Passed By My Own Tire

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whitedawg

whitedawg

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Location
Cordova TN
This picture is my 2007 Suburban 5 minutes and less than 1/4 miles after leaving the Chevy Dealer after having it serviced to include rotate the tires. Felt a vibration in rear and thought I had a flat next thing I know I see my tire pass me across 3 lanes of traffic across a grass medium into 3 lanes of oncoming traffic, cars dodging, horns blowing. Luckily no one was hurt or damaged

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guess they forgot to tighten the lug nuts?


i'd be back at that dealer raising hell. wouldn't leave until i got free service for the rest of the trucks life. those idiots could have killed someone.
 
WOW. I can't believe the tech didn't notice a wobble when he pulled it out of the shop!
 
Apparently forgot to tighten them. I didnt even notice a wobble until I began to accelerate
Words can not explan how mad I was, I am making my parts list of what I want new and what I want guaranteed for life of the truck
I am just thankful it happened where it did, if I had been on the interstate I may not be writing this
 
Holy crap! I would be furious! And yes free service for life would just be the start. Maybe fire the idiot tech or at least knock him down to gofer for a year till he learns his lesson.
 
All of the lugnuts on my srt4 caliber were loose the day I bought it.
There were even spacers still left in the springs to raise the height during transport that I had to point out to them.

The days of trusting anyone or anything are long gone.
 
nice.

our tire tech had me test drive a geo one time...the wheel started to come off on the freeway...luckily made it down the off ramp and parked before the wheel came off.

There is a good amount of time before the nut completely come off, next time you feel that feeling...pull off the road immediately.
 
POS Dakota said:
All of the lugnuts on my srt4 caliber were loose the day I bought it.
There were even spacers still left in the springs to raise the height during transport that I had to point out to them.

The days of trusting anyone or anything are long gone.
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Right there with you, I had to finish the "dealer prep" myself when we bought the wife's mini-van. They left an inspection sheet ( paper ) ON top the engine, can only imagine if it had caught fire. One of the roof rack cross bars was on backwards ( they have ARROWS on them for a reason ) and installed with hardware store hardware and loose... :lol:

Not even TRAINED monkeys :munky2: :toothy10:

1wild&crazyguy said:
nice.

our tire tech had me test drive a geo one time...the wheel started to come off on the freeway...luckily made it down the off ramp and parked before the wheel came off.

There is a good amount of time before the nut completely come off, next time you feel that feeling...pull off the road immediately.
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If it came off in a 1/4 mile, the lugs must have been 2 threads on. I've had a wheel come loose ( not off ) from lugs that weren't tightened and had a fair amount of notice before it got bad...


67Dart440GT said:
WOW. I can't believe the tech didn't notice a wobble when he pulled it out of the shop!
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Yeah, or when the wheel was just sagging on the studs while it was on the lift...:angry7:
 
When I worked for a towing company back in the mid 70s, we towed a bunch of impounded cars and about 1 a week, owners would climb the fence at night and try to repo their cars.
More than 1 were found still in the yard with the car sitting on the ground.
We always took all the lug nuts off and put the hubcaps back on.

As a side note, my wrecker had an engine driven air compressor to run the air gun and I could also pump up tires. It was a mopar A/C compressor!!
 
If it came off in a 1/4 mile, the lugs must have been 2 threads on. I've had a wheel come loose ( not off ) from lugs that weren't tightened and had a fair amount of notice before it got bad...




Yeah, or when the wheel was just sagging on the studs while it was on the lift...:angry7:[/QUOTE]

I agree, I bet if you go back to the dealership, you will find the lug nuts beside the hoist it was on!
 
That's just one reason why when I leave the dealer with a new vehicle they don't ever see it again.
 
Thats why I service my own stuff. You never know what they do, or don't do when you take it in. I don't trust them.
 
I too, am truly thankful no one was hurt. I also agree that the dealership has a slightly used set of lugnuts sitting on a workbench that they can fix you up with!

Reminds me of a time I worked in the oilfield and we were headed out to work in a one ton crew cab with a load of construction material. I was sitting behind the driver and looked out the window noticing that a set of duals with the axle was drag racing us! I said, "Larry, I think that's our wheels passing...." He looked over and saw the same sight, immediately pulling to the shoulder. As we almost completed the stop the back corner of the truck dropped onto the road. Pretty uneventful really. It was just a real good thing we were out in the country and no vehicle was approaching! Pretty sure when the truck was in for service the dealer's tech didn't bend the tab on the locknut, the nut loosed enough to strip the threads and off comes the wheel assembly. You would be surprised to know that the dealership determined that there were other causes.....

Good luck getting everything made right.
 
