Well...This is a story I am definitely thankful to be able to tell...

Tonight, Wednesday night, I'm driving on Las Tunas..around San Gabriel Blvd...a main street in SoCal for those that are from out of town...I JUST put my rims on last night 18" Racing Hart C2 Gunmetal rims with Yokohama Paradas...so i'm cruising down the road and the steering suddenly got really shaky...I slowed down and started listening to it when all of a sudden the front right rim FLEW off...literally came off...i was going about 30mph...so I watched my rim roll away and hit a store wall about 30 feet away...my car, without the wheel, dropped and basically slid on my brake rotor for a good 10 feet or so (I might go back someday and take pictures of the mark on the street)...CRAZY stuff...

So after calming down and retrieving my rim, which now has more scratches...I jacked up the car and put the rim back on...drove it to a nearby parking lot and examined my damages...WELL...the brakes are making a LOT of noise...so I'm guessing the rotor's no longer circular...one of the four lug bolts...the thread's no good cuz I can't get the lug back on and it doesn't even look straight anymore...so that's definitely no good. Well...I don't know exactly what's wrong yet, going to get it towed to the shop tomorrow and see how bad this is...i'm just praying the control arm isn't bent or anything...or nothing really major...we'll see soon enough...

 

yeah. the rotor and the hub would probably have to go.

sorry to hear that. next time use a torque wrench or get it professionally installed. i've seen bad experiences with home-installed rims too.

 

New rims alloy some times compress under the lugnuts after some driving. I've personnaly torqued a new set of wheels on a customers car and had them drive 25-30 miles to heat of the rotor and rim little, and seen the nuts need over a half turn to be to the same torque with the same torque wrench. Sears even has all kinds of disclaimers about alloy rims on thier workorders. Everytime I pull a wheel , alloy, off one of my cars and put it back I drive 25-30 and retorque it.

 

Thanks for the info, just got back from the shop, thankfully nothing serious happened...the only thing that needs to be replaced is the piece behind the rotor that holds the bolts...and that one bolt itself. Getting new brake pads and resurfacing the rotors while I'm at it since the shop's going to have to take that apart anyway. So very grateful it's nothing horrid...

 

Did you put the rims on yourself? If you did, then it's time to invest in a good torque wrench. Tightening lugnuts using the wrench that came with your car is never safe. For temporary reason, it's ok. If you want to use that, then you should step on the wrench and jump on it to make it tight. (of course, that's not the recommended method)

 

Like it was said before, you need to retorque the lugs after the initial 50 miles of travel on rims. You can get a torque wrench from Sears.

 

Just be glad you weren't doing 55+ on the hwy.

 

OH YES...I think about that all the time...WHAT could have happened if....geez...thanking God for this one...

 

ouch! sorry to hear bout that! when i was installing my springs on my civic, i forgot to torque down the lugs on one of my rear wheels. i heard a clunking noise and pulled over immediately. i guess i lucked out and noticed right away....... dont forget to pick up a good set of locks while ur at it! btw are u done with ur stock bumper yet?

 

Dan, wussup...crazy experience...I'll be done with my stock bumper real soon, I'll let you know when I have the kit on...should definitely be on before I go to school...sorry to take so long. I'll keep ya updated.

BTW...I heard the clunking noise too...guess didn't realize in time tho...at least the center caps kept all my lugs in =)