Tips to save your tires from potholes

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) - With a brief hiatus from the harsh winter weather it's now time to deal with those dreaded potholes.

For the first time this year, Green Bay had three crews on the road all day filling pot holes.

"One of the problems we have in winters like this where we have the warm spells and cold spells, we get the potholes that start to form" explains Tony Fietzer, Street Superintendent for the City of Green Bay

Filling the potholes is no easy task.

It makes us "very nervous because people don't slow down" says Tom Krueger , a Truck Driver for the City of Green Bay. "We have all our lights on, wearing a vest, people are constantly flying by you look up and half of them are on the phone".

With the recent rain city crews need to remove water from the potholes before they can be filled.

Green Bay uses a hot mix. As Krueger explains "it stays in the hole better and it goes in soft and hardens in the hole".

However, the city calls this a band aid until spring.

"Right now though we would love to have a permanent repair we are just trying to make it as safe as possible" says Fietzer.

Partially because of potholes it is busy time of year for fixing flats at Matthews Tire.

"We see a lot of times if your tire is underinflated and you hit a pothole you can bend your rim and knock your tire off of it. We see a lot of those" says Tom Winninghoff, a Manager at Matthews Tire in Green Bay.

Hitting a pothole can also throw off your alignment, so have it checked once a year.

However, it is not only potholes that are wrecking havoc on tires this time of year.

Because of people plowing snow there's a lot of junk, like nails, on the road.

Matthews also recommends overfilling your tires a bit when temperatures drop below freezing.

That will give them a chance against any potholes.