Wheels coming loose after tire change! Dangerous, please help!
 

Ok i just typed a book but im on MAC, which is a piece of shit. I tried to Control-V but guess what? Control wasnt in the corner and i lost everything! Fuck Apple to hell! So heres the short version, which u might appreciate more lol

I changed my tires, pretty sure i followed the correct procedure. While the car was jacked i slightly tightened the nuts in a star patterns (4 bolt) and in the process i kept my foot against the wheel to make sure it was sitting on the hub properly. Only thing is i didnt have a torque wrench so i tightened the nuts as much as i could in a star pattern after i dropped it. I know the tires are a little under inflated, but not floppy from the side or anything like that. My steering wheel would shake over 50mph (80km/h).

About a week later my car starts hopping so i pull over and my front driver wheel only had one nut left! All the other nuts were loose as well! So i add nuts and tighten everything. For the wheel that almost fell off, i tighten the nuts so much that the metal starts shaving!

Steering wheel still shakes like a bitch at speed and drivers have pulled up beside me and tell me that my wheels are wobbly! Even after i tighten the nuts again (since they keep coming loose), other drivers tell me they are still wobbly!

Whats going on here? Have i stripped the bolts? If so, why do they tighten ok? Will thread locker save me here? I dont want my wheel to fall off... i love my car! And i dont wanna die or kill anyone lol

Thanks guys!
Dave

If your getting metal shavings it sounds like the threads might of got striped.

PLEASE get a torque wrench before you take them off again.
I not trying to be a ass. But as you found out. Loose or over tightened can be very dangerous.
GM calls for 100 ft pounds for the lugs.

are they new wheels or lugs

How the hell did you not notice until you had one lug left? Also didn't you inspect the car on occasion throughout the week and notice that your lug nuts are missing? Even using a tq wrench I inspect my lugs\tires\psi pretty much daily for the first couple days I have em on in case something creeps up.

Glad you didnt kill anyone, now take it to a mechanic who knows what he is doing and have it inspected. You don't want stripped lug threads for obvious reason. You also do not want to be putting super strength thread lock on either. Please don't bring it to the mechanic with thread lock on your lugs.... :lol: Just keep the bolts tightened to spec.

My take here is you just don't know how to tighten a bolt.


Fail.

Also Lug nut bolts should not get any thread locker or oil on them.
They should screw on by hand before they touch the rim.
If they don't then the threads are messed up.

Thank you for your replies guys, and SuperchargedSS for trying to sum up someone's intelligence based on the fact that my arms do not have an integrated torque setting (proving just how retarded you are)

I also changed my intake, mani, exhaust, and suspension myself. What about you? Have you plugged in a piggy back tune yourself thinking that makes you a tuner? lol fkn douche

And i must have lost my other 3 lugs within a minute cuz it started driving weird and about a hundred feet later i knew the wheel was falling off entirely.

Anyway, @chevysssc: No they are not new, i have used these tires/rims and lugs for 2 years now.

I guess i may have overtightened them, that seems to be the problem here. I have my tuner lugs from my summer wheels so ill try putting those on. Hopefully the lug threads stripped and not the bolt threads. Im gonna get a torque wrench too.

Holy crap..

be safe if ur not sure get help

Why don't you just worry about learning how to put wheels on a car.

I've done it many times in a crunch without a tq wrench, never a single problem.

Your arms don't need an 'integrated torque setting', a brain is all it takes.

1. don't need a torque wrench, just half a brain.
2. might have just stripped the nuts
3. don't crank the shit out of your nuts till you see metal shavings


make sure your lugs have no barbs or metal shavings in them before you put them on the hub, otherwise your going to strip shit.

replace your studs
you probly bent them when your lugs came off....you ALWAYS retighten your studs after driving for a day or so...ALWAYS!!!!!
so...now you get to replace your wheel studs and use new lug nuts, throw the others away because they are un reliable...

Alright SuperchargedSS, cant really blame me for being a little paranoid when changing my wheels alone for the first time without a torque wrench. It kinda made me feel uneasy on whether they were tight enuf when they still turned.

Anyways thanks dudes, ill be sure to get new studs if my steering wheel still shakes after i put fresh lugs on. Makes sense that my wheels would wobble if the studs got bent.

do what normal people do when there cars fucking up and they have no idea wtf is going on and there in fear for there life and people pull next to them everyday and tell them there cars fucked up.
TAKE IT TO A SHOP Let people who know what there doing who have the right tools to work on ur shit

/\ this...in a nicer way lol

yah i bet your rims are fucked man, you probably oblonged the holes for th elugs when the nuts came loose. espcially if they are Aluminum wheels. please take the car to a shop and have it looked at or take the time and use your head. either the studs or the wheels is fucked, possibly both.

This isn't going to happen from overtorquing. The only time I've ever had this happen was when I forgot to torque them and as someone else mentioned, it ovaled the holes. That's probably your problem now. You'll need all new studs, nuts and a new wheel, possibly on all 4. Live and learn.

^^ Last two posts -> Well that is quite interesting because the large hole in the center of the wheel is also insanely oblonged (more like triangular!). Last summer when my friend and I removed the wheels, we had to sledgehammer (against a 2x4 of course) the wheels to get them off! I don't know why they ended up that way, I blamed GM for possibly using 1000 ft lbs of torque.

Geez seriously, at first I was like WTF is up with this SuperchargedSS guy, but now it looks like this place is ridden with fucking assholes. Man, what happened to the world? You fucking kids just have no respect these days, and I'm only in my 20s.

I think the chick on your signature page has the tools..

make sure there is no corrosion on either the hub or wheel where they meet, trq only to 100ft lbs, when u trq it make sure to have the car only half way on the ground, make sure your lugs are ok cause you maight have screwed em up, when the lug nuts are trq'd down the lugs stretch like a rubber band in a way and not enough pressure they wont hold and too much they could snap, also if the lug nuts are incorrectly screwed on the will not hold either

if the wheels were aftermarket, they should be re-torqued after 25 miles and checked periodically

tighten by hand, use socket and wrench to pull nice and tight, don't try and break them off though, and then after about 30-40 miles tighten them up again. This is fairly standard for lug nuts. Also, driving around on loose lug nuts means your probably not alligned correctly any more. Happend once on my Cavalier, had a lug nut even floating around in the cap. Had to replace my wheel bearing and then get a alighnemnt. If the tire doesn't have enough holding it to the spindle, it wobbles and ruins other stuff.
You either have a lot of work for yourself to do now, or for someone else to do, and if your that worried about the torque, then buy a torque wrench or find someone who knows what they are doing to help you.

^^ Thanks! And what sucks is I just got an alignment after I changed my springs this summer :/ Oh well at least I won't be making this mistake again lol like the other guy said: Live and learn, right?

if you changed ur springs u might wanna check and see if you didnt break a strut.....i work at discount tire and we see that all thw time, that could cause your loose lookin wheel too, you might have over tightened the nuts on the top of the front struts and the could be broken off now....just an idea

"Now me and the mad scientist gotta rip apart the hub, and replace the wheel studs you fried!"

1. Remove wheels and all 16 wheel studs.
2. Throw away all 16 studs and nuts.
3. Buy new studs and nuts.
4. Install new studs.
5. Mount wheels and torque to 100 ft/lbs
6. Drive car around the block and retorque to 100 ft/lbs.
7. Drive car for ~30 miles and retorque to 100 ft/lbs.
8. Profit.

More than likely you seriously FUBARed most of the studs on the hubs by either stretching them or bending them. Just save yourself the headache and buy new ones.

You make a post about not being able to change tires, driving around wrecking your rims, with lug nuts dancing down the road... All this with people driving up to you to warn you your tires are about to fall off.... While your arms shake away on the wheel... and onwards you go...

Then you call me a fukin douche for stating the obvious and now can't understand why people would call this scenario for what it is...

:lol:

I apologize, I just have a hard time dealing with stupidity out on the roads.