First off I am glad you are ok... as well as the tire dodging people.
Next I want to add there is no excuses for what happend other then a honest mistake that could have been bad. I work for a dealership and I hate always hearing that dealers are the worst. They arent. I will agree that seemingly a lot of dealers back east seem to have problems. Out here where I am at -the dealers ( especially where I work) are the only ones besides myself that I want working on my cars. Mistakes do happen everywhere. I have seen numerous tire shops have major problems just like that. I know that on my Dodge Avenger I dont want some joe shmo at a independent workinng on it. I want a factory trained certified technition. Some dealers deserve a bad rap... most dont. Its the common thought among the people who have not been to a decent dealer I guess.

Anyhow.... glad your ok.... hope they make ammends

-RPM
 
Good point RPM. It really is dealership dependant. I've had my Ram serviced at the local dealer and everything has been first class. On the other hand the Brand X dealership that serviced the crew cab has been shakey for years. Seems odd the message wouldn't get to the manufacturer and buyers...unfortunately those few create the impression for others.
 
The tech needs fired, no questions asked.

Every dealership I ever worked at would fire a 30 year veteran or a trainee tech no questions asked if he left wheel bolts untorqued.

This sends a pretty good message to all the other techs, and those torque wrenches better come out before and after the test drive, yes, every car gets a test drive regardless.

I don't like those sissy *** torque sticks either, yes they are fine for the impact guns so you don't overtighten the bolts but they become fatigued and to do it right, they should always be retorqued with a good torque wrench.

Just last week I had new tires put on the Wife's van and I watched the tech using the torque sticks and running the gun after they bottomed out just to "make sure".
I brought it home and pulled out the torque wrench and found almost half of the lug nuts were improperly torqued.
 
I am glad that you are alright.

Had new tires put on my truck last year at a national chain tire store. I took the truck home and was driving it later in the day and knew something wasn't right. I pulled over and noticed right away that I was missing 2 lug nuts and the rest were finger tight. I tightened them and drove to the tire store.

I was pissed and had to wait about 20 minutes for someone to help me because they were really busy. There had to have been 10 customers in there. Finally when the guy at the counter asked if I needed help. I said in a loud voice "Your tech didn't tighten my lug nuts on one of my wheels almost fell off". I got everyones attention in the place and had 2 guys in the parking lot installing new lug nuts in about 2 minutes. They wanted me out of there.
 
i'm very glad to hear that you and the people dodging the tire are okay :) but still that is a very scary feeling when your tire passes you.. if it were me, i would have a little talk with the tech. before i even went to chevy about it, there is no reason that should've happened.. but again, I'm very thankful that your okay :)
 
Next I want to add there is no excuses for what happend other then a honest mistake that could have been bad
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an honest mistake that should never have happened. there should be some kind of procedure that has to be checked off on. this tech must have been in a rush and never tightened the wheel.. there is no excuse for that.
 
abodyjoe said:
an honest mistake that should never have happened. there should be some kind of procedure that has to be checked off on. this tech must have been in a rush and never tightened the wheel.. there is no excuse for that.
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Just to be on the safe side, I had a bumper sticker made for my tool box that read "Torque wheel bolts."

It was the first thing I saw out of the windshiled of the car as I was driving off of my lift.
The idea became so popular that the service manager made it mandatory that every tech install one on his toolbox or workbench directly in front of his vision, then they had a big banner as you left each large bay door that read the same thing.
You would be suprized how many guys would back off of their lift or out of the shop, stab the brakes, run out of the car yelling 'Dammit" and would go snag a torque wrench.
 
at our shop we snug with the impact, i grab a torque wrench and do them, whats it take 2 mins to go around car.. i got in the habit because we have people saying lug nuts were to tight with air gun, and warpped there rotors or they couldn't get the lug nuts off for flat tire. were no dealer or certified for ford chevy, mopar etc but we sure do have alot of customers that trust us to no end and gonna keep it that way, do the best honest work you can, charge right and don't lie. picked up close to 20 new customers in the last few months. were busy everyday single day. end of the day i do not have any doubts about my work.
 
racerkilla said:
at our shop we snug with the impact, i grab a torque wrench and do them, whats it take 2 mins to go around car.. i got in the habit because we have people saying lug nuts were to tight with air gun, and warpped there rotors or they couldn't get the lug nuts off for flat tire. were no dealer or certified for ford chevy, mopar etc but we sure do have alot of customers that trust us to no end and gonna keep it that way, do the best honest work you can, charge right and don't lie. picked up close to 20 new customers in the last few months. were busy everyday single day. end of the day i do not have any doubts about my work.
Click to expand...


Great work ethic!
 
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