check those lug nuts!

bigballer · Jun 23, 2012

lost a wheel today while driving, luckily was only going about 25MPH and heard this awful grinding next thing i know the backend drops and the left rear wheel rolls right past me as i am pulling over to the shoulder.. luckily there was no oncoming traffic and the wheel rolled off the road into the ditch.. thankful this didn't happen when i was on the freeway could have ended much worse than it did. waiting on the tow truck to take to the shop for eval/repair..

odd thing is i had the wheels rotated about 3 months ago and no problems since until now. in my 25 years of driving have never had this happen..

bcp · Jun 24, 2012

Did the nuts come off, or did the bolts break?

Bruce

bigballer · Jun 24, 2012

bcp said:
Did the nuts come off, or did the bolts break?

Bruce

nuts came off..

Furu · Jun 24, 2012

Everything I have read/heard about the new generation of autos is after changing a tire check the torque in 50 miles. My newest, a1997, says to do it in the manual. Probably not a bad idea. My trailers all say to check the torque every day. I bought a cheap HF torque wrench that stays in my tow vehicle just for that purpose. You can validate the HF wrench with a good quality one by putting both on the same setting and hooking up against each other and ensuring they both click simultaneously. I never let any shop torque my wheels without checking them immediately as well as after 50 miles.

Glad you were not hurt.

NHmitch · Jun 24, 2012

I had the exact same thing happen when I was in high school. My tire fell off at about 40mph, and it rolled into the front end of a brand new Cadillac, and I ran off of the road into a cemetery. That is a scary feeling looking in your rear view mirror, and seeing your tire roll away, and your front end goes up in the air. Glad that you are allright. Is it possible that someone may have loosened them or was trying to steal your tire, and didn't get the wheel off in time?

bigballer · Jun 24, 2012

NHmitch said:
Is it possible that someone may have loosened them or was trying to steal your tire, and didn't get the wheel off in time?

it is possible but not likely, imo, as they would have needed the same key chuck that works with the special shape lug nuts. maybe they are more universal than i think but they are not the standard type that a T wrench would fit over. you need the adapter to get them off and that was buried in my center console inside the vehicle.

s219 · Jun 24, 2012

I bet that whoever rotated your wheels did not properly torque down the lugs on that wheel. That's the only way all the lugs could work loose like that.

herringchoker · Jun 24, 2012

I learned about re-torquing lug nuts many years ago. I had a truck in an independent truck repair shop for repairs, and while it was there I had them install 8 wheels that just had new tires mounted on them at a tire shop. A few days later (on a Saturday afternoon) the driver calls. He was inbound about 100 miles away and heard what sounded to him like a rifle shot, so he pulled over to check things out and found a lug nut missing on a rear wheel and the stud (almost 1" diameter) broken off. The other 9 lug nuts on that wheel were loose. He dropped the trailer and got to a nearby truck dealership that was just closing shop for the weekend. They torqued the 9 lugnuts and advised it was OK to bobtail home, but all the studs and lugnuts should be changed. That's what I did on Sunday. On Monday I spent $600 on a 3/4 drive torque wrench and set a policy that all lug nuts be re-torqued after 60-100 miles, again after 1000 miles and at every service interval after that. The sight of that wheel stud cut off like a knife through butter scared the h*** out of me.

uglyboywith11fingers · Jun 24, 2012

My nephew lost a rear wheel on the expressway a few years ago... while he was waiting for the tow truck, a police officer happened along and stopped to see if things were OK. After finding out from my nephew what had happened, the officer wrote him up for operating an unsafe motor vehicle.

Pete

SLHawkins · Jun 24, 2012

BigBaller,
Glad to hear that you came out alright. I had the same thing happen to me. It was on a trailer however. I do not have anyone to blame but myself. This trailer has the demountable rims. I think I torqued them well enough. But, I did not seat them correctly. All 5 studs were broke off and the tire and rim went flying off the side of the road. I never did recover them. I reckon the state picked them up, or they are still laying off in the grass somewhere along side the road. I have looked. Heck, I had just bought the tire earlier that morning. It wasn't even on the trailer a good 6 hours! That lesson cost me $200 ($115 for the tire and another $85 to get the studs removed from the hub). Now I check before and after every trip and every so often along the way.