Almost lost my wheel today...

To pretty much start this off I took my tires to get rotated the other day at Costco. Everything was fine until last night when I started to hear a grinding noise. At first I thought it was my wheel bearing or something like that. Well driving home from my friends house today the noise gets really loud all of a sudden and my wheel is shaking like crazy. I look out my window and see my wheel wobbling and think to myself "oh shit!! my wheel is about to fall off!". I pull off the road I lost 2 lug nuts and I could hand tighten another 2 lug nuts, leaving me with only 2 lug nuts holding my wheel. I called my dad and told him what happened and he said we are going to go talk to them tomorrow. Any ideas on what to tell them? and should I go buy lugs and fix my truck? or will that defeat the purpose of telling them. This is why you dont always trust people working on you vehicle and I guess Costco sucks at rotating tires. lol

 

Tell them exactly what happened!
I bet the guy got sidetracked during the install. (Not that that's an excuse) Either that, or he's just a f--king idiot. Costco should pay to fix whatever got damaged, no questions asked

 

Obviously didn't torque them down properly. I did that to myself once. Busted a stud right off at the base and almost lost the wheel at highway speeds.

 

You didn't think to do anything the first time?? Or check at home???

I got my tires rotated at Big os a few weeks ago. I wasn't afraid to check all the lug nuts to make sure they were tightened correctly in front of the store when they were done. Checked my tire pressure while I was at it too. I dunno why they would change my pressure, but you never know..

 

costco are very stand up guys, I am sure they will cover all damages. I had my tires rotated there once and by the time I got home the center hub cover was long gone. I went back to costco and told them that after 277000 miles I have never lost one until 10 miles after they rotated my tires, they immediately agreed to reimburse me. I just went to the stealership, ordered one, paid for it, brought the receipt to them and was issued a check via mail that came about 2 weeks later from cooperate. They may choose a different path considering that you could have died but just go in there, maybe with your dad so you have an older more experienced person with you and lay out exactly what happened. They will probably tell you to go to the dealership and get it fixed and they will pay for it all.

 

^^If this is your girlfriend, you're awesome

 

I'm just here because gut was telling me there was a hot chick pic or clip!

 

If you had a 5-lugger, you would have been in trouble.

Seriously, though, I do my own tire rotations. I don't trust most shops with hubcentric rings, etc.

 

I agree with pretty much everyone's opinion. I went and tighten all the 4 lugs I had and drove it back home (thank god I was only about a mile away and I took side streets). By the time I got home they were all loose again and I noticed I had a broken stud. I did think about checking the lugs as someone mentioned, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt, because how can you go wrong with tightening a lugs and mounting tires as a job.

 

I agree rotating tires is easy, but my dad was like no just take it to Costco and let them do it for you. That went well lol

 

You tightened them and they were loose again a mile later and probably less than 40MPH?

 

sounds like he has a bigger problem...

 

You now most likely have rim damage. Make the buy you another rim.

 

since it is a big company i bet they will cover all damages

 

Can't be good for the studs either.

 

That's what I was thinking. Either the studs were damaged from not tightening them originally or there's a stud/lug nut issue with the aftermarket wheels and lugnuts. Being that it only happened on one wheel I'd guess the first but who knows.

 

Anytime someone else takes the wheels off of my vehicles I check the lugs with a torque wrench as soon as I get home. These has been many times where they are not in specs. Some shops just rely on their impact wrench without torque sticks and call it good. I just dont trust anyone when it comes to something as important as the wheels.

 

Same thing happened to me except I think mine was someone trying to steal the wheels and they couldn't get the lock off so they left the wheel with just 1 lock nut on. Had it towed to the dealer and they fixed everything free of charge. (4 broken studs, 2 bent, last one was semi-stripped, replaced all lugs & locks on all 4 wheels).

 

Most tire places will tell you to retorque them after 25 miles as a catch all deal.
Still sucks anyway you slice it, but it could have been way worse.