Just witnessed a wheel fly off a car!

[Kurtatron]

Driving home from work, I saw a wheel bouncing ahead of me.

This was in a downtown area of a small town. Then I smelled burning metal/rubber. A suburban was slowing to a stop on the oncoming lane.

Quickly pulled out my phone and snapped a pick behind me!

I finally witnessed something we’ve all seen on YouTube! Nobody was hurt, but if you can’t drive a vehicle safe for public roads, you should not be driving!

 

[Pablo]

I’ve witnessed it twice

The first time I just threw my underwear away

 

[fantastic]

Looks like a mid 2000's Suburban with oversized tires. I was driving behind my brother that lacks any sort of maintenance regime on his 16' trailer & watched the wheel go rolling into the ditch right after he was bellyaching about the wheel bearings. Of course I picked it up since he was oblivious. Crazy stuff & glad nobody was injured.

 

[ecotourist]

One of my medical school friends had the front wheel fall off his beater. Fortunately he was on campus and taking a very slow corner when it happened. It had been making funny noises for a long time he said.

A dentist friend had a front wheel fall off his not very old Mercedes 190E and at speed. He had bought it as a demonstrator. That corner had been damaged and unknown to him the dealership had repaired it with aftermarket parts. On my friend's insistence they fixed it with OEM parts. And it fell off again.

A few years later I was looking for an extra car and found a really nice 190E for sale privately. As I was about to close the deal, I asked "Have you ever had a front wheel fall off?" "Why yes, how did you guess that?" replied the lady. I passed on it.

 

[KGMtech]

In 1992 my car was hit by a wheel coming off a old 1st Gen Honda Accord being towed on the HWY 401 near Pearson International Airport, saw it coming for at least 100m but was boxed in by trucks on either side, I drove as far to the left side of my lane as possible while going 120km/h and the bouncing wheel grazed the lower right side of my 1991 Honda Accord EX-R Coupe then headed for the grass along the shoulder of hwy.

The tow truck company had to pay for EVERYTHING, and they were charged with unsafe loading. My Accord needed new RR alloy wheel and bodywork on the passenger lower side. Because I saw it coming for a while, and it was rolling and not bouncing, I was not spooked when it hit, I knew it would, but it was more a concern for other cars behind me that would not have seen it as clearly.

Fortunately the rebound sent it to a safe place. Underwear was undamaged.

 

[Pterostylis]

I’ve never witnessed it, but my car had a wheel from a Nissan Patrol come off and hit it.

I was at work and got a call from one of the office staff to say my car had been hit by something. About 15 minutes later my mechanic called me to explain that one of his guys was test driving a vehicle and the rear passenger side wheel had come off of it and hit my car.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

Not a wheel, but I saw a rear tire on a BMW start to come apart on the highway, thinking 'Uh oh, that's not good'. It delaminated and smoked as it started slapping the inside of the fender, then blew out. It all happened in a couple of seconds before the driver could do much. The rear end got squirrely but they were able to get it to the side of the road without any drama.

Funny how your first instinct is 'I need to give them space', immediately followed by 'but I want to be close enough to see what happens'.

 

[Donald]

I watched a wheel fall off my boat trailer in rear view mirror. Dual axle. I was going slow, no real damage.

 

[eljefino]

Watched a rear wheel come off a Fiero probably 20 years back in the pouring rain. Was wiggling for a couple minutes before it came loose. Stopped and hung out with the driver, who just had mechanical work done back there. She called AAA, who towed her to the Sears auto center. Best of luck!

AAA's operator sincerely thought she had a flat tire, because that was probably most of their business. Driver had to adamantly explain the situation.

What's funny about Fieros is the rear end basically looks like a standard MacPherson strut front end. Because it is.

 

[ripcord]

A friend with a transmission shop had one of his guys doing a test drive on a classic 67 Fairlane and had one of the rear tires come off while accelerating from a light. Luckily the car's owner had just gotten it back from a tire shop so the tire shop got to pay for the repairs.

 

[supton]

A lifetime ago I had my car for sale on the front lawn of the parents house. Dad woke me one morning and asked, did I have a fun night the night before, or what? I was only slightly confused... go out, huge dent in the side of my car. Later the bank across the street, a teller or someone else said they had gone into work and seen a tire in the road. It was long gone by the time I got up. Weird one.

