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Right Passenger-side Nut Job

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There's nothing quite like the feeling of a wheel popping off your car when you're changing lanes on a highway.

The moral of the story is, when you get a brake job and start to hear a grinding noise a few days later, you might want to check to see if your mechanic tightened the lug nuts properly.

Anyway, this could be the end of a long and glorious run for the ol' Ford Taurus. We'll see.

Comments

Jesus, I bet the sparks flew. Who did your brake job?


I guess it wasn't the cv joint after all.


Saw you in that same location yesterday, glad you had some help by the time I went by. I bet that scared the poop out of you when it happened. :)


It actually wasn't too scary when it happened. I got a good laugh out of it, actually.

What was scary was trying to cross the two-way 55-mph traffic and get to the pedestrian walkway. It takes a pretty large break in traffic or a daredevil attitude to do that.


same thing happend to me in mpls at the i94-35w cluster fuck. spark shower behind me. the busted axle punctured the gas tank on my 73 duster. fuckin hack mechanic.


My buddy had the same thing happen just south of the 94/35W cluster fuck. But it was his own fault. He had done his own brakes and forgot to tighten the lug nuts. He was on the way over to my house right around sunset when the tire separated from his car. A huge rooster tail of sparks followed him as he exited on the 35th/36th street ramp. I picked him up and we drove farther down the freeway to retrieve his lost tire. The next day Star-Tribune columnist Jim Klobuchar (Amy's dad) had a tear-jerking story about some poor woman describing how her precious Cadillac was struck head-on by a gigantic errant truck tire in the exact same location and at sunset. I'm sure it was my buddy's tire. Tee hee hee.


glad yer ok Paul


If your vehicle has alloy rims, they need to be retightened with 50 miles of having new tires put on, having a brake job, etc. This is why.

If your mechanic didn't tell you that, time to find a new one.

Of course, if you have steel wheels, then it's just a simple case of your mechanic screwing up.

I check mine every couple months with a torque wrench. Torque 'em to 100 ft/lbs, you'll be fine.


Picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel...

I lost 3 of 4 lugnuts after a tire job once. I noticed the car made a bad noise when turning hard. I was able to reproduce this noise by swerving at highway speeds. I finally popped the hub cap and revealed the problem. One lug nut simply will not do.



The PartsGuy is correct. I didn't know I needed to retorque, and my mechanic failed to mention it.

Anyway, all is well. No one was hurt, and my car was fixed for free.

The Ford Taurus lives to break down another day.


Same thing happened to me, the lug nuts weren't even finger tight. After I picked up my car and heard a thumping noise I drove straight to another mechanic.
You should have seen the faces at the original shop (Firestone) when I brought my rim in with lug nut hole stripped out to an inch across.


lord... Firestone... I went there once, only once.


Same thing happened to me once. I had just passed Spirit Mt. on the interstate when I felt a big "bump", then in my rearview mirror saw my left rear tire bounce over the car behind me. Scary, but exciting!


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