A buddy of mine is on a road trip today, and he told me that he heard a strange sound from one of his tires. He stopped, and found that all the bolts of one of his tires were loose, and the tire was almost falling off. All the bolts seemed to be loosened the same amount.
Can this happen on its own? Or did someone try to whack my friend? (His brake line seemed OK…)
I never heard of this happening by accident before. Can they just get loose on their own? All by the same amount?
If they were all torqued to the same wrong value, I could see them all loosening on their own. Sounds to me like the shop that put the tire in messed up. I’d have the other tires looked at if they were put in at the same time. I too have never heard of it happening either, but it seems plausible , if highly unlikely to me.
It happened to my family once. My family was on a trip to see the Black Hills of South Dakota. We got a flat. My dad fixed it. Then we’re rolling down the road and suddenly the car starts swerving wildly and the driver’s side front wheel (the one he changed) is rolling down the interstate in front of us!
Apparently, he didn’t fasten all the bolts tightly down, the tire wobbled and stripped them and worked its way off the wheel.
This is the theoretical reason that some car manufacturers used to use left hand threaded lug nuts on one side. I never heard of it actually happening though.
If they aren’t taken to at least minimum torque the nuts can loosen over time…
I could see the wheel vibrating against whatever nut was most on, and so causing it to unscrew… at which point some other nut would be “most on”… causing the nuts to be off by about the same amount.
Another common screwup is using the wrong type of lugnuts. Alloy and steel wheels require different lugnuts. If you have an alloy wheel and put on a steel spare without using the 4 “extra” nuts in the trunk, all sorts of Bad Wheel Stuff can happen. Check your owner’s manual to see if this applies to you.
DIYers who don’t know this can also buy the wrong type when customizing, etc., etc.
Short answer Yup.
Slightly longer answer Yes they can, and they bolts or studs can be weakened by this loosening up, and may break in the future. (ask me just how I know this) :smack:
Thanks folks. My buddy will likely be relieved that it can happen on its own.
One theory he had was that his boss’s old business partner might have sabotaged his truck, to hurt the business. I suppose that’s still possible, though.
In Canada, lots of industrial trucks have little plastic pointers on the lug nuts. They are installed so that they make a circle. A quick visual inspection can tell if the circle is broken, and the nuts have loosened.
This is precisely because there have been cases of lug nuts loosening on their own and tires wreaking havoc with oncoming traffic. Perhaps the extreme temperatures make it more common.
First of all hello to all.
I have a simular question about this subject. This past weekend I traveled with my 29ft toyhauler. We drove maybe 500+ miles. Had a tire shred the lugs and decide to race me down a mountain.
Upon inspection of the damage. I decided to check the other 3 tires (toyhauler is tandem axled) and found them to be loose as well. Now all 3 tires which have 6 lugs each, we’re all about 2 1/2 full turns loose.
Fact: it’s been over a year and a half since the tires were installed. Toyhauler has seen about 4500 miles with no tire failed or issue.
My question is: Can this be possible they all came loose at the same time or like the gentleman above asked, Did someone sabotage my trailer?
Your opinions are highly appreciated.
Thank you.
This is the echo of a conversation that ended 12 years ago. You may or not get any responses.
Yeah, I had something similar a few weeks ago. I changed the wife’s tires (winter to summer) by hand, electric torque wrench. theoretically, they were all tight. It’s possible that one was not, and it caused its neighbours to loosen, and so on. About a week after I changed them. there began a clunk-clunk-clunk that got louder and louder. Stopped, got out the tire wrench, and one wheel had almost all nuts loose to some degree.
So yes, driving will cause somewhat loose to become more loose… all around.
Also, standard procedure unless you’re the tire shop - you tighten everything in an alternating pattern (every other nut for an odd number). Then drive around the block and check and tighten again. The nuts may not have seated in the tapered holes properly the first time.
Wheels (surely the tyres are the black rubber part) on trucks are always prone to coming loose. Bigger yards have a fitter whose job it is to re-torque wheel nuts on a regular schedule. Owner drivers will probably do it themselves every couple of weeks.
Anytime I have a tyre change on my car - I want to see the fitter doing his stuff with a torque wrench - 130 Nm please.
I’m just wondering if, in the 12 years since this thread was started, Canadians have stopped putting bolts in their tires. They go on the wheels, guys, not the tires! Just a little pro-tip from your neighbor to the south. 
[raises paw] … here … just hand-tightened the lug nuts and forgot to torque them down … very embarrassing having to chase down my tire on foot …
Some cars do have bolts instead of nuts. Citroen I know for certain do, and a Canadian may well drive a French car. They’re a real pain to line up when you’re changing a wheel, especially with 5 bolts rather than 4.
[QUOTE=TheLedGuy]
Fact: it’s been over a year and a half since the tires were installed. Toyhauler has seen about 4500 miles with no tire failed or issue.
My question is: Can this be possible they all came loose at the same time or like the gentleman above asked, Did someone sabotage my trailer?
[/QUOTE]
Sorry to say this, but you self-sabotaged if you never checked the wheels.
My trailer has a red label right at the hitch warning the driver to check lug nuts and tire pressures before moving. The last time I took the trailer out, I found a couple lugs were a quarter-turn loose, so yes, they do just wiggle loose with time.
Former RV sales guy here: tandems on trailers are not always installed properly, which means the tires don’t track properly, which could set up vibration. I don’t know if that’s a fixable problem or not. But even if your axles are properly installed and aligned, one of the cardinal rules for larger RVs and trailers is to always check the lug nuts and tire pressure prior to taking a trip. These vehicles are typically overloaded and take a pounding from road surfaces, wind, etc. You should have both a ‘wheels up’ and a ‘wheels down’ printed list of items to take care of before departure and after arrival. It can save you a lot of grief.
One of the tractors I used to drive had a problem with the wheel nuts coming loose, they were torqued to the manufacturers setting of about 600 ft/lbs IIRC and every other day would have loosened by about half a turn.
It was a brand new machine and the makers blamed it on too much paint on the wheels, but it still happened after they sanded the paint off. The wheels were 6 feet tall and over 2 feet wide, and we were running at 40mph heavily loaded, I’d hate to think of the carnage if one had come adrift!
In the same job, we were pulling hired trailers, with commercial spec axles and had one of the wheels come loose, to the point that the hub had to be replaced because of the damage caused.
<nitpick>
Tires don’t have bolts. They are mounted on rims. The rim and the tire together are called a wheel. The wheel doesn’t have bolts either, although it’s held in place by bolts which are attached to the axle and nuts which are threaded onto the bolts. If the nuts are touching the tire, you have done something seriously wrong.
<nitpick>
It’s the nuts that are coming loose, not the bolts.
</nitpick>
</nitpick>