The effects of Chicago roads.

B6/7 S4/RS4
#1

If you don’t live in the Chicagoland area, you don’t realize what we have to put up with as far as road conditions. Every year they dump thousands of pounds of salt on our roads to clear the ice and snow. The result is potholes, ridges, and warped roads that can beat any car up. Here are a few pictures that hopefully get across the point.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/624015537.jpg

Here you can see that my old motor mounts are each in two pieces. If you are wondering whether or not I pulled them into two pieces, the answer is no. As soon as the third bolt holding in the lower motor mount bracket was removed, the whole thing fell out with the bottom half of the motor mount attached. This happened on both sides exactly the same way.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/841007693.jpg

In this image you can see my two Hotchkis front sway bar brackets. This happened while inching out of a parking spot in a city alley. It sounded horrible!

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/808203313.jpg

This is what the original snub mount looked like when I took it off. It was barely in one piece still. Kind of looks like an old dog chew toy to me.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/909438658.jpg

I can’t believe there is this much space between the OEM snub mount and the OEM snub bracket. I meant to take a picture of the 034 Snub Bracket with the Apikol Snub Mount but I forgot. However, there is no gap whatsoever, and man was it a pain in the ass to fit it together on the car.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/52763417.jpg

Finally, here is the remnants of the main bolt for my Stern Rear Control Arm Links. This is the main bolt that connects the two ball joints connecting the control arms to the sway bar. This is a big fucking bolt too, it’s an M10x1.5 65mm, if you go to any hardware store or auto store I guarantee you they won’t have this bolt. I spent half a day driving everywhere looking for a bolt to replace this one and it just wasn’t happening. Any place that had the bolt in this size only had them partially threaded which doesn’t work in this application. Fortunately, I contacted JHM and they said Stern would warranty the bolt and replace it for free.

This is just an idea of what you get with Chicago driving.

#2

Looks like you need an offroad truck!

I can honestly say I don’t miss the roads of the Northeast at all.

#3

Great post mdubz - same here in Ontario. My motor mounts, snub mount and rear diff mount looked the same as yours. Brutal.

#4

WOW been there. Great job getting some documentation on it. No one ever believes that the Chicago roads are that bad.

#5

great thread

#6

Yeah SLVRRS4, anywhere they use salt instead of sand is horrible. It’s insane that a state like Colorado can get away using only sand on the streets and then you come to the flat Midwest and they use salt everywhere.

Yeah the rubber in my rear differential mount actually had a hole in it the size of a nickel.

Yeah they are horrible. I was on Ashland & Roosevelt pulling up to the light facing south in the right lane. The street is actually warped pretty bad there and as I pulled over the warped section, I was being blocked from changing lanes, the car bottomed out, sounded like the exhaust, and got stuck. I had to back all the way up and change lanes to get around it. Thank God the light was red and I went over nice and slow otherwise there would have been serious damage.

Thanks everyone! I’m happy I finally got some good karma ;D

#7

Try living high in the mountains. It would blow your mind how fucked up a road can actually be.

#8

For sure, I’m no stranger to the mountains. For the last 20 years I’ve spent 2 weeks in Colorado in December and I’ve seen the plenty of awful gravel or dirt roads towards the top of the mountain. Probably one of the worst roads I’ve seen was actually this tiny little winding road up that went up to somebody’s house. Without an SUV there would have been no way to make it up to the house.

The reason I mentioned Colorado though was because of how much snow they deal with not to mention the winding mountain roads where you could easily slide off the side and right off a cliff. Compared to Chicago, the driving in Colorado can be much more dangerous in the snow but they still manage with just sand. In Chicago, yes we get a lot of snow, but were not driving on winding mountain roads with the possibility of falling 2000 feet and they still feel we need to use the more effective salt at the cost of terrible roads. Even our highways, I-290 especially, are warped and full of bumps and ridges. I’ve destroyed 3 sets of rims on I-290 alone.

#9

a few Canadian cities have been experimenting with some kind of liquid they spray before they expect freezing conditions. Works really well.

no salt, no sand, no ice.

they have to put it down BEFORE the freeze though…so it’s a bit tricky.

#10

Iirc it’s a liquid form of calcium chloride, which is a salt.

#11

everyone everywhere complains about how shitty their roads are (not to be a dick or downplay anyone’s stories)… and I’ll play along, in Worcester (fairly good sized city set on 7 hills) there are roads with entire sections missing. Typically they are on the ridiculously steep hills off of Belmont St, and without getting a picture its tough to convey how bad it is. So what happens is there are 4 ft drop offs in the road in the middle of the hill which splits the rd in two, if you drive over it your car will be standing on the front bumper.

#12

Not to be a topper or anything, but in Montreal there are potholes so large, after it rains the city hires lifeguards for them.

#13

Even in winter?

#14

Public skating skate patrollers in winter for the ice

(but it doesn’t rain much in winter)

#15

Do they have skate rentals?

#16

Suburban roads are great. City roads suck. They re-pave roads all the time in DuPage county. Cook…not so much

I’m pretty sure we also have that same stuff saki is talking about. Trucks go around spraying it on the road before snowstorms. Just found this online in a Q&A webpage for a town close to me:

[quote]The liquid being applied to the streets is a solution of 70% saltwater (salt brine), 20% sugar beet solution (Geomelt) and 10 % calcium chloride.
[/quote]

#17

I sit corrected. Thanks Joe.

#18

^yea beet juice.

It’s not going to surprise me if I find similar conditions when I start tearing into mounts and suspension/steering soon. Not something I am really looking forward to.

#19

[/quote]
I have seen trucks spraying the streets actually and never really knew what they were. I see the salt trucks way more often though. Suburban roads are definitely way better, DuPage also being way better than Cook. I’m actually right on the border just barely in Cook. If you’ve ever been through Hinsdale there are a few terrible roads that you wanna steer clear of in a low car. The main thing I’m worried about in the Suburbs is the railroad crossings. The crossings that haven’t been fixed recently tend to be quite rough going over. It’s a little bit depressing to know the road construction around here will never be totally complete.

#20

Salt destroyed the body panels and floor pans on my old mustang, as well as the suspension and rims, and that car was cheap to repair in comparison. I know alot of places are really trying to get away from salt because it gets into the water supply, but it really does work well to prevent the dreaded black ice. The brine solution I suppose is a compromise of a little less salt, although I’m not sure it would work better since the solution can drain off the roads pretty easily and I thought some roads were designed with a slight crown or cant for that very purpose, but I could be wrong.

In San Diego most of my problems came from elevation issues and bottoming out.

Now that I’m in Texas, I have unpaved roads, gravel, potholes, massive speed mountains, street drainage gulleys… but… no salt.