently. The steering wheel may be crooked, it might be drifting in the lane, you might break and it might be shaking. That's a really good indication to get the car into the shop."

Even more frustrating, aside from being aware of the roads, Kenny says there's really nothing we can do.

"These roads you can take a brand new car and it will reduce the service life of these parts just due to the conditions of our roads."

But hey, if you're thinking you can maybe recoup some of your hard-earned money, you can also file a complain with the state, city, or county.