Different Experience Today. My Wheels Fell Off.

Heading north out of fort Collins and about 10 miles from Wyoming I look in my mirror and see a tire and wheel rolling down the road next to me. I thought where the hell did that come from? Then I realized it was my tire.

Both wheels came off and all the lugnuts were gone. This is what I found. Never did find the other tire.

Not just the lug nuts. Looks like all the mounting studs have sheered off. That sux!!

Ouch...

Someone recently have the wheels off? I personally have witnessed this both before and after this happens which brings a good point I cant tell you how important it is to have wheels re torqued after driving even if they dont appear lose. Good thing no one was hurt

Not just the lug nuts. Looks like all the mounting studs have sheered off. That sux!!

Actually they are there. Drum had backed out too.

Sorry, didn't notice how displaced the drum was.

And you totally didn't see anything on your PTI?

That's some scary sheet. Really glad no one got nailed. Folks have NO IDEA how heavy those suckers really are, until you have to lift one.

One of the "fun side projects" (totally unnecessary) we did in the school I went to - was dismounting and remounting a tire on a rim. Learned how to use a "huffer" to seat the bead and everything. Kinda like trigonometry in high school - now THERE'S SOMETHING I'LL NEVER USE.

That pretty much downed the trailer. How did road service resolve this for you? Kinda need a new hub, maybe a new drum and pads depending.

Rick

Having experienced this once myself, I know that strange feeling of "How the hell did I miss that!?!?" you might be experiencing. I had picked up the trailer 250 miles earlier and I know the lug nuts were all there when I got it, since I always check on my pretrip. After that I began to check lug tightness by hand every single time, especially when I got a new trailer. It saved me once, too, when I found two really loose lug nuts on a trailer I was about to hook up to at the yard to take over to a shipper to swap.

Even though another driver kindly pulled over and got my attention before the wheels came all the way off that hub, it wouldn't have been long before they did. The tow driver had to chain up the axle so I could limp to their shop 10 miles away. Not a fun feeling.

The lugnuts had no rust and we're tight. But they can be tight to the hand but loose, if you understand what I mean. Can't turn it by hand but can with a wrench.

The lugnuts had no rust and we're tight. But they can be tight to the hand but loose, if you understand what I mean. Can't turn it by hand but can with a wrench.

Loose wheel/drum pushing out against the lugs can make them "appear tight" when hand checking. Though this should have shown at least some symptoms before coming loose. Rare to see an "immediate catastrophic failure" of ALL the lugs at the same time. And PTI's really only call for looking for rust, streaks and checking by hand. How many of us carry a lug wrench and would check EVERY SINGLE NUT on 18 wheels?

Yet another case for having lug indicators on every wheel/nut.

What did road service do for you? Was the trailer loaded and they had to swap the load over to a new box - or did they tow it in and replace the hub/wheels?

Rick