For first time in 56 years of owning cars, last week a Nissan dealership technician forgot to fully tighten the lug nuts on my 1996 Maxima after changing the oil and pulling both tires on the driver's side to check the brakes. As I was leaving the dealership lot, I decided to turn around and ask what the heck was causing the loud grinding noise coming from my car. Unfortunately, I had gone over about 10 speed bumps when leaving the lot and returning as well. The shop manager rode with me around the lot over evem more speed bumps and then put the car up on ramp. Both tires were quite a bit loose, especially the one in rear. After tightening them, the manager drove the car with me in it around for several miles and we did not hear any not hear anything unusual. The manager then gave me a choice of crediting the oil change charge or a free oil change voucher. I took the voucher as this was the first bad incident at that dealership over the years since purchasing the Maxima new, plus the manager was very apologetic and nice. However, after getting home , I started reading on the internet about how common it is for lug nuts being left loose and how lucky I was that I didn't have one or both wheels come flying off the car if I had tried to drive home. I have not driven the car since coming home. Now I need some advice on what to do about possible lasting damage that may have been done to my Maxima, especially due to the number of times I and the manager drove the car over those speed bumps. Plus, the car was driven to the car wash on the lot by the technician atter the oil change.. You would think he would have noticed the loud noise at that time. Even though I have other cars to drive, I drive the Maxima quite a bit (289,000 miles) and plan to keep it until it is time to sell it or retire it!

 

you will be fine, you still didn't drive that much on the loose lug nuts. i have driven more with loose lugnuts, and just tighten them up and move on. since you haven't had any issues / noises after they tightened them. not worth worrying about.

the most damage that would have occurred is the studs could have had a little wear on the threads....but again i have had this happen a few times, driving around for work day to day possibly a few days and just tightened them up and havent had any isues or beat up threads.

nice work on the mileage. i am at 293394 miles on my 2002

 

I was a mechanic for 10 years and saw lots of other guys leave wheels loose accidentally, if theres no glaring damage it would be fine. One guy drove like 1500km over 2 weeks with the back wheel not secured and it was a steelie rim, the lug holes on the rim were reamed out and oval but the studs were fine. One of my own cars I got a cheap set of wheels online that needed those stupid little acorn tuner lugnuts, I never bothered retorquing after install and for like 2 months after I kept hearing clunking while slowing down and clunks over bumps but thought it was just a bad endlink or whatever, all 4 wheels were a bit loose lol and I drove hard for those 2 months, again no permanent damage

 

Wow we would love to see your car on here! Original owner and all those miles...you have a diamond there.

 

I would have asked for a few extra oil change vouchers, but that's about it. Nothing to really worry about.