motor

nthfinity · 10-06-2007, 01:25 AM

So, I just did a semi-cross country road trip... and just had 1080 miles under my belt when suddenly.... without warning, my drivers side (front left) wheel and tire are beside me, and sparks are flying from my rotor.

I had checked my lugs, and filled the tires to proper pressure when I left Delaware... and was just.... 30 miles from home when this happened... 4 hours later, I managed to get the spare on, and be careful on the brakes....

now needed

new pads/rotor/ new lug bolt... maybe I need a new wheel too.... I've got to go back to that area of the highway to see if I can find the wheel. I was lucky that there wasn't much traffic, and the wheel didn't collide with any traffic!

Crazzzzzzzy!!! I think that when I had some shop place the tires and wheels on my car, they over tightened, and was the cause of this somehow

eh.... 172,000 miles, who can complain too much.... no "real" damage at all

rusrocket · 10-06-2007, 01:29 AM

haha that sucks man. at least you are ok. the same thing happened to my friend, except he drives the next closest thing to a monster truck. you can imagine how far down the car dropped when his wheel flew off.

acmarttin · 10-06-2007, 03:05 AM

Man I bet that startled the hell out of you. Every time I drive long distance I'm in like a calm haze on the open road. My mind isn't really focused on anything but staying in the lines and then BOOM! :shock:

Well - above all things - it's good to hear you're fine and that only minor repairs are necessary.

Mattk · 10-06-2007, 03:10 AM

Damn! Must have been a freaky mishap. The last and only accident I've been involved in was when a taxi ran into my rear while I was driving my dad's car. He completely flattened the rear bumper and I needed to physically wrench the bodywork back away from the right rear tire to prevent it from scraping.

r2r · 10-06-2007, 03:49 AM

:shock: dam that sucks man!

But thankfully everything is fine and nobody got hurt.

Out of curiosity, did you lose control of the steering?

You hear too many stories of drivers with blown tires that end up in a ditch. How were you able to bring the car to a controlled stop?

Zot09 · 10-06-2007, 04:02 AM

Damn! It must have been one hell of a scary experience, but thankfully you made it out fine. I'm also curious as to how you got your car to a controlled stop.

79TA · 10-06-2007, 04:24 AM

I'm glad nothing worse happened. That's too bad though. If it's any consolation, my Trans Am's trim ring fell off two weeks ago in a slightly similar fashion and was run over by traffic. Finding a matching replacement is proving to be near impossible. Good luck with repairs.

ARMAN · 10-06-2007, 07:17 AM

:shock: wow, good that nothing happend to you or anyoneelse

so was that bolts that failed?

nthfinity · 10-06-2007, 12:10 PM

as to all the questions about control...

after the front dropped down, and a shower of sparks from my grinding, and flattening brake rotor... I had reduced steering control, but being smooth on all the controls yields no scary unusual movements of the car.

I initially had some braking control, however, the car is equipped with a very intrusive ABS system... if one wheel is even briefly locking, then I have no braking on the other wheel. This caused me to loose ALL braking control after less then 1 second.

why did this happen? as the rotor flattened, it stopped rotating, and the ABS computer saw that... so it did what it's "supposed to do" and prevented the brake pads from having any pressure... even on the remaining good wheels.

I had thought that perhaps I lost my break fluid... but as the brake fluid and power steering fluid are connected, and I still had power steering... I knew this wasn't the case.

So, without braking, I pulled over to the shoulder of the highway gradually, and coasted to a stop.. and lost track of where the wheel went.... thankfully, wherever it went to, it was not causing an accident :shock:

As to what caused the failure... 1.5 years ago, when I had new tires put on by a tire shop... they over tightened the lug nuts. Over the last 525 miles of the trip, it seemed that 4 of those lugnuts wiggled loose... while I couldn't even loosen them when I wanted to check my pads and rotors!

The last remaining lug was on VERY tight. This is why I think there was no loose warning feeling through the feel of the car. So, in the last moments, that single lug bolt had a lot of pressure on it, and it did break. The only lug that is damaged.

I did drive my car home, and still had braking even with the spare tire on... and the partially ground rotor.

batgirl · 10-06-2007, 01:39 PM

I'll get you next time

10-06-2007, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by batgirl

I'll get you next time

graywolf624 · 10-06-2007, 08:14 PM

Glad you made it home ok and the car survived. Im sure you got that the world has slowed down to half pace feeling.. Probably took less then a minute to wrestle it onto the shoulder but probably felt like a week. At least it sounds like it wasnt too costly a mistake. That jeep has been through a lot... Just think what might have happened if you were still missing a sway bar.. *shudder*

How about some pictures of your trip home. How about some pics of those Amishmen or the tunnels through central PA? Maybe a very loud car exhaust?

nthfinity · 10-06-2007, 10:57 PM

I went back today to look for the wheel, but all I found was a lugnut. it was quite dark out when I lost the wheel... and it is quite lost

novass · 10-07-2007, 01:13 AM

Sucks that your wheel fell off but at least you didn't get hurt and the damage wasn't too bad. Too bad you can't find your wheel either.

Bizi Jones · 10-07-2007, 01:19 AM

what kind of car was it?