My wife would agree! She drove into the Aldi outdoor car park at Toronto and followed the left turn arrow,as you do. My car mounted the narrow curb (separating the entry from the adjacent parking spaces which were empty) and the left front wheel then fell off the other side, the chassis dropping onto the concrete curb with a loud ‘crunch’. I think I let out an expletive. But in her defense, on looking at it later there had been a metal post near the end of the curb, broken off at its base at some stage in the past, and there were numerous scrape marks on the curb… The curb was very difficult to see from the driver’s perspective. The NRMA patrolman checked the car and no damage was found. He said he had attended several cars with damaged wheels from that same spot in the recent past. (I do intend to getting around to contacting Aldi, and may ask for compensation for the fuller check from our dealer service after we drove a few hundred kms home.)
Could this sort of incident cause a tiny crack in the alloy that might cause failure at a later date?
If alloys are lighter than steel, a plus would be more manageable wheel changes at the side of the road, as well as checking a full sized spare wheel’s tyre pressure. Although for the last 12 years, I have used an extension tube screwed onto the spare and poked through the wheel. No more lifting up the spare wheel to get at the tyre valve for me. I don’t know why car makers don’t include one in new cars - so much simpler. They would only cost them $10 or less. I found mine at truck/farm-type parts store in a regional town. They might be hard to source in big cities.
