The rim fell off!

[Spilk188]

Ok, so my friends and I are driving back down from another one of our friend's houses at 3am this morning. My friend Chris is driving his 1994 Mitsubishi Diamante (yeah...I know). When we are going down the hill from where we were at, his car started to make a funny noise coming from the front left tire. Chris, being the car moron that he is, goes "Ty, what is that noise!" I say that it sounds like it might be his rotor. He just had his brakes worked on by a shop, they may have mis aligned his rotor or something, causing it to rub on his brake pad. I honestly wasnt sure what it was, I should have had him pull off the road and call his parents.

We get down the hill, we are talking about what it might be, when the car goes BAM, we are sitting at an angle, still moving. Then we see his tire and rim bouncing off away from the car. We stopped right on the stop line in front of this light. We all sit there and look at each other. The lug nuts were stipped off of the wheel assembly, and shot out in who knows how many directions, and his rim was pretty much shot.

Some people driving (obviously gear heads) pulled over and helped us lift the side of the car up, take some lugs off of the other tires to put his old one back on, just to get it out of the road. One of the lugs was completely ripped off.

We assesed what appeared to have happened. I think the shop may have tightened a few of the nuts very good, then left a few not-so-good. So as he drove, they loosened a little bit, causing the tire to move as he drove. That movement cause the nuts to loosen more, causing the tire to eventually rip the nuts off and go flying in the other direction.

It was nuts.

[nametakennow]

:owned by the shop idiots.

Your idea sounds plausible to me. That's kinda funny, so long as it's not your car .

[Jesda]

I forgot to ask... what shop did he go to? (So I can tell everyone else I know to NEVER EVER go there)

[SmithSR]

uh oh. Just so you know, even the most seasoned of veterans has to work under a deadline and is often asked to do more work than he knows is possible. This means often times, a crew leader will have to delegate his responsibilities to some new kid. I fear having to do this, so I've spent literally days of my life coaching and preaching and beating it into the head of my new guys, that no matter how busy, no matter how far behind, you always always torque to spec, every wheel, every time. Not all brake/tire guys are created equal.

[navysnail]

go talk to the shop

my friends mom takes her van to a shop that i would never go to in my LIFE. they didnt tourque her lug nuts one time, we hear this rattling in the front, lugs were bouncing around in the hub cap. another time, they didnt even put new oil in when the changed it.

go talk to the shop, they will probobly be liable for it

[ricebike]

eh, some shop i delivered parts to <cough, meineke in marlton, nj> was over-torquing the rear wheel to brake drum w/out using a torque stick or a torque wrench... i will see a customer comeback for a warped drum in the near future, if the customer even notices the wobbling tire...

good thing i got into this business & learn how to do most of the preventative maintenance items on my family's 8 cars...

another incident where i've seen a newbie tech put lugs on too loose was @ a strauss discount auto store... was kinda tired from goin to school, then coming to work...4got that 1 major thing... got demoted to the parts counter... location closed & turned into a liqour store... near cherry hill triplex nj...

some pepboys tire/lube/battery people i've spoken w/ said better to be a bit overtorqed than undertorqed... i've had it & ordered torque wrenches/torque sticks for shop use (@ the time i was there; dunno if they are still using it)

somewhat unrelated: I saw a vehicle w/ the front driver side tire still attached but seems like the cv joint of the FWD axle had come apart....weirdest thing i've seen. how long do they usually last after the boot is torn & a clicking sound is heard, even when not turning a corner?

[andrave]

at sams club where you can watch them work, they have their impact wrenchs set to such a high torque that they just go around with a torque wrench after it and of course it clicks... they are probably torqued way over spec. Its hard as hell to get the lugs off. I've been waiting for them to brake one of my wheel studs off, but it hasn't happened yet.

Anyway you sign a thing at all those shops that says you will stop after like 50 miles and retighten your lugs, so there prolly isn't much you can do about it.

[ricebike]

Anyway you sign a thing at all those shops that says you will stop after like 50 miles and retighten your lugs, so there prolly isn't much you can do about it.

hmm, i thought that only applies to brand new rims/lugs...since the new metal may not be compressed to hold the tension... esp w/ the cheapo rims that pepboys sells...<proline>

If i had the shop install new tires on my car, i'd drive it home, immediately break them loose, grab my torque wrench & torque the lug nuts myself <87-107 ft lbs>

[andrave]

I dunno, sams club always makes me sign one when I leave, and thats just to get new tires.

[SmithSR]

It's standard CYA, to hopefully prevent loose wheels.

[JESTER]

Dude, That sucks about your friends car. I would be pissed if I was him. And, the shop would pay for it, or me and my attorney would be seeing them in the court room. And I have a good attorney.

Stupid story time:My friend Tony who was in a wheel chair a all his adult life, had this happen. He was leaving work one day when his vans, front right wheel just flew off. He called back to the PD and had tehm send a patrol car up to him. The officers walked up to the window of Tony's van to see Tony sitting there singing, "You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel."

Moral: Even if something bad happenes, it isn't the end of the world. Find the humor in the situation and everything will be fine.