In the morning darkness Monday, a pothole on Punchbowl Street swallowed the left front wheel of Michael De Carlo's pickup truck, cracking the rim and costing him more than $1,000 in repairs.

"I couldn't see the pothole," De Carlo said. "I had to buy four new rims. The ones I had are discontinued."

He is far from alone. Ten days of rain turned Honolulu's streets into an obstacle course and drivers are heading to auto repair shops for wheel alignments and new tires. De Carlo now has four new rims on his pickup because one of his rims cracked and his tire flattened.

Jim Baldauf, Lex Brodie's Tire Co. senior sales staffer, said five tires with holes or dented rims that were stacked near the Kaka'ako shop's entrance were victims of potholes.

"We've had a lot of business and more traffic coming in from customers with pothole damage in the past week," Baldauf said.

"We always get a spike in calls and e-mails after significant rainfall," said Larry Leopardi, city Department of Facility Maintenance division of road maintenance chief. "There's always more tire damage due to potholes when there are more potholes. (But) the number of complaints is going down because of the number of roads we reconstruct."

So far this year, the city has repaired 61,195 potholes, with the most repairs done in March. Last year, the city filled 68,586 potholes that dotted the 1,100-plus miles of mostly residential roads that the county owns.

"The worst is in Honolulu because of the volume of traffic," said Leopardi.

Neither the state nor the city could say how many pothole calls they got or how many potholes were patched in November and the first 10 days of December.

On average, the state receives about 10 calls a day from motorists complaining about potholes, said Scott Ishikawa, state Department of Transportation spokesman. That's a far cry from the high of 50 to 60 calls a day in 2003, Ishikawa said.

Potholes usually occur when a lot of rainwater collects on the road and seeps through cracks in the pavement. When those sections become saturated with water, the underlying layers can break down under the stress of moving vehicles, leading to potholes, Leopardi said.

More potholes could be on the way as the state still has several more months of the winter season to go, said Ray Tanabe, National Weather Service forecaster.

In the past 14 days, 5.46 inches of rain have fallen at the normally dry Honolulu International Airport, Tanabe said. The airport usually gets about 2 1/2 inches of rain during the winter season, which runs October through April, he said. During the typically dry, trade wind weather of the summer, less than a half inch of rain falls at the airport, Tanabe said.

"We are predicting an above-normal rainfall season based on the cooler-than-normal water around the equator," he said.

The city even had to fix potholes reported in advance of Sunday's Honolulu Marathon, where runners dodged a few potholes that developed immediately before the 26.2-mile race from Ala Moana through Hawai'i Kai and back to Kapi'olani Park, said Ken MacDowell, co-race director.

But most of the holes had been filled in, MacDowell said.

"I personally drove the course the week before the race and reported them to the city before the race," MacDowell said. "The city has done a great job before the race."

Whether running or driving, potholes can mean a lot of aggravation.

At the Sears automotive department at Ala Moana, manager Randy Torres said business the past three days has increased from customers with pothole damage,.

"Potholes more often than not can affect suspension over time, unless you hit a large one then it might damage the tire and the suspension itself. Typically, it's not just one pothole, but pothole after pothole that causes problems," Torres said.

The state and city say the best defense is reconstructing or repaving roadways, rather than just filling potholes with more asphalt. The state has resurfaced more than 25 miles of roadway since 2004 as part of a $100 million resurfacing effort, Ishikawa said. More road repaving is being planned on Pu'uloa Road, Ala Moana, the airport viaduct and Kamehameha Highway from Wahiawa to Mililani.

De Carlo, the motorist, said he wishes Punchbowl Street by The Queen's Medical Center had been repaved, which could have saved his rims.

"If I had hit that pothole at a good speed, I could have gotten into an accident," he said. "Luckily, I wasn't going that fast. I don't know what kind of job they're doing, but one good rain and the potholes are back."

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com.