Ever had a wheel fall off?

[Bobs67vwagen]

Sometime in 1987 ( forgot exactly when I'm 73 ) I had just finished putting a motor in a 57 bug I was working on. I took it out for a drive on sunrise hwy to test it out. I went about 5 miles, ran good, so I took the 5th ave exit cloverleaf in bay shore to get back onto sunrise hwy going west. I was going around the cloverleaf when I felt a thump in the right rear followed by the sight of the rear tire going past me at a good clip. It bounded down the curve, jumped the curb hit the guardrail and stopped in the grass. I still remember people in cars going by me shaking their heads but offering no help. I walked back around the curve I had just come around and found several of the lug nuts. I had a scissor jack in the car so I jacked it up and reinstalled the wheel with whatever lug nuts I had. I drove it home with no damage thanking my lucky stars. Since that day I always double and triple check any wheels when I mount them on a vehicle. I think what happened that day was that the repair I was doing stretched out over several days. I probably reinstalled the wheel while the car was up on jack stands. But I did not put it on the ground at that time so never did the final tightening of the lugs. Moral of the story- be extra careful with lug nuts. Thanks Bob

[dodger tom]

yup. driving my ‘65 fiat 1500 spider north on the 405 in la, i heard a noise, some grinding, and the left-rear of the car lowered a bit. looked out the driver’s window, and saw my tire n wheel roll by. it settled up against the median fence. (i was in the fast lane at the time.) i pulled over, and took a bolt off of each of the other three wheels, and reattached the left-rear, and drive home. had a flat spot on the brake drum.

guess i hadn’t tightened the wheel enough. always have since, though.
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1978 Champaign Edition 2 Westfalia
Would never find the time to keep up another classic air-cooled.

[Shonandb]

I did back when I was in College in the late 80s but was driving a 1978 Honda Civic. I had just done some work to the CV joints and thought I had tightened everything back up but when I was going around a corner on my way to a friends house, the whole front end lifted up and then the left side dropped and skidded to a grinding halt.

I guess I had forgotten to tighten up the bottom mount for the driver's side front strut and by going around the corner, it just flexed enough for the bottom of the strut to come out and it pulled the axle with it spewing transaxle oil on the ground.

There I was sitting in the middle of the road trying to think about what to do as we had a car trailer at home but no way to get it up on it and then low and behold, a flatbed car hauling truck with a tilting platform pulls up.

I thought, what are the odds of this happening but learned that someone had driven by after watching what had happened and stopped by a nearby coffee shop and announced to most of the patrons of the shop what they had just seen and by chance, the guy in the car hauler had just finished work and stopped for a coffee at the shop. Ended up costing me about $60 but the unsafe vehicle ticket would have been double that if the police had shown up.

Had it all back together and tight in a few hours after getting it dropped at home but was lucky that I wasn't out on the highway, at hwy speeds, when it popped out. I learned to always double or triple check every nut and bolt after that.
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76 Westy with a 2.5L Subaru SOHC + Vanagon (010) Automatic Transaxle
Build & Trip Thread: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=758760
Previous 1973 Panel Bus:
Click to view image

[EverettB]

Damn, that sucks for that Squareback, especially twice + an expensive tow but nice they could at least get it back together on the side of the road
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[KTPhil]

During this year's Type 3 Rally near Cayucos.
Not me but I was on the Rally.
This happened TWICE; the first was caught on video at the 33 minute mark, and the second aftermath is at 1:08:35):

Link


The PO of my '69 Bus had his left rear come off (before I bought it), and ended up replacing the stub axle, drum, and I did some thankfully minor bodywork set things right.

Both seem to be related NOT to the wheel studs, but to the large axle nut and stripped drum splines.

That's enough for a lifetime in my book!
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Current Fleet:
- '71 Fastback
- '69 Westfalia
Retired:
- '67 Beetle
- '65 Beetle (x2)
- '65 Bus
- '71 Squareback

[richard123vmt]

On a VW, no. It was my first car, a 57 Ford hardtop. I heard the rattling of the nuts in the hibcap but was clueless as to what it was. The wheel came off and rolled ahead of me. It was a very busy street but somehow my mechanic came and took care of it on the spot. It was such an obvious sound but I had never heard it before.

[deaaaanno.vw1966]

yup! couple of months back, my rear tires was faster than me and passed me. was with some friends and everybody had a good laugh. glad nobody was hurt including me, the car and people around the area.

[turbotype1]

Had the wheels powdercoated on my wifes 64…… Mounted up the tires and bolted them on torqued to spec. Drove an hour away to a car show. On the way back home, Heard what I thought was a tire going flat. Immediately pulled over and the left rear of the car dropped. The drum was sitting on the inside of the wheel. All lug bolts were inside the hubcap.

If you powder coat your wheels, Remove ALL powder coating from lug bolt holes as well as the surface area that butts against the brake drums….

I consider myself lucky
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[gears]

In '69 I had a '58 van with 8" slicks on Chevy rims & adapters on the back. One day my buddy and I installed the rears from his Meyers Manx on the front of my van. The combo looked pretty cool.

