OverlandZJ

Few years back my wife had a tire come off her XJ.. i for the life of me couldnt believe she didnt feel it handling weird.

Today i was coming back from the upull, stopped at a buds house and was maybe two miles from his place. I feel a weird handling characteristic while applying brakes at a traffic light. I go through the light looking for someplace to pull over, and hit the brakes again.. i hear snap and see parts fly across the other lane. I get it over and i have a single lugnut left, and two broken studs on drivers side front.

Call my bud to bring me a floor jack, i have spare lugnuts. While waiting i checked the other wheels since i had both axles stripped this past week. One rear had several lugnuts that took several turns. I know damn right well they were tight when i installed them... better than the 80ft/lbs the FSM calls for.

Anyone else have issues? I'm real lucky that last lugnut held and i was able to get it pulled over.

Throttle Jockey

i have. i have 16" alums on mine and ran into the exact same problem. lost four of the five on left front, and broken two studs. only thing i can come with is flex in the wheel works them loose. i was on the trail and had been using the front wheels/steering to get a bite when mine let go.

OverlandZJ

I just installed these Canyon wheels two weeks ago, and only had about 40 miles onroad total.

Guess i'll replace the studs in unit bearing tomorrow if the holes arent wallowed out and keep a very close eye on them.

I'v never experienced this with steel wheels.

Andrew0257

This is also a common problem with aluminum adapters. I think it is just the soft metal expandiing and contracting with temperature.

Throttle Jockey

after my incident, i checked the others and found loose ones. front more so then rear. i figure its from side loading them. so now i check then before and after an off road trip. (mine is off road only)

jigly

I've had the same problem. I put them on with an impact THEN tightend them with a four-way and had them come loose. The first time it happened it sounded like a universal joint clanking, mostly on turns. It was two days before I realized my wheel was about to fall off. They came loose a time or two after that, but i had been checking them regularly and caught it before they actually came loose. I sold them at the scrap yard last week for $50.

Thanks for the opportunity to post these pics

I had a set of old steel wheels laying around getting rusty, SOOOOO





They were REAL rusty around the valves, but its a nice temporary fix.

EUGENE the JEEP

YES that happened to me an my 12yr old coming home one nite,the tire went rite bye us. i said look there goes some bodys tire ,OH CRAP thats our tire james . fixed in 5 mins.

NewXJaddict

Can't say it's even happened to me although one day I pulled into my driveway and there was a crown vic....or whatever the murcury counterpart vehicle is (can't remember which and it looks like they lost some of their lug nuts. They seemed to have skidded to a stop and ended up in my driveway.

GreenClassic

I've never had any issues with my aluminum wheels and lug nuts. The couple times I had a flat tire, the lugnuts were a ***** to get off. They definitely weren't loose.

Char92dj8

Its happed to me out on the trail!
Just the day before we completely rebuilt my front end
and i KNOW the lugs where tight. but sure enough we stopped at a collapsed cabin and in the corner of my eye i notices all but 1 missing on my front drive side wheel. and 2 missing of the front passenger! and lots of loose ones!

OverlandZJ

Apparently this is a widely known issue in the tire business. Googled it and found this reply.. makes sense and i'll be checking mine several times after a wheel removal.

.........................................


Can lug nuts loosen themselves?
I had a scary incident last weekend. My back wheel started banging and rattling and then my tire came off and rolled down the street ahead of me. I came to a dead stop. It was Sunday and low traffic on the main road so I didn't get hit. I had to replace the rim and tire due to major damage. I had a tire rotation 3-4 weeks ago and I put on 100+ miles on my car since that. I don't know how they got loose.




Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
Is your vehicle fitted with aluminum alloy wheels?

If so (and I bet it is) then yes, this can happen. The reason why is your aluminum wheels are held on to the hub by steel lug nuts. These two metals expand and contract at different rates as they heat up and cool down (the wheels are bolted to the brakes remember which get very hot). While not hugely common this can result in one or more lug nuts working loose, even if they were torqued to factory specs. It has happened to me twice in my driving career including once this year and it always happens a short time after wheels were removed and reinstalled.

At my shop whenever we do a tire rotation or remove an aluminum wheel from a car for whatever reason we re-install the wheels using an impact gun and torque stick. Then just to be sure we hand torque the lug nuts a second time with a torque wrench. Then for really good measure we inform the customer that they should return to our shop after driving between 50 and 100 miles to have us hand torque the lug nuts again and have the customer sign a statement that they have been informed of this.

Even with all of that we will still see one or two vehicles a year (out of 40,000+ we service) where one or more lug nuts will come loose. Its always the folks who don't come back to have them checked that have the problem.

A lot of shops have similar policies to mine and ask you to come back to recheck the wheels. Many don't. In my opinion shame on them. Safety first.
Source(s):
Tire store manager

EMAXX620

My uncle was saying something about this to me a few weeks ago, and i was going to ask about it on here and completly forgot. He said the same thing about the 2 different metals. I thought he said get aluminum lug nuts for aluminum wheels, but i havent had a problem with any of mine yet. He said that he had the holes on the wheels oval out due to the 2 metals on his ram charger years ago.

i think ill check how tight they are tomorrow lol.

R Cannon

Mabey I should keep my Seelies on.

Paintballa0788

I had the same issue....
I had just started a job about 2 years ago where I was drivin an hour each way and the misses was freakin out cuz she had a bad feeling that sumn was gonna happen.....
Doin 60 I heard snap and felt the front end drop.... pulled over and had one stud remaining and no others.... Was pretty scary....

Then in fl new years of this year while on vaca, I had to rebuild the whole drivers side due to the same issue......
Idk what the deal is but that was about a $500 fix... 8(
Is it caused by the wheels???

CAEMI

There are millions of aluminum wheels out there. Tens of millions. I know this is a possible problem, but I'd check and make sure you have the correct type of lugnut.

Aluminum wheels use a tapered nut that seats into a tapered recess. As the wheel heats and cools and rotates, the lugnut is designed to tighten. Make sure you do NOT use a flat washer and a tapered nut OR use a flat bottomed nut either with washer or without. Use only tapered nuts with tapered wheel holes. If your wheels use flat bottom nuts or washers, I'll bet dollars to donuts that the torque spec is 120+ pounds...maybe even 140.

All this I learned two weeks ago when I mounted a set of American Racing Outlaw II's on my XJ and the local tire shop sold me new lugnuts for $20...the education was free. And the nuts were machined and chromed...not the cheapo ones with the chrome jacket.