For real; today I was driving from San Diego to LA for a business meeting with two other people in my car, for more than one hour and half everything was going just fine, then a vibration in the back start to happened, kinda like when driving on a bad wavy section of highway, I didn’t pay too much attention to it, assuming that the section of highway I was driving on was not great, quickly after that, maybe 2-3 minutes, a loud bang and the car started to wave left and right, I managed to pull over on the right shoulder and got out to check the damages: holly ****! The rear, driver side wheel was hanging out, 4 of the 5 lug nuts were missing, the studs got cut clean, I never saw that before and honestly I wonder how I manage to go trough 6 lines of traffic from the carpool line to the right shoulder. I found 3 of the nut lugs and they all still have the studs attached and cut clean.

Thanks to Lexus Link I got in touch with a tow truck with a flat bed and got the car towed to Lexus Cerritos. The service advisor there said I’m basically SOL because this is an aftermarket wheel and that I will have to incur all the repair cost.

Here are my questions, WTF happened there? The wheels are installed with a custom hubcentric rings and some Ray’s lug nuts. I tied the nuts myself by hand with a 12 inches wrench; there is no way they were over tight. The only nut left is the wheel lock one, is it possible that someone messed with the nut, while trying to steal my wheels?

Regarding the “basically you are SOL” Lexus policy, I understand theses are aftermarket wheels, but come on, 4 out of 5 studs cut clean? This is spooky! Could it be something wrong with the studs? Can I escalade this to corporate for them to help?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Wow, not sure what happened, but I'm glad that you're safe.

 

List of questions your going to want answered whenever this situation arises:

1) Are the lug nuts the proper size?

2) WHO torqued them down?

3) How much did they get torqued to? If impact wrenched, I'm going to guess that's the problem, *ALWAYS* torque to the manufacturer, and never greater than 120ft lbs save for a few peculiar applications.

4) How did the studs fail? Keep one and have a mechanical engineer study the stud.



Now for your case:
Check all other lugnuts on other wheels, have 3 different kind of lug nuts ( I had 2 convetional acorn types, 1 small radius locking type, 1 locking type with inlaid pattern that takes up the entire wheel lug well, 1 and another locking type with a diff. pattern). That should solve your theft/vandal problem unless they *really* got time on their hands.

Sounds like someone messed with them.

You were very lucky to keep very localized damage.

Your looking at a minimum of a new hub.

 

wow I'm sorry to hear that it happened to you. Glad you're safe!! You can always repair the damages, but your life cant be replaced. Hope dealership take cares of the bill.

 

That sucks...glad to hear you're alright though.

 

dude, we are just glad you are alive to post this! just imagine the collateral damage if that thing does fall off.

my guess goes to cheaply made lugs.

 

holy cr*p! most important is you and your passengers are safe.
what kind of wheels are those?
from what ive been told, you should retorque aftermarket lugs after 100 miles or something like that; and only to about 96-98lbs or whatever the measurement is.
can your insurance do anything?

arent Ray's lugs aluminum?

 

How fast were you going just wondering

 

Lexus of Cerritos is a good dealership.

Anyway, make sure you check the other wheels! This is why I NEVER go aftermarket unless it is from a VERY reputable company with ties to the manufacturer of the vehicle.

It sounds like a case of the aftermarket lugs loosening up. That is the vibration sound you were hearing... then the movement and weight of the car sheared the studs (although those are very strong).

 

Glad you're alive, that is important, but no clue how something like that happens. Maybe someone did try to take the wheels.

 

those are ssr rossetti.

reading all the comments in this thread and especially the initial post, i have the following comments. first of all i am really really sorry this happened. it was definitely dangerous and i am glad that you walked away ok and just car damaged

1) seriously, there is no reason you can blame lexus or dealership for it. 4 out of the 5 studs broke, i can understand quality issue with one stud, but 4? i doubt that with lexus. and you have aftermarket wheels and lexus didn't tightened the lugs. you can't blame lexus for any of them at all, unfortunately. i doubt lexus of cerritos will pay any of the bill, but if so, that would be under good will imho

2) tighten lug nuts to 96-98ft-lb, that would be horrible idea imho. i haven't checked the tq spec for the 3gs, but given the same lug patterns and the stud size as 2gs (and is300, sc430), i believe the stock tq spec is 76ft-lb. granted, with aftermarket wheels you might have less thread, but putting 80ft-lb is more than what i would feel comfortable with.

3) you said you tightened all the lug nuts yourself by hand with a 12 inch wrench. does that mean you did NOT use a tq wrench? if so, then unfortunately that's completely your fault. always ALWAYS use a tq wrench (and no air gun, never). you need to tq it to spec, not by feel or guess

4) the possibility of wheels being tempered by thieves, i am not sure neither. just imagine it, thieves try to steal your wheels, and to do so they need to take out all lugs, right? they can easily unscrew the 4 lugs (that you broke). there is no reason for them to tighten them more right? and looking at the picture of the broken lug with stud, the lug is still tightened to the stud. doesn't seem like they were tempered

now this is what my GUESS at what happened. again it's a guess, could be wrong. you hand tightened the lugs, which means they might be UNDER tightened. so they could be at 40-50ft-lb. assume that's the case, that means the wheel is not completely tightened down on the hub, and that could explain the slight vibration you had before when driving the car

if the wheel is vibrating, that means it's traveling in several direction, and coudl be going sideway, or back and forth. all these could produce unnecessary force on the stud, and if the wheel is vibrating enough, the force can be enough to break off the stud. once one is gone, and the rest being loose, it just makes it easier to break off the 2nd, etc...

that would be my guess

 

rominl you should be a detective! haha sounds like you're about the tightening by hand being the problem

 

Glad you are alright, hope everything will work out fine for you

 

wow thats crazy...never heard of the studs being cut like that! glad your ok

 

Yup, sorry to hear this but your post explains what happened. You used a 12 inch wrench. I'll bet anything that you did not torque them down enough and they loosened up. At the very least, if you use one of those things, use a pipe to extend it out to where you can actually get a good lock on the nut. It's not possible to tighten it to the appropriate torque with a 12 inch wrench by hand unless you are Arnold Schwarzenegger or his equivalent. Key is you need LEVERAGE.

Glad to hear you are safe and sound.