This is still under investigation but what do you think could have caused the wheel to just come off.
http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/...river-20101013

I will keep you guys posted on this!

 

the article says tire came off. could have been a very worn out tire that ended up blowing out and peeling off. if the wheel came off it could have been from something as simple as not tightening the lugs all the way

 

If the tire has super low pressure, it could come off. There is no lock to lock the tire to the wheel's rim.

 

Well, if the car was serviced recently, the lugs could have been left loose and the entire wheel flew off.

There was a time when I was driving down the highway and an entire wheel/tire bounced right in front of me and over my car hitting the car behind me. We were travelling at 70+ and could only imagine what the outcome could have been had it hit my (or anyone's) windshield.

This is an unfortunate story. Sucks. This will be bad PR for Toyota/Lexus regardless of reason, I believe.

 

if it was serviced recently then yes. if not then a number of things could have lead to it and there would really be no way to pin point it back to the dealer

 

sad story to hear about and even worse for toyota/Lexus for their damage P/R department will have to wait and see if anythong come out of it.

 

At least it was only 1 wheel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv4m41viy4I

 

That actually happend to me when i noticed a lot or vibration n worse handling after a tire shop. I learned to check lugs after any service that gets done on my car. I have been in 2 situations where i seen wheels coming of cars, one of them was when a mini van was taking a ramp at about 70 miles and his driver side wheel flew off and started bouncing around the highway while everyone was going 80+. Second time was when a monster build truck with wheels about 4 ft tall taking a turn on a one way street and his whole tire with rotor n caliper flew of hitting 2 cars with over 5k dm on each one of them. His hub was not meant for big wheels. There could of been couple reasons the lexuses tire flew off, bad hub, loose lugs, control arm riped, or a ball joint. Lets see when the storie updates what they will find.

 

THe report said the TIRE came off. Did they mean the wheel?

Very possible the tire was worn, it blew out and sadly she crashed into the river/pond. Very important to check tires, they are the 4 items keeping you on the road!

 

The picture shows the rear left wheel was off. So it must be the wheel not tire.

 

Watch the video time frame 00:50 showing a guy rolling the wheel, it looks alright. Must be lost lug nuts.

 

Yes it was the entire wheel that came off, they said that the car had hit a pothole and right after that the wheel came off.

 

I see something like this happening to me soon if I don;t take those lousy spacers off!

 

I saw this the day it happened. After thinking of how tragic this was for the passenger, the driver who did not make it, and her family, I began to wonder, once I saw the wheel, where that car was serviced.

I know that I trust some local dealerships more than others that have a higher number of unsupervised clueless young kids that will occasionally do stuff like leave the lug nuts loose, forget to put oil in the engine, and other big mistakes along these lines.

I hope this was not the case here with a woman's life ending so tragically. A lost life is for sure the highest price to pay for somebody else's "I don't care" attitude.