Tighten Your Bolts... (and other car failures)
 

I wanted to show the Maxima.org users what happens when a bolt is loose on your caliper. This picture below is the right front rim of my 2002 I35 after the caliper came loose, bolt fell out, and punctured my rim while I was on a main road (only going 20mph, thank God). I barely putted to the side of the road to fix what I thought was just a flat, and I found this gaping hole in my tire and a dangling caliper instead. So, rim is destroyed, tire is ripped up, caliper is ground down, and the brake hose is broken.

My suspicion is that the anti-rattle clips on the brakes were not clipped in properly (I replaced all four rotors on my car 2 weeks ago with friend, and I was not the one to button up that caliper), and as the brakes vibrated, slowly worked the loose bolt out. The moral of the story, I guess, is to double check bolts, clips, and components before driving off to potential disaster.

That "friend" and I would have problems after that one.
Glad you're ok.

A follow up to the mishap:

I repaired the damage done within a week.

Cost me $90 for a gently-used rim off eBay.
$20 to have the tire switched over and balanced from NTB.
$75 for a new brake line and brake bracket-to-knuckle bolts from a dealer.
And this took me about 2 hours to do in my driveway.

Also, in the near future I will be purchasing a full set of new Michelin tires, partially because I had to drive on the front-right tire while it was flat, and cut some of the rubber, and partially because the tires I have on now are complete crap.


When I am driving on the highway now, I notice the steering wheel vibrates noticeably more than before the accident. I am assuming the car wheels needs to be balanced and aligned, but would anyone suspect anything else? I plan on doing this when I get new tires in a week or so. Thanks!

^ I'm assuming balance if you got a new rim and didn't have any vibrations at speed before that.

^^ :sprint: