Lesson2: You need 4 wheels on a car....

[Suprash]

I was setting off on my night out to Bournemouth on Friday night, got on the M3 heading south and after about 10mins my creaking noise front the front passenger side started to get louder. Not sure if any of you are aware of this problem I have been trying to diagnose of late, but to recap quickly, I have been getting some creaking noise from the front passenge side at low speeds. Anyway made it to the M27 and things took a turn for the worse, the noise got progessivly louder and you could start to feel it more, so we pulls over into the services, jacks the car up, checks the wheel, it spun freely, wobbled it and no play so off we set again, after getting back on the motorway it was obvious things really werent right so we decided to pull off at the next junction turn around go back and get another car (mine was booked into a local ramp for the next day to have the front sub frame bolts checked). Anyway turns around about Jct 3 on the M27, made it all the way to about Winchester services and by this time the noise had manifested into a almighty knocking noise, that was now you could now start to feel quite badly throught the car, Im thinking supsension, to bearing maybe, to this, to that. My speed was being brought down and down by the severity of the noise and by now I was doing about 40mph in the slow lane. Not good when you have lorries belting up behind you but things where really starting to knock, by this time we had crawled on a few more miles and finally saw the Basingstoke junction, yes, finally, we crawled it home, and with that the steering suddenly went a bit wobbly for a second or two and then 'BANG' the front passenger side of the car dropped and hit the deck, almighty scrapping noise and the car slid to halt. What was worse was the hard shoulder had been conned off with a tape joining all the cones and at first with the shock of what appeared to be loosing a wheel, I didnt manage to get the car through the cones, and it was promptly sat in the slow lane. So we all jumped out and legs it onto the hard shoulder with a lorry just skipping over ito the middle lane and giving the horn as he flew passed. I ran round to the passenger side expecting to see the front and side skirts gone, but thankfully they still had about 4/5 inches of clearance so with that jumped in the car while my mate moved some cones out the way and drove her, well more pushed her over onto the hard shoulder. Gets out and takes a look at what happened/damage. The wheel hadnt come completely off thankfully had literally jammed itself into the wheel arch.

Calls for recovery and after the usual wait he arrives. Now the car was sat on its on standard jack as while we were waiting I jacked the car up and got the jammed wheel off. So he's thinking how the **** do you get a three wheeled Supra on a flat bed. There was no chance of getting the wheel or the space saver on just so we could roll the car onto the flat bed, there was still 3 remaining bent studs and he didnt have any things spare like bolts. So he said did i have a space saver and would I mind if it got a little ruined, so he had the idea of laying that side's support arm ontop of the space saver and then dragging it up onto the flatbed. The uncanny thing was that caused us loads of problems was the fact that if you have a space saver laying on one side it slides easier due to its metal face touching the floor and the other side the rubber of the wheel tends to sit on the floor, we had the rubber side on the floor as we needed the clearence from the steel face of the wheel, the other way the arm of the car would have sat inside the space saver. So when trying to winch the car on it kept sliding off the space saver due to it giripping on the floor. Eventually after using 1 jack, 1 winch, 1 big ****ing bar to keep levering the space saver along with the car, 3 blokes (one stood on the winch cable trying to take the stress of the bomex front end, how that didnt give way..) and a load of water splashed down the flat bed to eventually get the space saver slidding alone, we got the bastard car on the back of the recovery truck. It must have taken a good hour. And that was half way, we had to get the bastard thing back off yet.

It got to the stage when getting it off that the car still had a foot to roll off the flatbed and the winch wasnt holding the car and the flat bed was tilted as high as was needed and the whole cars weight was being held by the front passenger side sitting on the space saver, and in the end I had to get in the car stick it in reverse and reverse it slowly dragging the front end. This proceded to take another hour of sweat and and then covering the back of his flatbed with some Mobile1. We found our trick and with the oil the space saver was now slidding like a penguin down a ski slope.

So came Sat morning, and time to asses overal damage. Body work on the car is fine thanfully to the wheel jamming in the wheel arch, this also saved the front and side skirts otherwise the car would have been sat on the tarmac, something which just doesnt bare thinking about. Hub, disc and surrounding parts are all ok. The inside of the alloy is quite knackard and Im hoping it can be fixed. There is some heavy'ish scoring around the inside of the wheel where the disc met the bottom, and the facing plate where the wheels sits on the hub is a bit gouged (sp?) from the studs, and some of the alloy holes are stretched. But as long as a wheel shop reckons the structure is still good which I think it will be then I have someone who can heopfully skim the back to make the surface good again and they can fit new sleeves into the stretched holes and re-drill to the correct size. All I need for the car is 5 new studs, surprisingly.....

So all in all after loosing a wheel at 40mph, no damage, and hopefully the cost wont exceed much more then about ?150.

To say I was feeling slightly happy on reflection of what could have been I wont deny. So this closes on the topic of why this happened. Im presuming there are only a few options here. Either the wheel bolts where A) not done done up properly, or B) to tight.

