Started out on a trip to Harrisburg. Pa. last Wednesday morning to do some work in our flight training dept. About 50 miles into the trip I started hearing a loud groaning noise coming from the left front wheel. Road conditions at the time was light to moderate rain on the road. At first I thought I might have thrown some rubber from the tire but the tires were just purchased about four months ago. The noise kept getting worse as i continued down the road. i decided to put off and investigate. I pulled into the first tire service store that I could find and they put the car up on the lift and the service manager told me to come and have a look at what they found. He grabbed the tire and it was very loose.The mechanic pulled off 3 studs with his fingers. There was only TWO studs holding the wheel on. He told me I was "Lucky to be alive". The groaning noise I heard was the broken studs rubbing on the gold lace wheel, which had enlarged the holes. I could just imagine wwhat might have happened it the wheel decided to come off doing 70 mph. Two months ago I had the car in for brake service at a local dealership and whoever performed the work did not properly torque the lugs on the tire. Word to the wise, If you take in your car for brake service it might be a good idea to double check the lugs yourself after the work is completed. Will post some pics of the damage wheel later on.

Wow, that'* incredible. You are lucky to be alive. Where they able to fix it on the spot?


-justin

Thank Goodness you are okay!!! That could have been majorly serious. When I read that my heart sank. I am so glad you had the sense and opportunity to check it out. What a blessing!!

Something similar happened to me about a month ago, but I caught it before it enlarged the holes or did any damage. Glad to hear nothing serious happend to you.

What wheel was it for you? It was the rear driver side for me and I could actually feel the rearend of the car shift to one side when turning, not a good feeling.

Here'* some pics of the damaged wheel and the studs that sheared off. They didn't have a gold rim but I have a spare. The left front wheel was the one that was damaged but he mounted the silver on the rear. Kinda makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

That sucks. I would also like to spread that advice to others....if you get your car worked on torque your lugs. You wonder why I tell you this? Read below:

A week and a half ago, I am driving and I notice a slight vibration coming from the drivers side front. I ignored it because my car is old and does weird stuff. So I kept going. Well, the vibration kept getting worse. Well, the next day I am driving it and I'm going down the road and it gets worse and worse and worse, so I decided I would pull over in the trailer park up the road a little because I knew it had a wide road that i could work on my car in if need be...but as soon as I decided that it got so bad that I had to pull off the side right then. Well I get out and look at the front wheel, and immediately notice a problem...there are only 4 lugnuts, one of the studs is completely gone (and obviously the lug nut with it). So I decide to take my black plastic caps off the lugs that were on it so i could tighten them down with my spare tire wrench. Well, I grab the plastic cap on the first lugnut and go to spin it off and the lugnut comes with it. And that point I decided it wasn't a good idea to have weight on that wheel so I put the jack under it then proceeded to pull the rest of the lugs off with my hand. I actually then had to put them all back on with the plastic caps tight enough that I could get the caps off to tighten the lugnuts. So I probably would've made it another couple hundred feet or so before my wheel went flying off the car. The last person to take the wheels off my car was discount tire when I got new tires in August. I've only driven about 1000 miles since then, so I'm guessing they didn't torque them down. I immediately came home and torqued all the lugnuts on every wheel, including the 4 that are remaining on the drivers front.

So, it will save you a lot of hassle to just torque your wheels.

Shawn

Same here. I had only driven the car about 1600 miles since Aug when the brake work was done and when this incident happened last Wednesday. Just local driving around town.

Are they compensating you?

They sure did. Took it in yesterday where the brake service was performed and after they saw the damage they cut me a check right on the spot for the repair bill.