lug nuts and stems gone, 1 lug nut away from losing wheel

[crizma]

I was on my way out of town last night, when my car(92 prelude si with 4ws) started making a loud noise and steering started acting crazy.

When I pulled over my car only had one lug nut on my front right side . How the heck could this of happened? My lugnuts were all locking, not sure if that makes a difference.

The day before I had a mechanic look under my car because of a loud noise, sounding like something plastic caught in something under the hood. We found that problem to be part plastic housing cover that lost a bolt. Fixed that. I watched guy even check my wheel to see if there was any play in it. He would have noticed if there was 4 lugnuts ( or any) missing. The noise it was making last night was totally different in sound and the way it felt.


Had my car towed and fixed for 150.00 today. When I asked what cause this to happen he told me he had no idea. The stems were sheered off in the middle, crazy isn't it? Now, I am wanting to go out of town still and I am a bit worried that this may happen again. What do you think safe or not? Drives great and there are no more noises.

Thank you for reading this and I appreciate any advice : )

Raina

Oh I forgot to mention something. The night before this happened, I had to park my car ( reluctantly ) in a very bad area that was near a very busy club.

[spiffyguido]

Is it possible someone was trying to boost your rims and had loosened the rim? You said you had locking lugs, so this may not have been possible.

The other thing that comes to mind is your lug nuts themselves. Do you have lug nuts with bases that match your rims correctly? All lug nuts have a shape at the bottom that must match the shape of the hole in the rim. If they don't match correctly, they might not hold the rim on as they should. Any amount of looseness would cause the rim to vibrate and certainly might sheer off the studs. Something is definitely not as it should be. I'd investigate carefully before driving too much. Having a wheel come off at highway speed is a good way to slide backwards into the ditch and get yourself really hurt.

The only other thing I can think of is that you mechanic torqued the lug nuts on with an impact wrench and made them WAY WAY too tight causing the studs to get strained. The lugs can take a lot of torque, but there isn't really a point to tighten them more than the torque suggested in the manual. Too tight and you strain the lug, the stud and the rotor.

[crizma]

Thank you for responding Spiffy.

The more I think about it the more I believe someone was trying to muck my wheels. If someone wants them bad enough I suppose they can find away to get them off.

Lucky for me they didn't, even luckier for me I caught the problem before losing my wheel.

My car is driving perfectly now and made a quite lengthy road trip yesterday, without any problems. I love my prelude!!!


Thanks again,
Crizma