Someone's out to collect...

[Tbuddyandroby]

Last week I went to the lease to do some work. Nothing happened to my truck (hitting mudholes hard etc.) driving in or out. I hauled my lowboy from Votaw, Tx. over to Conroe (where my storage is) without incident. I was on my way home via Conroe-> Dayton->Baytown-> League City and it happened... Without warning (no vibration, sounds, Nothing), and coming around a curve, It felt like I had a flat tire with vibration etc. I started to gain control to get to the shoulder, and Bam! My left front tire came off going about 50mph. I looked to the left and saw my 35x12.50 bouncing past me. It hit a Kia Soul in the opposite lane and took out his right passenger fender. Thank God nobody was hurt and I didn't decide to go I-45 home...
No, no front end work, brake work, tire rotations, etc. have been done in the past 3 several months. No studs were broken off. It looks like the wheel just pulled away from the studs.

[twosixteens]

Factory wheels?

[Tbuddyandroby]

2017 Tundra lifted. Bought it new with the lift installed.

[ThisLadyHunts]

Hate that this happened to you. When you think about how much worse it could have been, kinda leaves you a little shaken, huh?

[Tbuddyandroby]

Factory wheels?

Here are some pics from the showroom floor in 2017...

[Tbuddyandroby]

Hate that this happened to you. When you think about how much worse it could have been, kinda leaves you a little shaken, huh?

Yes ma'am. I'm very thankful nobody was hurt.

[SJP51]

Stripped threads? Almost happened to my wife's van. Some garage monkey just hammered em with the ratchet and stripped them. I felt the tires moving. Scary for sure.

[antonlsu]

Could have been alot worse

[denimdeerslayer]

Reminds me of my last visit to Discount Tire. Left lug nuts loose. I noticed it in time to tighten them up. Left the front and back on left side finger tight.

[Tbuddyandroby]

Reminds me of my last visit to Discount Tire. Left lug nuts loose. I noticed it in time to tighten them up. Left the front and back on left side finger tight.

I wondered this, but wouldn’t I have felt Something (vibration/pulling) as a warning before it came off?…

[Drycreek3189]

I wondered this, but wouldn’t I have felt Something (vibration/pulling) as a warning before it came off?…

Just throwing this out there, but pulling a trailer might have made the front end light enough that you couldn’t feel anything. Just a thought (worth what you paid)

At least nobody was hurt !

[RedBear78]

You would think but no.That’s a pretty good sign the lugs were a little loose and the rim just slowly ate and wore on the studs until they got to a breaking point. It doesn’t take much slack and a lot of times you don’t know until there’s a malfunction.Glad no one was hurt.Really with all the wheels on the road I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.

[WyoBull]

That would have been scary as he[[ to be pulling a load like that and all of a sudden see your tire passing you outside your driver side window!
Glad it turned out you were not hurt.

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[FLASH_OUTDOORS]

Is it possible you were parked somewhere and somebody was in the process of trying to take your wheel? Maybe they got caught or scared halfway through and left one lug nut still attached or maybe two.


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[RifleBowPistol]

The wheel studs look very short. Can't tell if they are broken off, or that is the original length. If that is the original length, I would be putting longer studs on it. Probably a combination of wrong lug nuts for the wheels. Which resulted in the nuts not catching many threads, which will all the nuts to loosen up much easier. Short wheel studs are fine with stock size, steel wheels. The steel will be much thinner than a cast aluminum wheel, then not as much side load on the studs, because of increased offset.

But when you have wider, taller, heavier tires and wheels, more so aluminum wheels, you really should have longer wheel studs. So the lug nuts catch plenty of threads. Then you should make sure the lug nuts are the proper depth and design. I have removed many lug nuts from vehicles that were not the correct design for the wheel. The owners usually have no clue. Usually don't care, even when I point out, that the problems that can be caused by using the lug nuts they have, with the wheels they have.

Then one other possible problem, is someone putting something like anti seize on the lug nuts or threads. I had a dealer do that to my lug nuts years ago, with aluminum wheels. I never had problems with lug nuts loosening up prior to that. But once they did that, to get the wheels back on my truck. For months my truck was chunking lug nuts, typically about two lug nuts a week. I finally had to clean all of the anti seize out of the lug holes in the wheels, clean off all of the anti seize on the studs, inside the lug nuts, off of the outside of the lug nuts. Then finally they quit loosening up and chunking.

When I first discovered I was on 624, out past Orange Grove, the right rear wheel. came very close to coming off. There were only two lug nuts left and those two lug nuts were only on about three threads each. I about flipped my truck, lost control, all over the road. But saved it, got off the road and did not damage anything.

I replaced the missing lug nuts, got them all tight. Then kept having lug nuts go bouncing past me, as I was driving down the road. I kept replacing lug nuts, and checking them to make sure they were tight, they kept coming loose and flying off. I finally removed all of the anti seize from the wheel studs and inside the lug nuts. I was sure that was going to fix the problem, nope. The rate at which the wheel studs loosened up, slowed down, but they would still loosen up and go flying off. I had to pull all four tires, and clean all of the anti seize off of the wheels, out of the lug holes in the wheels and then off of the outside of the lug nuts. The truck had some 12" wide cast aluminum wheels and 35X12.5 BFG mud terrains. The cast wheels were probably 2" thick where the wheel studs went through. So the lug nuts went about 1 3/4" to 1 7/8" into the wheel. Having the anti seize on the outside of the lug nut shanks and inside the bores of the wheels, was enough for the lug nuts to loosen up, I found out the hard way. I had to remove all of the anti seize, not just what was on the threads of the studs or in the threads inside the lug nuts.

Something I leaned later, when I got into racing cars. The wheel studs should always protrude something like twice the diameter outside the wheel. The reasoning, is if you tighten the lug nuts tight enough, you can break the head of the nut off and leave the nut shank inside the wheel. That won't hold the wheel on. Having thick aluminum wheels and not having lug nuts that go up inside the wheels, is also not a great idea, unless you have 5/8" wheel studs. If you have around a 1/2" wheel stud or smaller, you should have a lug nut that protrudes most of the depth of the wheel, but you don't want the lug nut to possibly bottom out, then it's not holding tension on the wheel. The wheel studs with a shank that goes up inside the wheel, will add strength to the wheel stud. And should be done, if you have not upgraded to 5/8" wheel studs.

There is a lot I did not things I did not realize, about wheel studs and lug nuts when I was younger. Because of NHRA rules, and then almost loosing that wheel years ago, then many other things I have seen over the years. I long ago realized that there are a lot of vehicles on the roads, that really don't have the wheels attached properly and could easily have problems in one form or another, that results in a wheel coming off of the vehicle.