Cumalot

iTrader: (8)

I know this seem like a no-duh kind of thing. Last weekend I changed my rear brake pads. When you put the wheels back on, you suppose to loosely tighten the lugs. Then when you lowered the floor jack, you fully tighten them. I changed my own brake pads many times. This time, for whatever reason, I forgot to tighten the lugs after I lowered the jack. Today, when I was driving, I heard some weird noise. Sounded like rattling or something was loose. My front end had some noises before, but that was due to the lower control arm needing to be replaced. I changed the lower control arm already, so that couldn't be it. Then it hit me...omg did I tighten the rear lug nuts? Crap...I didn't! After I got home, the rear passenger side had two lugs missing. Where and when they came off I have no idea. I checked both rear side, all the lugs were very loose. I could easily turn them with my fingers. I posted this because don't take stuff for granted. I thought I was all good because I done this many times and worked on stuff much harder like engine and supercharger install. I can't believe simple stuff like this slipped past me.

allensteiner21

iTrader: (6)

have a beer after the work is done, not during good that you caught it before losing wheels on the freeway.

S1cTech

haha, good thing you or anyone didnt get hurt man. Or ur maxi. **** man. This almost happened to me over a year ago. AND I tightened them (by hand did not have a TQ wrench handy) of course and it about a week and half later I started to hear this wiggling when I put the brakes on. but when I was rolling it was fine.

Well I started to hear a little bit louder bang and I thought that my rotor got bad or cracked(cause I have D/S rotors) and I went to go check it and my friend was with me and I noticed I just did not tighten them hard enough to proper spec and there was 1 lug fingered on somewhat tighter then the others and all the others were all lose about 3-4turns outwards!

I was shocked to see this happen as I thought I tightened them pretty good but it was just not tight enough. So make sure you guys tighten with TQ sticks (if you have a gun), TQ Wrench or practicality stand on your crowbar when tightening them. lol

jlockhart_715

Happened to me to ... I was wondering why the noise would go away when i was on the brakes, got home went to take the wheel off and the lug fell right off.

Also not a good idea to let friends tighten lugs, I was working on my jeep put everything back together and let a friend "tighten" the lugs and he did not do a good job every single lug on the left rear came of and the wheel was sitting at the very edge of the wheel studs.

Cumalot

iTrader: (8)

lol...guess i'm not the only one. This is actually the second time it happened to me. The other time was just like jlock, a friend "helped" with the tightening. I don't have a torque wrench, but have a breaker bar. I usually use quite a bit of force to tighten them. However, when he used it, I guess he thought it just one turn was enough, of course it wasn't. That time, no lugs fell off though. I wonder what happen to the two lug nuts that fell off. I hope they didn't shot off my wheel and hit something. Hopefully it just fell off slowly and did no damage to nothing and nobody.

Greeny

iTrader: (43)

Don't feel too bad dude, I've been wrenching on cars for more 20 years now, but still make a mistake every now and again.. Earlier this year, i done the Q45 brake caliper retrofit,...yep..you guessed it, i forgot to tighten the passenger side lugs to spec after the job..a few days later, i snapped 3 lug studs off and lost all but one lug nut on that side. all because i got in a bit of a rush finishing up the job..

MaximaSpd85

iTrader: (14)

man, that was like a daily routine for me when i had my spacers on. i was tightening them things every other day almost.
i once got some new rotors, my car was making so much noise but i figured it was just the rotors or something scraping on them...a few days later it hit me when the noise got horrible all of a sudden. i got out and turns out i snapped 3 studs off, one lug was missing, and i had one left. the noise was my wheel wobbling the whole time, lol. i thought it was the warped rotors. lesson: when u hear a noise that u think u know what it is, never think u know what it is!

davidforehand

Ive done worse. I changed pads on my motorcycle, which has a single sided swingarm and so the rear wheel is bolted on just like a car to the hub. I forgot to tighten those down and didnt notice until 2 weeks later when I had to take the wheel off again to change the rear tire and noticed one of the four lug nuts was gone and the others were loose. I didnt feel or hear anything different while riding it either, so it was a good thing I happened to be taking the wheel off when I did. I found out a honda accord has the same size lug nuts so I piked one up at napa.

A33Black

Sounds like you have a VFR...nice...

I have a HawkGT. Instead of the 4 bolts, it uses one large center nut w/ a cotter pin. Haven't left it loose yet.

Some Hawks have the VFR conversion to get the wider 5.5 rim. Thought about doing it but too lazy..

LLZuB

Happened to me this week too, yet it wasn't my fault, i had a shop do exhaust work on my car, and i heard noises from my rear wheel, took a look and was missing a lug, and 3 of the others were loose, i was really fortunate that i didn't suffer any damage or get hurt from someone elses mistake

Cumalot

iTrader: (8)

Well after hearing what you guys said, I'm glad I only lost 2 lug nuts. At least, the studs didn't broke or anything like that.

tosheto

iTrader: (5)

I used to have an old Russian car and some kids tried to steal the rims, but only loosened the bolts and while driving the car the real wheel passed me. It was so crazy

davidforehand

You are correct.

92maxima92

Tighten them in sequence next time you have them off. It also has happened to me and my mechanic told me that was the issue.

qqqqqqqman

I also had a VFR awhile back, but now have a Ducati 1098....another single-sided swingarm


I had gone out to check something on a '99 Maxima that I just picked up the other day and, due to this thread, I checked the lug nuts. What I hadn't noticed is that the previous owner had wheel locks for ALL the lugs. Hmmm....where's the lug key?


I looked for it for 10 minutes, then started calling tire dealerships to see if I could buy a matching key. Aarrgghh. The previous owner I know has since moved to another state. As this car has already created multiple hassles in obtaining ownership/registration, a spare programmed key, and a front windshield....I was getting frustrated....it's not even my car, it's for my niece. Anyway, long story short, I stumbled upon the lug key hidden away in the trunk....yippee! Just had to vent/share



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