I stopped a neighbor who was about to have a wheel fall off--he went around the corner and the wheel was wobbling so badly that I came to stop and stared. It was one of those T intersections where everyone goes slow (or anyone with half a brain), so it was pretty obvious that I was staring... he stopped, we checked it out. One lug left and it didn't have much thread left. Parked on the spot and had the dealer tow it back (just had the snows rotated on--and not well done by the looks of it).

 

[maggie06]

I was driving an RV full of girl scouts on the interstate when a car passing on the left threw a tire, started swerving, and finally ran off the road away from the RV. I watched the whole thing in the outside rear view mirrors, knowing there was nothing I could do but hold straight no matter what happened.

Undies survived, barely

 

[meep]

I was following a couple cars behind an 80s Camaro (?) on i-40 years back. The front left wheel came off. The nose of the car hit the ground and sparks flew. The wheel kept rolling at 65mph and lazily crossed the median and hit a Volvo sedan head on. The Volvo got nailed hard in the drivers side of the windshield, and spun like a frisbee off the road. I have no idea how the occupants fared, as I was then evading a potential pileup around a spinning Camaro in front of me. I cleared it and was swept along in traffic.

 

[56Cummins]

I've seen 2 of those chevy/gmc on the ground from suspension failure this year. They stopped doing safety inspection here 5 years back, tow companies have benefited

 

[oldcodger]

I was riding a school bus when the front left tire came off. I was setting in the second row seat behind the driver when I saw a tire rolling ahead of the bus. I was thinking where did that come from when the left front of the bus dropped down and the hub dug in to the pavement and made the bus do a hard 90 degree right turn. It so happened it parked itself perfectly on a frontage road. When the driver stood up to open the door he stopped a minute and I saw his knees shaking real bad. He stood a good minute before he opened the door and got off the bus.

 

[Speedbird001]

I was leading a military convoy; 5 HMMVs I think. Truck behind me changes lanes, slows then.... Out of the corner of his eye he sees his own rear tire pass him on the left. Broke off at the axle.

Luckily it bounced and came to rest in the grass. Driver held the truck steady and slowed. So many ways it could have been much worse. (Those HMMVs were ALWAYS broke)

 

[dishdude]

Happened to my roommate in college, shop tried to claim they didn't remove the wheel during safety inspection. I shredded them. They picked the car up and called him at 4:45 PM telling him the key was under the mat, I don't think they wanted to see me again.

 

[dfarr67]

I'm envious of people who can get in and go....accross the country working at a mine in Yukon, was walking by a Duromax and the front rim was at an angle because the lug nuts were half off- c'mon whatever happened to a walk around.

 

[Rob_Roy]

A few years ago I was on a local 2 lane and happened to look about 1/4 mile ahead and saw a service van quickly pull off the road, and something bouncing in the middle of the road. I realized it was a tire and slowed down. The guy ahead of me must have not seen it in time, because he never swerved or slowed down and the tire glanced off the side of his car. No one hurt and minor damage, but it could have been bad.

 

[Number_35]

Late 2019, around November, tire changeover season, my wife and I were driving N toward downtown on a busy feeder street. We saw a wheel separate from the Nissan ahead of us, cross the median lane, jump the median, cross the two southbound lanes, jump the curb, and roll partway down the riverbank.

I put on the 4-way flashers and stopped behind the Nissan, now resting on the front L brake rotor. That fender was bent pretty badly.

The driver went running after the wheel, and I said "I'll put it back on for you ". That was not to be - all but one of the lug nuts were sheared off.

He said he'd had the winter tires installed just a few minutes before at the indy oil change shop just a few blocks behind us.

*******

The next summer, Jr and I were driving back into town after a day of hiking. We were eastbound on a major E-W artery, three lanes in each direction.

We saw a wheel coming at us at a good clip, on our side of the road. It veered off and went into a park.

A few blocks later we saw a Honda CRV sitting at a jaunty angle at an intersection, with a bewildered young lady standing beside it.

*******

Sort of strange, to see this twice within a few months, after having never seen this before in decades of driving.