On my way home this morning I noticed a sort of metallic clicking / rubbing noise while I was driving. The noise seemed to disappear when I would accelerate, but would reappear when I would slow down. As I continued to drive, I noticed that it seemed to be getting worse. It almost felt as though the tire was flat because there was a rotational thumping noise that had become apparent. I decided to pull over and inspect the left front tire which is where the noise was emanating from. Upon further inspection there were no nails or sharp objects imbedded into the tire. So I continued on at a very slow pace until I got home. I decided that I would remove the tire to see if I could determine where the noise was coming from. To my surprise I found out that all the lugs on the left front wheel were loose?!?!? I proceeded to tighten the lugs and inspect the other wheels, none of which had the same problem. I guess my question is, is there any chance that I damaged anything (pins/ bolts on the rotors, any part of the suspension) on the drive home? The drive was approximately 10 miles. I tried to drive as slowly as I could given the movement of the traffic. After tightening up the lugs, I took the car out for a spin and everything seemed fine. Just looking for a little input, thanks guys!

 

Maybe someone was trying to steal your wheels? Do you have wheel locks?

 

Yes, I do have wheel locks and the wheel lock was loose too. Maybe that wheel was not torqued properly the last time my wheels were mounted which was about a month ago?!?! It just seems weird that it only happened to one wheel. Any chance there was damaged caused by the loose wheel?

 

I doubt there any damage, take the wheel off and check the threads on the bolts. Also check the lug holes in the wheel to see if it was gouged up at all.

Again, I doubt there was any significant damage.

 

Thank you sir, I will check this out. I don't have a torque wrench though, so should I just tighten as much as I can and then retorque them tomorrow if they have loosened up? Sorry for all the questions, I just don't want this to happen again

 

I agree. I doubt there is any damage. With aluminum wheels its always recomended to retorque the wheels after 30 miles or so of driving after teh wheel has been off.

 

Thanks Kris, I took the wheel off earlier today and everything looked fine. I will retorque the lugs tomorrow after I drive it around a bit

 

didnt this happen to at least 2 other members, one, if i remember correctly, who lost a wheel on the highway?

 

Yes, I think it happened to Blitz? If I recall, his wheels came completely off while he was driving

 

^^ is it me or does sumthing not seem right over here?

 

it happened to me before on one of my 19s on my TL.. i lived in apt. complex an d i had a feeling these dirty mexicans had an eye on my car and tried jacking the wheels.

all nuts were loose except wheel lock.. after i got off the freeway, i only had 3 nuts on. scary.

 

That is scary. Yeh Ravi, in my case I think that the wheel had not been torqued properly because even the wheel lock was loose. In addition I just had my wheels mounted not too long ago so I think I can tie it back to that. Werid how it happened though

 

Guys, this happened to me too last November, but I was also unlucky to the fact that I too was driving on the highway and decided to get off when the Wheel flew off nearly took someone out, and there was about 2,300.00 dollars of damage to my car. I say you better check those lug studs because all 5 of mine sheared at the rotor .

 

Wow, thanks for sharing your story. I did check the lug studs and they looked ok. Did you happen to notice any type of vibration prior to your wheel coming off? From other people's descriptions here, they said they could feel the car vibrating violently before the wheel flew off.

In my case, I noticed a rattling / clicking noise as I was returning home. Soon there after, I started to feel unevenness to the rotation of the tire. It almost felt as though I had a flat tire. I decided to pull over, but after a brief visual inspection of the tire, I could find nothing imbedded in the tire. So I decided to finish off the rest of my short drive home. Upon jacking the car, I realized that all the lugs were loose. How unnerving.

 

Yea man, the car vibrated real bad before the wheel flew off, i too thought i had a flat. But even earlier to that, I heard the same clicking noise and i kept checking to see if anything was wrong, but found nothing. I guess it was probably real bad luck or something.