Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General so my wheel fell off the other day

while i was driving at about 20 mph...i turned a right hand corner and heard what sounded like a flat, then suddenly i hit the ground and watched my wheel bounce off a few parked cars...slid about 30 feet on my brake rotor, quarter panel, and drivers side skirt (passenger side fell off a while ago) and i was able to put the wheel back on taking 1 lug nut from each of the other wheels, and drove VERY SLOWLY the mile and a half to a shop. looks like all my lug nuts on that wheel were either too tight or too loose from when my clutch got replaced (2 weeks ago)

aaaand so now im getting a new quarter panel and both skirts so my car will look all good for carslile. but that also means this car has cost me $2000+ in the last month and thats without any modifications

damn....aint that a [censored]....you mean you cant drive on 3 wheels???

That sucks. My friend had that almost happen to him the other day. He noticed this strange clunking that seemeed to rapidly be getting louder. Luckily he caught it before it lost a tire.

SVT skirts? How trashed are they? Im needing half of each side for my rear bumper cover project. Shoot me a PM, pics would be great.

If that came off because the shop didnt tighten the wheel why dont you sue their ass for damage to your car. Dont just accept it and live with it, it is people like you who refuse to take action when companies make mistakes and they never learn to correct their mistakes. If you sued them do you think they would always check the lug nuts twice before sending a car out, I'm 100% they would.
Sue their ass before they forget to tighten down the lug nuts and the wheel comes off when someone is doing 70 on the highway.

yeah im looking into suing them for it, but i was stranded in NC and from what i understand they put my car at the front of their line so i could get back to DC quickly. im also a subscriber to the idea that you shouldnt sue people who screw up when they screw up by helping you out.

big difference between helping you and gross negligence. You could have easily been on the highway. Likely would have caused a spin and who knows what else.

At least tell them and got for the damages.

If I were the owner of that shop I would want to know if one of my guys messed up.

Did you re-tighten the lugs like you are supposed to? I've heard the lecture an infinite amount of times from shops that put on tires or had to do any work where a wheel was removed. You are supposed to re-tighten your lugs because they can come loose. The back of my Sears receipt states, "All lug nuts on custom and alloy wheels must be re-torqued after 25 miles and checked periodically." Personally I've never had a lug nut come loose, but I'm pretty anal about checking those kinds of things and I actually do re-torque them if they've been off recently.

I retorque them after service anyway because most of those goons use the air wrench to tighten. Only once did a Sears use a torque wrench as required.

I try to remember to check mine every couple of months or so. Usually everything is OK but once in awhile, I'll find one that needs retorqued. You just can't take these things for granted. You are one lucky you know what, you could have been on the freeway surrounded by cars. You really owe it to yourself and the people who did the work to let them know what happened. If someone screwed up once, they could do it again.