Recently (less than 500 miles] replaced rear brake pads & rotors, right rear wheel fell off. Felt like i was rammed on left rear. Caused car to slam into concrete barrier on interstate. Any thoughts on why/how this happened
I am assuming this was on a BMW? Did you have the OEM wheel bolts or did you have Studs installed? Did you properly torque them? I've seen people basically standing on the wrench when tightening wheels. This is just as dangerous as under-torquing them.
Wish i had more info, Didn't do the work. The dealer did. It's a 2013 328i.
Were there vibrations prior to it coming off? Was it just the wheel that came off, or did it take pieces of the suspension with it because it was still bolted on? Were there any lug bolts present in the ripped off wheel, and what was their condition?
Seems unlikely that they would have broken all your lug bolts, especially a BMW dealer, and if you were just driving on the street it's unlikely even overtorqued bolts would all snap at the same time like that. It also seems unlikely that it was bolts gradually loosening or coming out because you would've noticed severe vibrations many miles prior to the failure. It's possible I guess that someone removed some of your lug bolts. If for example, someone took out 3 or 4 of the bolts I could definitely see the remaining bolts failing at the same time like this. Do you have wheel locks? Maybe someone tried to steal your wheels, couldn't get the last lug off, and split. Then you drove it not knowing this and the wheel fell off.
Per my questions above, my other guess is that this was some sort of rear suspension failure and that the whole trailing arm ripped out or something along those lines. It's not clear from your initial post if anything came with the wheel.
Last edited by TostitoBandito; 04-10-2018 at 07:58 PM.
1999 M3/2/5 - Titanium Silver - Track/Weekend Toy
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