Scary wheel failure

[dodge man]

I work with someone that got hit by a set of duals that came off a semi. If the car hadn't been brand new, it would have been totalled. It destroyed the front end, then skipped over the roof of the car.

 

[Raspy]

My nuts have to be in the 400lb range:laughing:


I thought we were talking about wheels? :laughing:

 

[rd_macgregor]

A few years ago, when I was tightening the lug nuts up after changing over to snow tires on my Subaru Forester, I managed to shear off two lugs! I was not using a pneumatic tool, just the regular L-shaped tire iron that comes with the car.
I'm not a particularly muscular brute, and I've changed lots of tires by hand before without this ever happening, so I presume that these were defective lugs.

BOB

 

[Diamondpilot]

So many people over tighten lug nuts. I have 3 vehicles and 3 trailers. All the trailers call for 120 FT LBS and the Titan calls for 100 FT LBS while the SuperDutys call for something like 150 FT LBS. If you use a torque wrench like I do you will soon realize how little this is. I can not tell you how many over tightened lugs I have seen. This leads to brake rotor damage and wheel damage.

I would guess the average guy with just the little tool that comes in the car can put about 200 FT LBS with relative ease.

Chris

 

[crazyal]

My father told me a story about having a funny rattling noise from his car, think it was a ford. He could never find it so he brought it to a shop and they put it up on the lift and couldn't find it. It slowly got worse but just ot use to the noise.

When it came time for new tires and they pulled the hubcap off the wheels (it had those hubcaps that only covered the lug nuts but left part of the steel wheel exposed) they 3 of the five lug nuts fall on the ground from both front wheels.

Best they could figure is that the last time the wheels were removed the mechanic put two nuts on the hold the wheel on than then finger tightened the last three but never finished them off before putting the hubcap on. Because the noise wasn't specific to one tire or side of the car nobody thought about lug nuts. My father figured he put 30,000 miles on those tires.

I like the Toyota style of lug nuts for Aluminum wheels, the kind that has a flat washer over the cone shape that's also used for steel wheels. If they loosen up Aluminum is just too soft and will wear quickly.

 

[Newblue]

We had a local officer killed by a set of duals that came off of a semi.

http://www.officer.com/web/online/Officer-Down-News/Indiana-Officer-Killed-by-Tractor-Trailer-Tires/2$38321

 

[MoKelly]

This isn't on a car or trailer, but my wife once had the right rear wheel on her ZTR mower fall off while she was mowing. The lug nuts stayed on the mower but the wheel fell off. The wheel holes just got too large ... I guess due to the fact the klug nuts were too tight or too loose.

The mower had about 250 hours (approx. 2 years).

I had never took the wheels off nor had I checked the tightness of the lug nuts.

She wasn't hurt ... just startled.

MoKelly

 

[czechsonofagun]

We got a vette back to the shop to replace rear quarter panel. It was a custom built 66 with Z1? engine and total cost with upholstery 270K! The guy who done the upholstery didn't tight nuts on that wheel and it came off.

 

[LBrown59]

My father told me a story about having a funny rattling noise from his car, think it was a ford. He could never find it so he brought it to a shop and they put it up on the lift and couldn't find it. It slowly got worse but just got use to the noise.

When it came time for new tires and they pulled the hubcap off the wheels (it had those hubcaps that only covered the lug nuts but left part of the steel wheel exposed) they 3 of the five lug nuts fall on the ground from both front wheels.
Best they could figure is that the last time the wheels were removed the mechanic put two nuts on the hold the wheel on than then finger tightened the last three but never finished them off before putting the hubcap on. Because the noise wasn't specific to one tire or side of the car nobody thought about lug nuts. My father figured he put 30,000 miles on those tires.

I like the Toyota style of lug nuts for Aluminum wheels, the kind that has a flat washer over the cone shape that's also used for steel wheels. If they loosen up Aluminum is just too soft and will wear quickly.

When I was a teen driver we would put a marble in 1 or 2 of the hub caps just to hear it rattle when going slow.

 

[dstig1]

So many people over tighten lug nuts. I have 3 vehicles and 3 trailers. while the SuperDutys call for something like 150 FT LBS. If you use a torque wrench like I do you will soon realize how little this is.

Chris

165 ft-lbs actually. I think they upped the spec after SD's were out a couple years. And I think it is a ton of torque. My large 1/2" torque wrench (25-250 ft lbs) requires quite some pressure to click out on these. I don't weigh enough, so I need to leverage against the ground or truck to make that click sometimes. I love when I run across the occasional 200+ ft-lb crankshaft nut:confused2: