Cars

Six cars we would not buy for a pothole spring

Big wheels, thin sidewalls and soft control arms make March expensive.

By Rosalind Two Bears · July 22, 2026

March in the valley is a demolition derby where the road is the other car. The frost comes out of the ground, the patches from November let go, and by the third week Route 9 through Hadley has holes in it you could lose a cat in.

Some cars handle that. Some cars send you a bill. The six below are the ones I would not sign for if I had to drive here between February and May, ranked from bad to worse. The sixth is the worst and it is not close.

Ned Kasprzak at Route 9 Auto in Hadley pulled his spring alignment invoices for me, and the counter at Cold Spring Motors in Northampton priced every tire here on a Tuesday in July. None of these cars is broken. All of them are expensive to keep in round wheels.

1. Volkswagen Golf GTI

The GTI on its base 18-inch wheels is a fine valley car. Order the 19s and you get a 235/35 tire with three and a half inches of sidewall, and that is where it goes wrong.

Cold Spring quoted $265 a tire for the summer rubber it comes on, $1,060 for a set before mounting. The GTI rides firm from the factory, and on the frost heaves between Hadley and Amherst that firmness turns into a bang through the seat that the 18s mostly absorb.

The fix is free at order time. Buy the smaller wheel and the problem goes away, which is why the GTI is only number one.

2. Mini Cooper S

Short wheelbase, stiff springs, 225/40R18 tires, and on a lot of them run-flats. Run-flats have stiff sidewalls by design, which is the point of them and also why the Mini pounds over a patched seam like a dropped toolbox.

Kasprzak's complaint is what happens after the hit. A run-flat with a bruised sidewall gets replaced rather than patched, and Cold Spring wants $290 for one. He has straightened three Mini wheels this year at $140 apiece in Chicopee, which is the good outcome. The bad outcome is $520 for a new one from the dealer.

Fun car. Buy it with regular tires and keep the 17s on it through April.

3. BMW 3 Series on the M Sport 19s

A 330i on the standard 18s is a comfortable, sensible car for this valley. The M Sport package puts a staggered 19 under it, 225/40 front and 255/35 rear, usually on run-flats, and the rear sidewall is barely three inches of anything.

Staggered means no rotating, so the rears wear out on their own schedule and you buy tires twice as often as you expect. Cold Spring quoted $310 a front and $355 a rear. Kasprzak has straightened two 3 Series rims since January, both bent on the same stretch of Bay Road, and the dealer wheel behind them is $640.

He also sees these twice a year for alignment, $115 a visit, because a 35-series tire tells you nothing until the camber has eaten the inside shoulder.

4. Cadillac CT4-V

The CT4-V is a good small sedan on summer tires and a suspension tuned for a road surface Massachusetts does not have in March. The 235/40R18s are $280 each, and summer compound goes hard below about 45 degrees, so in early spring you are running a black hockey puck over a broken seam.

What actually costs money is the alignment. Kasprzak says the ones he sees come in with the rear inside edges gone by 25,000 miles unless the owner checks it twice a year. I watched one come off his lift with cords showing on the inner shoulder and clean tread outboard.

Winter tires on a second set of 17-inch wheels fixes most of this and costs about $1,300. Budget it up front or you will spend it anyway.

5. Tesla Model 3 Performance

Twenty-inch wheels, 235/35 front and 275/30 rear, and roughly 4,000 pounds pressing all of it into whatever is under the tire. That is about a thousand pounds a corner working against two and a half inches of sidewall.

Cold Spring quoted $330 a front tire and $375 a rear, $1,410 a set, and the staggered fitment means you cannot rotate your way out of it. There is no spare, which here means a tow from wherever the hole was. Kasprzak has done four Model 3 rims this year and two of them were beyond straightening. A replacement wheel is $550 and up.

The ride is the other half. On the chip seal west of Goshen the car sends every joint straight into the cabin, and the quiet drivetrain leaves nothing to cover it up. The standard Model 3 on 18s is a different car over the same road, and this is a choice you make in the configurator.

6. Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack

This is the worst thing on this list to own through a valley spring, and it weighs almost three tons, which makes it worse.

The Scat Pack runs a 305/35ZR20 summer tire at each corner. Cold Spring wants $420 apiece, $1,680 a set, and that is a wide, low, soft-compound tire carrying about 1,450 pounds a corner on three and a half inches of sidewall. It has no chance against a square-edged hole on Damon Road, and it is the wrong tire entirely below 45 degrees, which in Hadley is most of March.

Kasprzak has straightened five 20-inch Charger wheels since January and sent two more back as scrap. The dealer wheel is $700. A car this heavy also eats front tires on the inside edge if the alignment drifts, and he checks these twice a year at $115 because owners keep asking why the tread is gone at 18,000 miles.

The car does what it is built to do. It is built to do it somewhere with better pavement.

"People buy the 20s and then they buy a set of 18s in April," Kasprzak said. "Then they have the 20s in the garage and they are mad at me about it."

What to do instead

Buy the smallest wheel the trim allows. A 17-inch wheel with a 60-series tire has almost two inches more sidewall than a 20 with a 35, and that sidewall is the only thing between the pothole on King Street and a $700 rim.

Get the alignment checked in May, after the road crews have patched. It is $115 and it buys you a set of tires.

If you already own one of these on the big wheels, a second set of steel wheels in a winter size fits nearly all of them. Ask for the size in writing, or the parts counter will sell you the pretty ones again.