Okay, so here's a scenario that comes into my shop today. I get the call from a customer. We did a set of 4 snow tires on her sons PT Cruiser on January 10th.

March 2nd rolls around and here's what she told me happened

her son on his way home felt a vibration in the car. he pulled over and the front wheels were packed full of snow. he cleaned the snow out and continued along. the next morning he leaves home for work, a few km's out the front drivers wheel falls off, shears the studs.
he takes the car to a shop, they repair the studs, replace the wheel and the tire on the 3rd or 4th of March. So now he's here looking for money from me.
the vehicle has been on the road for two months and travelled 2900km's.
I've seen of and heard of wheels going for a tour just down the road, or 100 clicks later. I'm struggling to accept that almost 3000km later we could be at fault.

So....what are your thoughts? would a loose wheel make it that far?

my suspicion is something more happened in regards to vibration, clearing of snow etc....

Were the tires put on the stock wheels? I know some lugs can back off certain types of wheels. I wouldnt look at vibration from the snow, because ive seen tons of mud on tires before and nothing has happened. Also, no self respecting man should be driving a PT Cruiser.

I worked at Walmart in the tire shop for 5 years. We had a fair share of scammers, but we also had some legits come back month or 2 later where the wheel came off. You would need to see the studs that were still there to make a call on it. And the wheel that was on it originally. If it looked like it has screwed up the threads and oblongated the wheel, well, yeah could be you. We had a tech here who put on a set of tires for a 74 Nova 4 door. She made it about 4 weeks before it started vibrating really bad. She called us, and our "manager" told her to bring it in and we would rebalance the tire. She made it about half way before her passenger side tire came off the damn car. We had it flat bedded in and sure enough, the damn thing hadn't been tightened right. We look at it and to our untrained eye it looked like one or 2 had been tightened correctly, but the other 3 hadn't and it finally stressed bad enough that it broke one of the 2 studs that were tight. So thats when it started vibrating. She made it a good 12 miles with the shudder before the last one let loose and dumped the wheel, tearing up the fender in the process.


And I got the job of trying to repair the fender, well, find another fender since it folded that one up pretty well. Ever try to find a good fender for a 74 Nova 4 door? Damn near impossible.

I had a guy who got his oil changed beginning of december.
end of january he calls saying his oil pan bolt fell out and the engine blew and its our fault.
Ive seen civics dump oil and still be fine after so this clown must have ignored any warning light that came on on the dash.

needless to say he wasnt too pleased when we told him we wouldnt buy him a new engine.

People want everything for free its amazing how much theyl try to scam. Like a client whos rear brakes we did, we suggested we adjust his hand brake cables, he didnt want to pay for the labour for that, so he threw a shit fit a week later when his hand brake cable snapped and wanted to be compensated for his time and money for damages

I don't take my vehicles to a mechanic for this reason. Not that I expect them to mess it up, but because I don't want to blame them for anything should it arise. If I fuck it up, then I have to deal with it. If they fuck it up, it comes out of their ass to fix it. I'd much rather not have to question work done to my vehicles.

When it comes to wheels, I feel that most people simply don't understand that you need to make sure they're bolted on well. I don't know how many cars I see in town with broken studs, missing nuts, and cords showing. Ugh, it bothers me so much.

an aluminum rim will almost always get oblonged in such a scenario and as a result of the wobble, the studs will show signs of damage.

these were factory rims.

My issue is simply distance travelled. if it comes off around the corner....or even 100km away...absolutely i'd be on the hook for the bill, no questions asked. 2 months and 3000km just doesn't sit right with me.

bandi you've been a licensed tech for a long time..... thoughts?

Maybe the guy did a tire rotation. How about you start marking the tires and wheels in a way thats not obvious to them, but you can tell if someone screwed with them.

Posted by oddspot an aluminum rim will almost always get oblonged in such a scenario and as a result of the wobble, the studs will show signs of damage. these were factory rims. My issue is simply distance travelled. if it comes off around the corner....or even 100km away...absolutely i'd be on the hook for the bill, no questions asked. 2 months and 3000km just doesn't sit right with me. bandi you've been a licensed tech for a long time..... thoughts?

I'd say it's incredibly unlikely. Not impossible, but pretty damn unlikely.

Steel wheels or alloys?

Edit: I should add, when I was 15, I put some new wheels on my Daytona, and drove it around the block. Made it almost 2 km before I lost a wheel, and I definitely tightened the nuts (which had the wrong type of shoulder). The other wheel was ready to fall off too. Would have been a bad scene if a cop drove by, being 15 and all.

aluminum alloys.

How much are they looking for? Worth it to just pay it to make them go away?

Alloys make it a bit more likely- because the aluminum is so soft, if a nut is a bit loose, it'll pound the aluminum to death as the wheel wobbles ever so slightly, in turn making the mating surface of the wheel farther away lug nuts till they aren't touching, as well as distorting the mounting surface of the wheel. Then suddenly, the nuts aren't touching the wheel any more and they back off.

I really hope that made sense.

The Nova I spoke of earlier had some 80's Trans Am wheels on it, aluminum. Bandi = truth. Its plausible. But I would really want to see the wheels and studs if I'm gonna shell out any cash on it.

I'm wondering if the studs are the issue. On my XJ, I had a very fun experience where the studs on the front passenger tire on a SAR Mission back in August where they worn out from heat from a cracked brake rotor.

i imagine the wheel studs are the same as a neon of the same era and if thats the case you basically need to change them everytime the lugs are removed because a. they break, or b. they strip

i`m not sure what he`s looking for yet, hìs dad has played it cool and not said anything. if i was guessing he probably wants it all back $1500... not gonna happen. i won`t pay him out if i don`t think we are responsible for it and right now i`m still saying the likelyhood based on the factors is very very low. possible, yah. but 3000km and two months later... not likely.

the other thing is he brought it to another shop and had them repair it before coming to me. paying another shop for $500 bucks labour and parts is way different then having it done here. my actual cost to do everything they did would be less hen $100. the body shop quote for the fender is $1000
again same deal, even though i`m not a body shop the cost would be less then half.

Will see what happens as it rolls out over the next few days. will update

Did the other shop document the damage, or at least save the damaged studs and wheels??

yes they did. the other shop, as with any shop has been on the wrong side of such an event previously. I was actually impressed with the owner. in my experience a lot of shops will take an opportunity to hang a competitor out to dry. this guy was like something doesn't seem right, here's all the info, call me if you ned anything to help.

Thats one thing thats awesome about our network here, all the shops get along and refer clients to each other for different things and we all order stuff through each other. Not very cut throat around hurr.

Posted by Nismo Thats one thing thats awesome about our network here, all the shops get along and refer clients to each other for different things and we all order stuff through each other. Not very cut throat around hurr.

don't be fooled into thinking there isn't a degree of fuck the other guy that goes on though. what you hear and what goes on behind closed doors is a lot different

Im not best friends with them but we all have a good working relation ship and speak almost daily