wheel fell off!!!

Liberty&Freedom · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:24 am

Last night on my way home from work, my driver's side rear wheel fell off while I was driving down the road.
I had my tires rotated a while back at a local shop while they were doing an alignment and some other work.
Recently while I was doing some regular maintenance, oil change, etc. I decided it was time to rotate them again.
My impact wrench would not take the lugs off....so out came the breaker bar. All were tough to budge, but I got them
all, and continued with the rotation. All seemed fine....until last night.

My question is.....whether or not the failure could have been caused by the over tightening of the lugs, and should I be
worried about the other 15 that did not fail yesterday?

What are my courses of action, and what seems reasonable to request from said repair shop?

thanks for the input.

tjkj2002 · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:53 am

The KJ's lugnuts should be torqued between 85-115lbs-ft.If you rotated then yourself you did not torque them properly and/or did not recheck the wheel torque after 50-100 miles later like you are supposed to.Sorry but it's all your fault and not someone elses when you did the work after someone else did.

Tokyojoe · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:22 am

Are you saying the lugs failed and sheered off causing the tire to come off?

You will most likely not be able to do anything about the company overtightening your lugnuts. You can't prove anything and you rotated them afterwards.

Good luck with everything. I hope your KJ didn't suffer too much damage and that everyone in your KJ are ok.

snowsport · **Joined:** Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:52 pm **Posts:** 1211

tjkj2002 wrote:

The KJ's lugnuts should be torqued between 85-115lbs-ft.If you rotated then yourself you did not torque them properly and/or did not recheck the wheel torque after 50-100 miles later like you are supposed to.Sorry but it's all your fault and not someone elses when you did the work after someone else did.

Mega important, worth emphasizing.

Guest · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:02 am

I have never checked my lug torque after 50-100 miles. The only time I had a wheel fall off a car is when I was 17 and did the rear brakes on my car and got the lug nuts as tight as possible...and this is exactly what happened;)

If all 5 studs on that wheel are clean breaks, then yes, it is because of over-torquing.

Liberty&Freedom · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:21 am

Everyone is fine, the jeep is is good shape except for the wheel, studs and lugs. (very lucky)

Should I be worried about the other 15 studs and Lugs???

All 5 studs on that wheel were clean breaks. I've rotated my tires on my own since I bought the jeep new in 03 with no issues.

Quote:

tjkj2002 wrote:
The KJ's lugnuts should be torqued between 85-115lbs-ft.If you rotated then yourself you did not torque them properly and/or did not recheck the wheel torque after 50-100 miles later like you are supposed to.Sorry but it's all your fault and not someone elses when you did the work after someone else did.

Just because I did it myself does not mean that I did not torque them correctly. How would you know? No I didn't specifically say one way or the other, but it is possible for anyone to purchase a torque wrench, or torque sticks, and use them in their own garage properly, and without issue.

I'm not looking for a handout, just some honest opinions about whether or not they could have been over torqued to cause this failure.
When I've torqued them myself, I've never had any issues with my impact gun taking the lugs off. This last time, after being done by this shop, I could not get them off with my gun.

This was the first time this place ever did it for me. I've had other places do it when they've done alignments, and that's
why this place did it, and I have never had trouble getting the lugs off after it's been done before.

Guest · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:24 am

Wait...so...did you take this wheel off after they worked on your KJ? I'm kinda confused.

Liberty&Freedom · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:29 am

The shop did the work a while back, and last week it was time to rotate them again, so I did it this last time before they broke

Guest · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:41 am

Well, if you did it last, then it was not the fault of the shop...despite the fact that they were overtightened beforehand. It may have weakened the lugs (theoretically), but ya know...

Luckily, studs are not hard or expensive to replace:D

Maximum Carnage · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:51 am

Over tightening can certainly do some damage. I have yet to see a shop use a torque wrench to tighten lugs nuts. That is why they are normally extremely tight to come off after a shop works on your wheels.
If I was you I’d check the other lugs, you might not be able to see any damage but you could get some peace of mind. Lugs are not expensive at all about; maximum $3

SavageUrge · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:49 pm

...not to mention the shop will deny any wrong-doing and tell you to have a nice day.

Liberty&Freedom · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 1:11 pm

Should I be worried about the other studs??
How do I check them?

durangotang · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 1:23 pm

You can't really check the metal for fatigue... I'd just assume they are all bad and replace them. Studs are cheap (especially compared to the alternative :shock:

)

Glad you and the KJ came out alright in the whole thing.

Sidenote: You might want to go talk to the shop manager if you really think they overtightened the lugnuts. Don't accuse them of anything or make a big stink, just let him know he might want to talk to whoever wrenched on it before it happens again and someone gets hurt. He might appreciate it.

tjkoen01 · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:10 pm

i would talk to the shop to make them aware of what happened.

here's what i believed happened (without doing failure analysis of the lug nuts & studs in question). Lug nuts are supposed to be torqued so that the studs are in tension 1.) so that the lug nuts stay tight 2.) provide sufficient clamping force so that the surface friction between wheel and the mounting surface can overcome the forces exerted by tire/ground and drivetrain. The studs are not designed to handle any shearing forces or loading other than being in tension. This is good engineering at work.

if in fact they overtightened your lug nuts enough, they could have overstressed the studs, possibly even stretching them or cracking them (if this is in fact what happened, there would be evidence on the failure surface)

now that the stud is weakened, it is possible that the "normal" torque you applied caused the bolt to stretch more if it was already stretched or if they were cracked, for the crack to continue to propagate. in either case, the result would have been a reduction in the clamping force which would lead to wheel becoming loose and eventually the studs failing. this would have happened even if you did not rotate the tires yourself.

like others have said, i'd replace all the studs, they may not be far behind.

chefdab · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:54 pm

Are you sure they were just over torqued or possibly cross threaded? If they were cross threaded and over tightened then you could have cause to go back to the shop (if you could prove it too). Other wise I would replace all the studs just as a precautionary measure.

CD · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:56 pm

I don't have a torque wrench and so I just give them a real good tighten... sounds like that's a bad thing to do. Best change my method.

RAYMAN975 · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:57 pm

i would go ahead and replace all the studs, just to be safe. as the others said, there no way to prove that the shop overtightened them, especially since you rotated the tires after the fact, and thats when the wheel fell off. but it is a possibility that when they overtorqued them, that it weakened them. let the shop know exactly what happened, dont blame them for anything, cuz they will probably be dicks about it and deny it, but simply let them know how much of a pain it was to get the wheel off, that they were so tight.

cost of studs.....vs........another wheel falling off, and the outcome next time being much worse, you never know!

ObiHann · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:04 pm

So whats the lesson here (so I learn as well), use a torque wrench to make sure it is at the right tension, then re check a bit later?

RAYMAN975 · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:16 pm

i bet the guy torqued his wheels just fine. if the lugs were loose over time, im sure he would have noticed a shimmy/vibration. something probably happened real quick and broke, and started a chain reaction on all other 4 lugs on that wheel. probably from the shop overtightening them. but who knows

Tokyojoe · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:31 pm

Torque your lug nuts to Jeep's recommended levels.

Think of it this way, will you trust a bungee cord to just you or a buddy's guess as to the proper knot or tightness or following standards completely to ensure the bungee cord doesn't come apart or off it's mount when you jump and cause tension to the cord?

Peace of mind, replace all lugs at this point in time. That little bit of doubt will always be with you. The slightest wobble or noise will freak you out.

wheel fell off!!!

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