I just wanted to share this with everyone, so you go back and take a look at your lug bolts, the other day I took the wheels off of my 997, as many of you know if you lift the rear end of the car enough the front will come off too so you can do two wheels with 1 lift, well, apparently I forgot to torque my rear left wheel, and was driving with my wife to a wedding when a thumping noise started in the rear, I thought I had a flat tire so pulled over and looked at all four wheels, nothing, everything looked great, one minute later the vibration got so bad that I had to pull over and doublecheck what the heck was going on, I had lost one lug bolt on my rear left wheel, one was about to come off, and the other three were just barely hanging on, my wheel was probably 10 seconds from falling off!!!!!

All the other tires were fine, I can't believe I was so distracted that I forgot to torque My rear left wheel, so please guys, do yourself a favor and just check your lug bolts once in a while, it may save you from a lot of expense and maybe even hurt.

I am part of the big brothers big sisters program, I had my little brother with me in the car earlier that morning and we got on the freeway, can you believe what would've happened if the wheel had come off at 60 miles an hour!?!?!?!? Lesson learned!!

 

wow. you are very fortunate. Once I was on a trip with buddies and we were in a suburban owned by one of my friends. It was a vehicle he and his brother kept at a resort home, and his brother had had work done on the tires, and left the lugs off the LR wheel. We drove 6-8 miles before the wheel came off the car and commenced to cross the highway and hit a guy head-0n. He ended up just fine, and so did we. We too, were very lucky. Yours was a happy ending to what could have been a very unhappy story.

 

you are VERY fortunate but more importantly its a lesson learned (for all of us to double check).

super glad things are ok!

 

No kidding, because I took the 2 wheels off with the 1 lift I forgot to torque the rear wheel!! I ordered 5 new bolts since the thread on the remaining 4 was compromised, better to play it safe,... Not sure how much they could have gotten damaged but for $30 for 5 new bolts is better to play it safe

 

Marti-DAMN! I usually do a wheel at a time and I always double check, glad nothing happened.

 

I check mine even after service has been performed. Believe it or not....more than once, one wheel has not been torqued down to spec...only loosely air-gunned on and NOT followed up with a torque wrench!

 

when i was a stupid teen i thought putting lithium grease on my lugnuts
would make them easier to get off my fiat 124 sport spider, well turns
out i was extra right when one of my rears passed me on my way to my
sweet busboy gig. doh!

 

On this subject what is the torque?

I just did all 4 of my wheels and just tightened as tight as I could with my arms and back. Did not resort to using my legs or kicking the tyre iron as I felt that would be over tightening, so am I safe?

 

I believe it is about 90 ft lbs for the lug bolts

 

96 ft lbs - it's in the owner's manual.

 

but tightening them as tight as you can with your arms should be fine right assuming you have the strength of a healthy male adult?

 

it should be enough, the issue I had is I just tighten them while the car was raised, enough to keep the wheel in place so I could go back with the torque wrench, that never happened......

 

Did you use anti-sieze (Optimoly) on the bolts?

 

I've never seen anyone tighten a wheel with a torque wrench..

 

go to a tire shop, dealer, Indy shop....