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Bangalore's moonscape @140kmph? Sure!

I also think the damage is much worse than it seems. the suspension's head has given way due to sudden violent compression, but a lot of ancillary parts would've either given up or damaged to a critical state which may not be visually apparent. I'm guessing this one's looking at major suspension part swaps and possibly loads of alignment issues post-repair. Not even accounting for stuff that might be damaged due to the suspension intruding the engine bay.

Christ on a bike, that is terrible. And here I thought getting a shredded tyre from a huge pothole was bad. That's just savage, I'd be devastated if a pothole did that to my car.

Agree with DrMohitG.

1) There is no damage to bumper which itself is quite low in the first place ( as its a low slung sedan ). Might be an indicator that the pothole was not very deep or rather it was not a big enough pothole.

2) The tyre did not burst. Usually, in case of a huge impact that manages to dislodge suspension, the tyre is more likely to burst and even there can be damage to the rim. This does not seem to have happened.

Its something else most probably. But the damage is really severe. If the suspension mounting actually gave up at 140, its really nice to know that the car did not end up into other lane and a big crash was somehow averted.

I was walking around the service area looking for BMW 5-series with tubeless tyres installed with the sales rep. It was my second set and was considering tubeless to run-flats. Thats when i walked past this particular car and asked the sales rep what happened.

The incident happened somewhere on the way to Mangalore and the car was towed to Bangalore to get the suspension fixed. I asked the sales rep the exact same questions that Dr.Mohit and Chetan have put up. There was absolutely no damage to the car except for a lil dent behind the wheel arch. Usually one would expect the front fender and bumper to take some of the damage as well but there was none in this case. There was a small lump on the bonnet probably because of the impact of the shock pushing into the engine bay. In most of these type of cars there's barely any space in the engine bay so the shock seemed to have hit the bonnet causing a big lump (dont have pictures to show this as the bonnet was kept up all the time).

As far as repairs go, its not only the shocks, suspension and the related connectors (lower arm, tie rod, ball joint etc etc) but also the steering column would probably need a replacement if I am right?

Overall, a very scary sight. I have the same model of 5-series in the 525i form. Car is expected to take over a month to get fixed. Insurance guys have still not given the go-ahead for the repairs apparently.:Shockked:

@Fullrevs Any idea how old the car is?
Asking, since I have also gone over a pothole (unsighted in daylight due to being on a shaded part of road under a tree) at 120 KMPH and came out only with my rims bent slightly.

But then I drive a boat:uncontrol

The thing is for such a heavy impact that broke away the suspension, the alloys and tyres are intact. From my last experience in my 3 series, I was under the impression that the alloy bore the maximum brunt.

Moral of the story: Be careful with those potholes in your BMW.

I guess it was one massive pothole which are many now after the rains.

But still , looking at the damage I am surprised this was caused by a pothole. On a smaller car, it is possible. Surprised a BMW in ended up like this.

It looks like in the given circumstances, the impact was majorly directed vertically along the suspension assembly, causing the head to give way and hit the bonnet, but neither the broken suspension nor the wheel assembly moved laterally to damage the fender and surrounding areas. Like mentioned earlier, it probably also saved the occupants from potentially fatal loss of control.

Alloys breaking in such situations can actually be a blessing in disguise. An intact alloy can potentially mean the impact shock got transmitted further up, and other suspension parts and steering/drive-shaft components may have borne the brunt instead. Some of those may not have broken per se, but may have had structural integrity compromised which may turn catastrophic at a later incident with similar (or even lesser) impact.

This will probably need a thorough inspection of all attached components and a lot of preventive part swaps just to be safe.

For the moral, be extra-careful with any car on our roads, esp. with the expensive ones. Must sting like hell having to pay a bomb for someone else's incompetence in maintaining roads to decent standards.

something similar happened on my 3 series couple of Years back , speed was around 80-100 on a speed bump just before Toll , I continued driving for 100 Kms or so without even realising except my car was pulling on right side , we went for test drive and still guys could not figure , only when they used lift , whole wheel assembly came out but it was replaced Free of Charge by BMW :)

Happened 2 yrs back with my 330i as well. The stiff suspension, ~100-120kph, and a huge pothole out of nowhere, not only got my rear axle screwed pretty bad, the car suffered a constant rear alignment & suspension issue for over a year which kept eroding the inner lining of the rear tires every few thousand kilometers. We went through 4 sets of rear tires in that duration.

And the 'experts' at BMW service took over a year to understand and fix the issue, until I bashed them in an email to head offices in India and Germany.

In another separate incident, our car was doing about 80 one foggy winter morning, when out nowhere came a huge bump. That almost took out the entire rear suspension (it was half broken which we tied with cloth :eek:) and then somehow drove the car back to service center at really slow speeds. Any other regular Indian car would have gone over it without much of an issue.

Bottom line is this - there is a huge difference in the amount of desi-pothole-torture that a low profile tyre/wheel & stiff suspension can take v/s high profile tyres & soft sus. The outgoing 3 and 5 series models (E90 & E60/61 respectively) were notorious for having such set-ups, extremely unfavorable for Indian roads.

Though it makes for amazing handling driver's cars, in India one would be in tears most of the time.

Trust me the tires did not need to get burst for this thing to have happened. I am saying from personal experience.

This accident occurred on the Airoli flyover off Mulund, on eastern express highway at 1.30 Am today. One of the co-passengers died and the rest including driver got injuries. The spot where the accident occurred is poorly lit. Apparently, accident was caused by an autorickshaw that suddenly appeared in front of the car. The driver then rammed into a divider on the Airoli flyover and overturned.

Source: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/A...31102014012009

Since you mention mangalore - there is a notorious car-killer pothole on the mangalore-udupi stretch of NH17, somewhere near the entrance to mangalore port. I seriously suspect whether that is the one responsible. Totally unpredictable, smooth surface everywhere around for the past few km's and then, as if from nowhere, a neat, narrow, deep little pothole (the roads are concrete, so the edges of the pothole remain forever sharp) right on the divider line. I was a victim to this once - fully shot tyre and bent rims (was doing 90) ; there was a city who suffered the same fate 5 minutes later. Both cars were stranded on the roadside at 1am in the night. The next two times I drove the same stretch I was careful enough to dodge it, but I saw 3-4 cars pulled up in the same location as I and the city guy were.
Truly notorious - this pothole would be the rajnikanth of all potholes - highest hit rate.

What was the driver thinking of?

He/she wasn't thinking ..thats why the accident happened.
Probably sleeping, talking over phone etc etc

This Vestibule bus had run over the divider on Omr road Chennai last night. There was no vehicle in front which makes me think it could have been a break failure and the driver took it over the divider to stop.