http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyMDNzhfwn0...feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyMDNzhfwn0&feature

Holy Crap!

Looks like he just changed the tires and used all the wrong lug nuts... oops!!!

Is there no safety inspection?
I could understand one coming off but ALL four???

Invest in a torque wrench buddy.

Although, I am guilty of a similar failure. I had a great track weekend in Louisiana years ago. Trailered the Boxster home with the track tires still on. When I got home, I swapped on the street wheels/tires. next morning, set out across the Ponchartrain Causeway. about two miles along my way across the 26 mile span, terrible vibration started up. before I could get speed down and get to one of the cross overs, both drivers side wheels came off. I slid to a stop, chased my front wheel across traffic and called for a wrecker, while sitting there cursing my stupidity.

That was painful to watch

Al I can say is

This video is already on the site in the Paddock section.

:I agree:

Must have swapped to track wheels and forgot to torque after putting lugs on finger tight.

But who goes to the paddock section

Sorry, didn't know it was there. My bad.

Ouch. Good thing I've never done anything in a hurry and... stupid

How many have had their lug nut torques checked at tech at an AX or a DE? Not me. It's not a bad idea but wow, what an unusual thing.

That wasn't a torque problem anyway. I'm betting he got excited, put the track tires on and snugged 'em while in the air. Then he forgot to finish when they were on the ground... or his "crew" did. Same thing happens when folks forget to put in (or tighten) the oil drain plug. Ooooops. Not enough practice.

Painful! And funny when over the shock. Looks like it should be in a Pink Panther movie

At our autox every car get torqued by the tech guys.
We all know people do things for a reason....so our region may have had a wheel fall off long before I ever started autox...so they are pretty fussy about it.

I always tell my kids to not trust the impact gun and always hand torque after the car is on the ground...
So, one kid lost a wheel on the road...he now tightens them by hand, wont even use the gun.

Me, pops, I broke that exact rule that I consider sacred...drove down the street and had to turn around and come right back...every lugbolt was loose after I just put my race tires on....and I was late.

I felt like an ass...I always tell them to do it by hand at the end...and I always (except once) use a wrench, by hand after I set the car down.

I am at a point now that I take more time and I put the bolt in by hand...might as well be damn sure.

RIch

Glad to see your techs doin' what they're supposed to. My kids know how to use the torque wrench on their own cars... and they'll be watching this video!

His shoes match the car, so I'm guessing his purse matches too.

he really did "drive the wheels off it", didn't he

No way the wheels would fall off that fast even if only finger tight. I think this guy pissed off some one big time and they 'helped' him out by loosening the nuts until they were about to fall off.
A long time ago I forgot to torque the lugs on a car and we made it about 2 miles or so when bad stuff started to happen. Huge vibration, lugs hitting the fender wells, got it pulled over found most of the nuts and put everything back together on the side of the road. One wheel had only one lug barely hanging on.
Yes, I do my own tire rotations on all my vehicles even when I can go to the tire place and have them do it for free.

According to the description, he had the wrong size lug nuts on with the same pitch. They were supposedly torqued correctly but once the car got a few G's they popped right off. Either way, looks real with fender damage and all.

I also wonder if this was staged somehow. I started to lose a wheel after swapping from snows to summer tires. But I had to drive 120 miles before I started having vibrations and pulled over before it ever became a crisis. Fixed it and the only hard were a grease smudge and I was a little late for work.

Still not sure how I missed that wheel. All the others were torqued to spec except my right rear. Guess I just missed it somehow.

Zach

This video has been discussed ad nauseum before and it came out that there was incorrect stud length for the wheels. You could probably get farther with no lug nuts if you had long studs.

Hey! Guys with screen names like 'Conedodger' go there a lot!

There was this terrorist with a cell phone and.....................

......Somebody's head will roll for this
nobody to blame but the driver(whom)
ax follie's be cool when no 1 gets hurt(pity the P car)

2006 AX Oops This is what happens when you change to your street tires in a down pour and forget to check the lug bolts. I was lucky that I heard and felt the front tire wobble and was able to pull off in a parking lot when the tire came off. Just 10 more minutes and I would have been on the expressway

4 on the floor

The fact that all 4 came off at the same time seems a bit suspicious...

that has got to effect lap time.

I had a rear wheel come off in the fast lane up the 134 fwy above eagle rock,(ca)
when I got to the side of the road,I saw that my wheel never came off the hub?
and the funny thing me and the cop I must of driven on 3 wheels to get to the side of the road? ....1990 cabro VW

Not at all. If i remember from the last time we went through this video a few years back, the video stated that the lug nuts had the wrong size/pitch.

No surprise they all popped off like that. Once the first wheel was gone, the increased load made the others pop off as well.

Completely plausible and there's nothing in that video that suggests this was staged ...

I wasn't thinking that it was staged - who would stage something that was going to wreck their car and potentially kill them. I was thinking sabotage, perhaps. And I am not really a conspiracy kind of guy.

If the lugs were the wrong size and pitch, would it not have cross threaded the studs? Wouldn't that be pretty obvious when twisting them on with your fingers? If they were that loose, they would just keep spinning when torqueing them down, either manually or with an impact.

It was probably some German trying to make Jap cars look bad

I've only been to an SCCA AX once ...

I saw something similar at an Auto X event in Columbus, Ohio in about 2000. A Sunbeam Tiger lost its right front wheel. It was a pristine car and appeared to really screw up the suspension. The tire went flying off towards the crowd however a large fence stopped it.

Seen that one before but still makes you think- Did I ......?

jonathan
hwgunner

I have actually seen this happen twice.

Once was years ago... it was a formula SAE car that used to run with our local SCCA region. It was not a lug nut failure, it was an engineering failure. the axle broke at speed and the wheel took off across the course. I chased it down and kicked it to slow it down and change it's trajectory so it wouldn't hit a kid in a stroller.

At the last AX of the season here, we had an MR2 Spyder lose the right rear wheel. The owner added wheel spacers and race tires AFTER tech, and he was using the stock aluminum lug nuts. They did not have enough thread engagement with the spacers. The amount of G forces he was pulling was too much for the "two turns of threads" he said he had. Turns out that it was, in reality, two 1/4 turns of threads. Ruined the fender, the taillights, the rear bumper cover and a bunch of expensive body parts.


It can happen, especially if you are stupid....

Clearly they were not torqued even it they were the wrong thread / pitch.

There is a guy who shows up at our local autocrosses who always changes wheels after tech. They haven't really fixed their process for this. You would need to chalk their wheels after checking torque, then somebody in the future would have to notice the difference. Never going to work unless somebody gets killed and it's in people's minds.

This was not staged. I remember the incident. I wasn't there, but I did read about it later. The race wheels had thicker hubs than the street wheels, and the lug nuts were torqued with barely a single thread of engagement. Once the car had it's first lateral load, the nuts unzipped.

-Josh2

Summer, 1969, Austin, TX....My left front tire comes off my '56 Chevy, straight into oncoming traffic, hits a Mustang right in the kisser, bounces 20+ ft in the air and ends up in a field covered in stickers. And me barefoot. In all honesty, I think mine was a weed failure.

EDIT: BTW, the Mustang didn't get a dent. Go figure!

Amazing how much momentum a wheel has!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xiwg-KYp04k...feature=related

This has got to be the best one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fooox6hbjzM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fooox6hbjzM

While sitting at the bank drive through today I saw a way banged up Ford Expedition with the rear tire being the spare mounted with just one lug nut and all the holes very ovaled out. He pulled out all fast too with the wheel wobbling all over. In hindsight I'm thinking I probably should have called 911. I think I was just awestruck though.