I have spoken to the person who last worked on my car, knowing they had taken both front wheels off, they said that all the bolts were good, and that if it was loose bolts then I would have probably known something sooner as this was about 2 month ago'ish and the car has done nearly a thousand miles since probably.......

Would I have any come back, proof of liability, would like to hear anybodys views as Im not sure if I should cover the cost of this, or look for the one thats responsible.........???

[UltraFlynn]

Utter utter nightmare mate. Hope you get it sorted cheaply.

[Martin F]

Eventful Friday night for you Ash.

From what you've written i'm still actually trying to understand what has failed, are you saying the studs have broken?

[Suprash]

I dont think its the studs themselves. There was 3 bent remaining studs left on the hub and two had snapped off, of the couple of bolts I did find none of the threads had sheered which makes me believe these bolts have worked there way loose over time. If the threads on the studs and the threads on the bolts are ok across some of them then that surely has to point to them unscrewing by themselves........

Eventfull yes Martin, shame we never actually made our night out, I could have done with getting ****ed after that little episode..........

[Martin F]

The only experience i've ever had of loose wheel nuts, the steering wheel was shaking so voilently that i knew something was up straight away. Admittedly that car didn't have power steering but all the same i'm sure you would have felt a lot of vibration through the wheel.

I wonder if the nuts where done up too tight and have then broken off, but that wouldn't really account for the creaking and groaning you heard before hand.

Weird!

[Suprash]

Thats the thing, I would say the vibration wasnt that bad, what was bad was the deep (like bass from a speaker) knock, knock coming through to the inside of the cabin. I could feel it through the wheel but it felt like I could feel the vibration from something else, not directly.............

The creaking could have been heard from the outide for a couple of weeks previous to this.....but also you could sometimes hear a chink, chink, sound and Im suspecting thats one of the wheel bolts had already come loose and was sat behind the plate, I honestly didnt think it would be wheel nuts, thats just too easy, also as I have had the car jacked up and shook the wheel side to side and there was no play, and there was no play 20 miles before it let go, but maybe it was a situation of the wheel might have been slightly welded to the hub so still felt solid, I dunno, had every possible thought run through my head so far.......

[Suprash]

Also forget to mention about the break down recovery chap, this did make me laugh, but while he was starting to get the car on the back of teh flatbed, he mentioned he had a skyline which immediatly calmed my nerves about getting the car on with no damage, thinking he's in the same circles as me regarding his car. So he started talking about saying he had it dynod at 236 on a rolling road, so I asks him "is that 236 at the wheels, or fly"?, decent enough question I thought, to which he said "236 on the roller, on a rolling road", "yeah" I said but is that at the wheels or the fly?, to which he just looked at me puzzled like, so we just jumped onto the next part of the conversation. Then when we're at my house he then mentioned his Skyline has 900bhp, so Im thinking thats strange sure he said 236 earlier, but thought I could maybe have mis-heard what with being stood on the side of the motorway. So after the car was off, I started to quiz him about his Skyline, he starts off buy saying its a GT model or something, he didnt mention R33 or R34 which I know are the big ones, said he bought it for 3.5k but it should have been worth around 10k cause the bloke thought the engine was seased, when it was just something to do with the crank or starter motor or something, cant remember now, but he reckons he's a mechanic by trade and got the car home and got it running straight away. So I asked him whats else he has done to the Skyline, like what turbos (if its running 900 break there gonne be something big) to which his reply was the're Nissan ceramic turbos, now Im thinking Toyota make ceramic turbos on their stock units, this sounds the same surely, pretty sure Skyline dont make a after job turbo to make 900 break do they ? So goes onto to ask him what else he has done, and this is all he could come out with after sort of stuttering about, he has changed the cams on them because they have to two, and also some cylinder sleeve things, which let the pistons move up and down more freely due to less friction, oh and the engine changed from a V block at the beggining of the night to a inline 6 by the time we had this convo at the end, lol.................I walked intot the house after he left turned my mate and said "Bullllllllllllllllllllllshit"...

Anyway turns out he's local to me and said he would bring it round one day so I made sure I gave him my address, phone and name, thought I wanna see this 900 break Skyline.........who wants to bet a tenner he dont turn up

Anyway Im off to sell the Supra and by a Skyline, cause Im thinking a quick cam swap and some thinner cylinder sleeve things and Im at 900 break, lol...........

[UltraFlynn]

Perhaps you misheard and he's breaking a Skyline for 900 quid...... Just a thought.

[Suprash]

Originally Posted by Flynn

Perhaps you misheard and he's breaking a Skyline for 900 quid...... Just a thought.

Maybe, lol, what ever he said it was a load of cods-wallop though.....

Still no phone call yet though........

[darryl]

Bloody hell mate, what a night. Something strange their. I remember when i was in your car a few weeks back the noise to me was more noticibale when turning right at low speeds, due to loose wheel nuts? When you checked for play did you give it a good kick? Sounds to me like you suggested, the wheel slightly welded itself to the hub. I removed a wheel on the wifes car the other week (first time for a year or so) and the thing wouldn't budge untill i gave it a good kick. There was a lot of surface rust not helping matters. Don't think you will get anywhere with the liability from my experience. How could you prove it?