1) If you loosen lug nuts at the beginning of a car project, you should go ahead and take the wheel off to make it more obvious
2) Regardless of how you handled #1, you should check lug nuts before first drive of the year
3) Even at a very slow speed, losing a wheel feels catastrophic from inside the car
4) A jack and tire iron in the trunk would have been a good idea
5) There are still some good people in the world and a scissor jack from a Grand Cherokee will work in a pinch, but getting it under a lowered car resting on its rear axle can be a real pain.
6) Bloomfield Hills cops are kind of shiny happy person-ish and do not have an appreciation for a rusty ’49 Cadillac on the side of their road
7) It is impossible to not have “You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel” play in your head while handling the above
I mean 
But, really, that sucks. I've done similar, but caught it before it became a problem.
I've had a bumpy ride from forgetting to torque my nuts (heh), but have never lost a wheel. Hope there wasn't much damage!
Left rear came off (but stuck up under fender) just as I was slowing and moving into a right turn lane. No damage other than the threads on the axle U-bolts.
I appreciate exactly how a) lucky and b) stupid I was with how it went down, and I'm currently on the lookout for pay-it-forward opportunities!
Glad it all ended so well. Thanks for the advice, it's always good to double check our work.
Lug nuts should always be torqued when on, and hood pins should always be fastened when the hood is closed.
Glad to hear there wasn't more carnage. I've lost a rear wheel as well, although it was slightly more catastrophic than your experience.
That_Renault_Guy wrote:
6) Bloomfield Hills cops are kind of shiny happy person-ish and do not have an appreciation for a rusty ’49 Cadillac on the side of their road
Oddly enough, Wyandotte thought it was pretty funny when a similar situation may or may not have occured to an automobile I was involved in working on.
Mazda787b wrote:
That_Renault_Guy wrote:
6) Bloomfield Hills cops are kind of shiny happy person-ish and do not have an appreciation for a rusty ’49 Cadillac on the side of their road
Oddly enough, Wyandotte thought it was pretty funny when a similar situation may or may not have occured to an automobile I was involved in working on.
May or may not have happened? you refusing to admit anything?
I did something similar with the track rat last year.
Was just taking it on a quick spin around the block after the new suspension/clutch install. Apparently one of the wheels wasn't tightened down, took a corner and the rear stepped out like I hit sand, got home and saw the wheel was still barely on the car.
As in the tire was OUTSIDE the fender.
Yeah, it gets scary.. Glad to hear you & the car are okay!
I had a wheel ALMOST come off because the (new) axle nut didn't form into the slot on the axle as well as it looked from the outside when I used the punch.. It was able to spin off a few threads. Luckily the logo cap on the subaru rim kept the nut from falling completely off!
One of our techs swapped a front hub bearing on a 2wd Chevy van and the hub he got was for a 4x4. That's a problem because on the 4x4 the outer axle nut holds the bearing together, the 2wd has no such thing. The hub assembly came apart in the parking lot (thankfully) and the caliper bracket broke off, sending the front wheel bouncing. I can still see the long scrape in the parking lot from my desk.
ryanty22 wrote:
Mazda787b wrote:
That_Renault_Guy wrote:
6) Bloomfield Hills cops are kind of shiny happy person-ish and do not have an appreciation for a rusty ’49 Cadillac on the side of their road
Oddly enough, Wyandotte thought it was pretty funny when a similar situation may or may not have occured to an automobile I was involved in working on.
May or may not have happened? you refusing to admit anything?
Aftermarket wheels on a friend's VW. Turns out the lug bolts we bought weren't long enough, and they were conical seat as I hypothesized. Wheel fell off when my friend took it on it's maiden voyage after the brake system rebuild, some 3 blocks from his house.
I'm just glad we couldn't get it together directly after purchase and attempted to drive the thing back from Grand Rapids to Detroit in the dead of winter....
Needless to say, I convinced him to convert to studs that evening.
Hey, Renault Guy: Just so you know, that song you mentioned got into my head this morning when I read this thread before breakfast, and it hasn't left yet. That's obviously a dangerous melody to mess with. Be careful where you point it!
Keep a torque wrench! or at least a breaker bar, in the trunk for 100miles after tightening ANY critical bolt, including lug nuts.
Curmudgeon wrote:
One of our techs swapped a front hub bearing on a 2wd Chevy van and the hub he got was for a 4x4. That's a problem because on the 4x4 the outer axle nut holds the bearing together, the 2wd has no such thing. The hub assembly came apart in the parking lot (thankfully) and the caliper bracket broke off, sending the front wheel bouncing. I can still see the long scrape in the parking lot from my desk.
That's similar to what happened to me, only it was a parts failure. The hub broke apart and the rotor was the only thing holding the wheel on for about a tenth of a second. Here's the in-car picture of my brake rotor running for freedom as I pirouette...
Where's the wheel? Oh, there it is.
When I finished rebuilding the engine in my truck, I took it for a test drive. It was making a horrible noise less than 1/4 mile from the house. Pulled over and found I had forgotten to tighten the lugs nuts on the front wheels. Luckily both wheels were still attached to the truck.
I've had it happen twice; once was an aluminum "slot" on my dodge warlock. Notoriously difficult to get them seated properly. Second was not my fault, my 944 was parked outside my shop and I went out and drove off not knowing that I had interrupted someone trying to steal my Epsilons. Wheel came off, I grabbed a lug but from each corner and the spare in the console to get back to the shop and found the lug nuts in a cute little pile in the lot. Needless to say I check lug nuts regularly now.
always check your purchased cars, too. that turbo bird i bought had a rattle in the rear all the way from cleveland to columbus, and it came and went for a week. finally got real bad, so i checked it out. i got 3 turns on the right rear lug nuts, and at LEAST one full turn on ALL the rest, all 4 wheels.
not everyone is detail oriented when it comes to torque specs, apparently.
-J0N
Narrowly avoided losing a wheel one day taking a young lady home from dinner. Apparently I forgot to tighten the lug nuts earlier at the shop doing a tire rotation. I caught it, but you can imagine the response I got from her when I stopped in the middle of the road and started running around the car with a breaker bar and socket tightening lug nuts. That was a great date let me tell you.
Mazda787b wrote:
That_Renault_Guy wrote:
6) Bloomfield Hills cops are kind of shiny happy person-ish and do not have an appreciation for a rusty ’49 Cadillac on the side of their road
Oddly enough, Wyandotte thought it was pretty funny when a similar situation may or may not have occured to an automobile I was involved in working on.
That's odd. I never found the Wyandotte PD to have much of a sense of humor.
On topic, years ago a friend lost the left rear off his Mustang in front of our high school. I was behind him and saw it wobble for a second, then swing into the next lane and pass him. The brake rotor hit the ground as he stopped but the damage was minimal. We bolted the wheel back on and took off.
If you forget to tighten the lugnuts on a '70 Impala with front drum brakes, it sings like a giant wine glass when you apply the brakes. Or so I'm told.
Been there. I lost a front wheel on my Dad's 65 Mustang years ago. The threads were shot and the damn thing flew off. I wasn't so lucky as the front driver's fender got mangled. My dad wasn't pissed as he knew it wasn't my fault and happy if happened while driving back to the house on a gravel road going slowly. He had also thought about taking the Mustang to work that day and his wreck would have been at 60+ mph. Talk about a close one.
