Wheel Bolts sheered off

EvianBaby | 10:00 Mon 08th Oct 2012 | Motoring

40 Answers

In short, yesterday while I was driving a couple of the bolts holding one of my wheels sheered off, leaving the wheel hanging on which just one on the arm.

I had the tyres changed about 2 months ago and I'm wondering if either the garage should have noticed the bolts were wearing or if it's possible they tightened them too much (if they would have even undone them)?

I'm not going to go back to that garage but I do want to work out how it could have happened.

Dartford Tolls Increase again.

Vauxhall Vectra Flange

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tonyav

Are your wheels alloy or steel, Evian ?

EvianBaby

Question Author

Alloy.

tonyav

Bolts or studs ?

EvianBaby

Question Author

No idea! The RAC man said bolts.

tonyav

It does sound to me like they have been overtightend, On alloy wheels you need less psi on tightening them than steel wheels.

EvianBaby

Question Author

hhhmmm. Thanks Tony, that's sort of along what I thought. I can't believe a garage that specialises in tyres can make that sort of mistake. Could have been so dangerous.

tonyav

Was they put on with an air ratchet, if so then they probably hadn't adjusted the torque setting on it from the last car it was used on, was it Quik Fit by any chance ?

EvianBaby

Question Author

I wasn't there when they did the tyres, I left the car with them so not sure what they would have used. No, not Kwik Fit. A garage near me called Eds Treds.

tonyav

Righto, Evian. Very dangerous and you were lucky, it could have been so much worse.

EvianBaby

Question Author

It could have if I'd been going faster. They changed all four tyres at the same time so theres a chance the others are stuffed too. Will need to get them checked when I put it in later. It's just hard finding a garage I can trust.

tonyav

Tell them what happened Evian, and to make sure that the other wheel bolts are tightened to the correct torque.

EvianBaby

Question Author

I'm not going back to that garage. To be honest if they can stuff up what should be such a simple job I don't trust them to touch any important bits on my car again.

Graham-W

As others have said, this could be caused by over-tightening of the bolts, especially if they used an air gun to drive them in.
It could also occur if they weren't tightened enough. Take the car to a reputable garage(if you can find one) and get them to check the torque on all the wheel bolts.

EvianBaby

Question Author

Thanks. There's a guy coming to pick it up tomorrow morning so I'll get him to have a look at the lot.

ChuckFickens

P.s. Tony...

psi is a unit of pressure (force per unit of area), not torque (unit times distance)... I think you meant pound-foot or newton metre

TWR

To add, does your receipt state that the wheels were torqued? If not, ask them why not then take it from there, it the bolts had been loose for some time it will show within the bolt recess in the rim. they might try it on by saying that this was the cause Evian.

EvianBaby

Question Author

Haven't got the receipt any more. But as I said, I'm not going back to them anyway. I don't want them touching my car.

derekpara

I think this damage could happen if the nuts were put on the wrong way round. What do you think TWR ?

ChuckFickens

I find it highly unlikely that a wheel bolt would shear under any circumstances (or a wheel stud for that matter)!

I think the first thing we need to establish is if they are Wheel bolts or wheel nuts...

this is a wheel bolt.
http://www.eurotruck-...images/4604010070.jpg

This is a wheel nut
http://www.lrseries.c...0-ALLOY-WHEEL-NUT.jpg

If it's a wheel nut (with a stud in the hub) then the most likely thing to have happened is the thread stripped out on the nut.

ELVIS68

A couple of weeks after I had my tyre changed I noticed a knocking sound every time I slowed down.
At first I thought the wheel was coming loose but because they put cable ties round the trims I couldn't get them off til I got home, when I took the trim off I found 2 wheel nuts laying loose, one had sheared the stud the other had worked its way loose.
The others were working their way loose as well so I put it down to the mechanic not doing his job properly.

I rang them and told them what happened and got offered my money back which I took and haven't used them since

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