Road safety campaigners are concerned about the proliferation of potholes across the country and the potential damage they could do to vehicles as the New Year approaches and the great summer holiday commute is in full swing.
It's now confirmed the Transport Minister has asked officials for a "please explain" but the Opposition said it's too late.
Road safety campaigner Geoff Upson is all too familiar with New Zealand's pothole plight.
Newshub met Upson in the Auckland suburb of Kumeu where he was filming a pothole on State Highway 16.
"It doesn't matter where you go in the country, you are going to see potholes, or at least you're going to see temporary patch-ups of potholes," Upson said.
With so many kiwis hitting the roads over the summer, the Automobile Association (AA) is worried.
"If we don't get on top of it now, it's only going to get worse - the roads are essentially at a tipping point right now," AA's Dylan Thomsen said
A Government spokesperson told Newshub Transport Minister Michael Wood has "sought assurances from Waka Kotahi in August that there was a clear plan to communicate to the public around why potholes were appearing on parts of the network and the repair plan".
The spokesperson said the Government was "investing close to $7 billion in local road and State Highway maintenance" from 2021 to 2024.
"Motorists across New Zealand are seeing more and more potholes on our roads and what the minister's done is just order a working group," National Transport spokesperson Simeon Brown said.
For its part, the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) said it was undertaking its largest-ever programme of spring and summer road renewals.
NZTA said between September 2022 and April 2023, more than 2400 kilometres of State Highway will be resealed or rebuilt - that's more than 10 percent of the network.
In October, dozens of cars were pictured with punctures on a stretch of highway over the Kamai Ranges and figures released to the ACT Party revealed in the first 10 months of 2022, Waka Kotahi received over 500 complaints of pothole damage to vehicles.
"The number of complaints to NZTA about unmaintained roads damaging vehicles has doubled in the past five years," ACT deputy leader Brooke van Velden said.