We were headed downhill on a stretch of new freeway not far from Diamond Head (Honolulu), when the drivers side front wheel came off. Scared the hell out of me. I guess it was lucky that it wedged up into the wheel well, rather than sailing off. Luckier yet that no one was near me. Live & learn ..
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aka Pablo, Geary
9.36 @ 146 in '86 Hot & Sticky
'90 Syncro Westy SVX
'87 Syncro GL 2.5
https://guardtransaxle.com

[lumbee]

I fell like I need to cleanse myself. I am to embarrassed to tell anyone else, so I wil do it here. 56 Oval that was a barn find. Rebuilt the motor over the winter and have been tooling around the block this summer on dry rotted tires from 1975. Decided it was time for fresh rubber. Got those put on on Friday. I took the whees/tires down to the store myself, so I put the wheels back on here at my house. Put them on and swear I tightened everything down...but maybe not. Riding down the road about 30mph the front was a little shaky, then Boom...spap...then the most awful grinding sound you ever heard in your life. I let it scrape in to a side road and sure enough the front left wheel was laying on its side, and not lug nuts be found.

It will be a while before I'm comfortable going down the road in this thing.

[65Westy]

When I was in high school 35 years ago, I used to think it was cool to put my 62 Beetle into reverse and let the clutch out quickly to make the tires squeal. One beautiful fall day my buddy and I skipped school. We were driving down the road about 50 miles per hour. Guess what? All those times of squealing the tires in reverse must have sheared off the cotter pin holding the rear brake drum on. We heard a big thump while the back end of the car dropped down and there went my rear wheel rolling down the highway! We were dragging along, riding on the brake shoes.

I don't know how we ever got that rear brake drum back on over the mangled up brake shoes, but we did it.
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Craig

63 Beetle
72 Schnepp XL13 Vintage Formula Vee
72 Caldwell D13 Vintage Formula Vee
71 Super Beetle convertible

[16CVs]

While building ny son's Chop ,we spent many a mile towing between different shops to have things done.
We had put the wheels back on and let the car down and proceeded to tow the car for some welding, not a quarter mile from our house we heard the pop Pop Pop of lug nuts coming loose. The wheel went by us at about 40 miles an hour through an intersection hit a curb and landed about 4 inches from some ones hose in their rock garden.
We were lucky there were no cars in the intersection and no pedestrians. This thing would have gone through the stucco and done some serious damage.
3 months later after putting the tranny back in we neglected to put the cotter key in the axle nut. When we got to our destination the nut was about off and the wheel was hitting the fender. This was after 10 miles on the freeway
We have now learned our lesson.

Stacy

[Rick73Super]

Back in the early 70s I was going to school in Camden NJ, someone broke into my 66 Beetle but there was nothing good to steal. They loosened the lugs on my right rear tire. I got up to about 20mph before I heard a clapping sound and then a crash, the wheel passed me. I had to remove bolts from the other wheels to re-install, but managed to drive it home.

[BugMan114]

[**orangecrush**]

Oh man is it a RUSH! driving my slammed 64 bug down the road for a test drive. Noticed a weird shaking in the car, was doin about 30mph when all of a sudden booom! driver side front wheel fell off, car slammed to the ground and was veering me towards a nice 5 foot ditch. luckily my car was spared due to great brakes. the cause one loose lug nut which caused the other to vibrate out. i defiantly need to change my shorts after that!
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*1974 custom bug 1700 hours hard labor

*1964 rat rod bug 800 hours hard rushed labor

*finding a rust free Washington state 74 type 1 that runs with all necessary components to restore it for 1250 bucks

**priceless**

[jwd722]

It's never happened to me but now that I've read all this I'm going to retorque my wheels in the a.m.!!

[patrickkryan]

I was towing my bug and it started tracking wired. So I pulled over looked it over and nothing was wrong. Got back in my car and started driving still it felt wired so I pulled over again. I got out and looked around my car and nothing seemed wrong. Then I saw that one of the cars hubcaps was missing. I looked at the wheel and the center of the wheel was separated from the rest of the wheel. I am not talking about the tire coming loose from the wheel. The wheel actually broke.
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for photos of my 1956

[BDSBSS23]

Drove my car and i forgot to torque one of my wheels..... Lucky me i was only goin 15 mph and i stopped right before the tire was halfway out..
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58 beetle AKA Black Beauty http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=496780&highlight=black+beauty
65 micro bus (project)
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=522611&highlight=std
Pillar repair with 65 bus
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=530360

[lawn ninja]

My first VW ever I did this crap in, it has to be 20 years ago now. I had a pristine 63 squareback and being dumbass kid that I was I had it tucking rim all the way around. Well I had just got my 5 spokes in the mail and was getting ready to go pick up my friend Rich and head out to Pomona Swap Meet for the night. Like the other guy's story the phone rings so I ask my buddy to tighten the rest of the lugs down... It's this hot little number that I totally want to bang, so I spend the next 15 minutes trying to get her to go to Pomona with me. When that doesn't work out I walk back out where my buddy Scott is checking the lugs like I asked him to and he is all done and throwing stuff in the car. We take off and head on down the road. About 20 miles into it I hear something, just as I hear this weird vibrating noise the back end of the car drops and the car starts dragging the wheel. just as I get the car off to the side of the road the tire pops. The car was so low that the wheel didn't fall off the car. When it came off the drum it shoved itself up inside the wheelwell and jammed there. To top it off we had to walk the last 5 miles to my friend's house because these were the days before cell phones. When we get back... We see that the tire managed to knock one of the valve covers out of alignment and now there is a huge puddle of oil under the car too.

[fred69vert]

Not as an adult and not on a car, but everyone should get a laugh out of this.

I was 13 or so, riding my banana bike (it was the 70's) and decided to show off for a couple of girls. So I pulled a wheelie (on the highway, no less). Cool, huh?

Not cool!!! The front wheel fell off and rolled on down the highway without me. You can't ride a wheelie forever, and when I came down on the asphalt, I was highly embarased.
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I'm not losing my hair, it's just retired and relocating further south.

1969 VW convertible, "Heidi"