Lost a wheel today and live to tell about it!

[guyryan100]

This morning whilst turning left (about to merge onto the Interstate), my front left WHEEL tore off! 4 of the 5 lug studs are now shiney, smooth metal (no more threads) and the 5th was found, nut in place, lying in the hub cap.

The wheel passed under the fender (bending and removing paint) before rolling to a stop in the midst of the intersetction. I managed to steer the truck onto the curb/sidewalk and did not collide with anyone in the process... lucky, as when the wheel left the vehicle, the truck cut sharply to the left (like a u-turn) as the wheel arm hit the asphault.

Aside from the missing wheel and the bent up fender, which I think I can strighten, the other components seem relatively sound, except for some more shiney metal around the break housing. If I manage to get the thing towed home I will promptly replace the other lug studs.

Has anyone ever heard of weakness in this area? I found this to be rather strange. I've never removed the left wheel, so I can't say if the nuts where ever mis-threaded or anything, but still.... yikes!

[1971Stepside]

Whew! Sounds like a two pair Fruit of the Looms kinda day. Glad no one was hurt...

[mtdave2]

goodness, im glad no one got hurt! wow. i have never heard of wheels comming off that way, but i have had a wheel almost come off because the lugnuts worked loose. either way no fun, thank god you were not on the highway..

[jku72]

The only weakness is in the tightening of the lugs. I can say this because it just happened to me in my shiny, nice just painted Longhorn you see in my sig.
I replaced a control arm bushing, put it all back together, drove to town, came home, and as I pulled into the driveway, left front wheel goes off flying. Bent my fender was the only damage. But the whole fender has to come off and get reworked. My body man was not pleased with my trashing of his work. I was not pleased either. But, it happened in my driveway, and i had just driven to town and back, so I guess my luck was there.

[O'l Buck]

That's a bad feeling. I had a rear wheel shear off all the studs on a 84 K-5 blazer I used to have. It bent the crap out of the rear quarter and promptly hit the ground. yikes. Dad had a 58 impala convertible and the whole rear end came out from under it at 75 MPH. He said it wasn't hard to keep under control though. He just steered it to the side of the road and retrieved his rearend and had the car towed to the parking lot at school (he was in college at the time).

[sneakysnake]

Brother lost one on a rice burner that way, new aluminum rims didnt recheck them, lugs got some slack sheared them smooth off
tore up a rear fender and the tire rolled about 50ft down the street and hit a dumpster

[Brad]

Glad to hear you're relatively okay other than damaged pride!!!! This almost happened to me once. I was on a state highway which, at a certain point was built much like a dike (cliff on either side, about 30ft), was fairly narrow and being rush hour had lots of traffic coming the opposite way. I was travelling about 60mph and began to feel a shake. At the time I was replacing center support bearings fairly frequently and it felt much like it was going out again. Well, I kept driving until I could pull over and look, about a mile or two and came to a stop in a gas station parking lot. On this day, for whatever reason, I thought I'd look at the lugs and boy was I glad I did! Turns out the driver side front had 5 of 6 lugs sheared off! I think I wet myself right then and there! This was one of the few times where I knew the Good Lord was lookin' out for me! To this day, I feel this could've ended tragically for me and needless to say, when I got the truck home, I replaced all of the lugs all the way around!!