I took off today and I heard thumping sounds so I decided to turn around and go back home. On the way back I heard clunking sounds. I lifted up the car, and the lug nuts were loose. Can they just get loose like that over night?
I drove it the day before. It was perfectly fine.

 

either someone loosened them or they weren't tight enough to begin with

 

Generally speaking, at the proper torque they shouldn't loosen themselves at all. When's the last time you took the wheels off?

On my '87, no matter the pattern or the torque spec, the lug nuts on my left rear tire kept coming loose...changed the studs, got new lug nuts, same thing kept happening. Once the rim actually came off and went rolling away while I was driving. My solution? Got longer lug nuts so they'd hit the centercap before coming off more than a turn or two

 

I got tires from this little tire shop about 2 weeks ago and they used an air gun to tighten all of them.

 

well there you have it, obviously they didn't know what they were doing and didn't tighten then up all the way..

 

Hmmm... imma check mine in tha morning.

 

Either they didn't tighten them enough or tightened them too much and stripped it.

 

you dont have spacers do you?

 

Pull out the torque wrench and check for the correct torque on your wheels all the way around!

 

maybe somebody tried to steal your wheels. Hope not. But maybe

 

No spacer. Three wheels were loose. One was about to come off. I'm gonna watch them these next few days. Hopefully its just a case of not being tight enough

 

With an air gun generally it's not an issue of "not tight enough" but rather too tight and possibly stripped like mentioned above. But obviously you must have tightened them back up with no issues...

A few months back on my Mom's 2000 I30 we had the tires rotated and then about a week later I went to change the rear pads and discovered that the lug nuts were VERY loose on the right driver's side tire. My parents had just taken it on a 500 mile trip the two days prior with zero issues whatsoever, but I could literally remove 4 of the 5 lug nuts with my bare hands. Tightened them back up and all has been good since then.

Let us know if you find anything! Do you have wheel locks? Is your car parked outside at night?

 

I don't know if you could consider them locks, but they are the tuner lugs. The ones that require that key that goes inside each lug nut. Anyone can get their hands on them at auto zone, and the car was in my driveway.

 

my lugs always used to come loose, if you check your receipt i bet it says to retorque them after 25 miles.... hence no liability for them

 

also, aluminum wheels expand and contract with change in temperature, this fluctuation can actually cause the lugs to loosen themselves, doesn't happen often but it can.

 

lugs actually loosens at times but then again they probably werent tightened from the start

 

The garage that I go to always has a line on the receipt "Recheck lug nuts after 50 miles" or something like that. I'd jack up the car at each tire to make sure they're all on good and just tighten up the lug nuts. Whenever I do anything at home, I just use the wrench out of the trunk with the jack.