Smokehouse69

This didn't happen to me, but I witnessed it happening and the aftermath.
I was driving to work this morning in my 'vette, I was stopped at a light, behind about 5 cars back. When the light changed the cars in front of me started forward, as I entered the intersection I saw a wheel shoot out from under a car in front of me and hit a new Excursion in the side. The Excursion knocked the wheel down and a Suburban ran over the wheel, causing the Suburban to veer into and jump the curve. I was behind the Suburban and I narrowly missed the wheel as it kicked out from under it. Then I had to dodge the veering wheeless car as he crossed in front of me.
The car that lost the wheel (I have to hand it to the driver, he never lost complete control) was able to keep the car moving and steered it into a parking lot.
As I dodged the wheel, I looked out at it and saw that it was a brand new tire. It still had the green/coating on the whitewalls.
So I expect some tire business to be in court.
I have had more near misses driving my 'vette in the past week than I've had in two years driving my truck. All the incidents have all been things outside of my control.

VETDRMS

Sounds like something quite common with bad shops. I had a similar experience in my car a couple years back. Had the car in for an alignment, spent 5! Hours waiting for the morons to do it, they closed when i left.
About 3 blocks away i was coming up on a stoplight, started to brake, and the car changed lanes all on its own. They failed to re-tighten my tie rod ends. :mad :mad :mad

Find a good shop to do the work you can't get done yourself. If it costs slightly more, its worth it. :smash: :cheers:


[Modified by VETDRMS, 9:17 AM 1/14/2003]

Fevre

An uncle of mine had a mid 70's vette that he took to have some wheel work done back in the early 80's, wheel came off on an on ramp and did some major damage. Don't remember what came of it, he was OK but :mad as hell. Glas you where able to avoid the carnage.

mrvette

thanks to smart guys here on the forum, and a decent collection of tools, and some ambition, I do all my own work.....not short short block assy....but all else....even wheel alignments....one of the last mysteries explained about how exactly to do it myself....and be right on.....

in a tire shop, I watch those guys like a hawk....watch the balancer, see the weights, see how/where they are applied, check the zero, watch all the lug nuts are secure.....see the tires are actually round....little things like that....

GENE

page62

Just last night, I was telling Steve offline that I've had so many mechanic horror stories, that I've settled on a guy named "Me" to do all possible jobs! :cheers:

USMCVette

I took my 68 roadster to a local tire shop to replace all four of it's shoes. When i went to pick the car up about an hour later, i discovered a two and a half inch long crack going up the fender starting in the wheel well. Some moron had used a pry bar to get the rally hub cap off and hit my fiberglass, cracking it. Car went 35 years without a blemish and these people have it for and hour and damage the body. Needless to say, they paid for the body work, but from now on I'm doing my own work. A word to the wise: be sure to do a thorough inspection of your vehicle before accepting it back from any maintanence shop. :rant:

sb69coupe

This is exactly why the classic car insurance policies prohibit using the car as daily transportation. They know that you'll take care of the car, but it's the idiots around you that cause the problems!

As for having someone else work on the Vette, I try to minimize the possibility that they can do any collateral damage while they are attempting to perform their assigned task. For tire installation, I take the wheels off the car and then take JUST the rims to the tire shop. I feel better knowing that I reinstall and properly torque the lugnuts, as well as installing the trim rings and caps myself. If you can't do this, at least remove the caps and rings at home and drive the car there with bare rims.

Shannon

Frank75

This might be a good time to just remind everyone that you should recheck the torque of lug nuts on alloy wheels after they've been off. My mother-in-law had snow tires installed on her Audi a few weeks ago and 3 days later managed to just stop on the side of the road with the wheel flopping around. Destroyed a wheel and (I think) part of the wheel assy' of her expensive 4-wheel drive vehicle.

fauxrs

WOW this story and the one the thread is based on is amazing - I must go to different places because I swear anyplace I go that takes a wheel off the car - puts it back on with a Nuclear Powered wrench. :rolleyes:

Smokehouse69

That nuclear powered wrench is sometimes the problem, I've seen lugs torqued to the breaking point. My buddy's ex-wife lost a front wheel after getting new shoes on her car, all 5 lugs were sheared off. I don't know if they were run up to the breaking point and just snapped under torsional load, but I suspect that's what it was.
Several weeks ago I had new tires put on my wife's SLK230. I stood over the guys while he mounted the wheels by hand and torqued them to specification. They didn't like me very much at Discount Tire that afternoon, but I just spent $700 getting the wheels turned, trued and plated, and I wasn't going to see Bubba either crack them or scar them with his nuclear powerd impact wrench.
I started demanding hand tightening after I put new pads on my truck last year, it took me one full hour to get the lug nuts off one wheel. Most of the time was me with an impact trying to get the nuts loose and failing. Then searching for a long enough cheater bar to break then loose with a lugwrench. Finally a 4 foot piece of pipe on the end of the lug wrench with me jumping on the end did it. I weigh 250 lbs!!! Can you imagine how tight those lugs were? Discount Tire again.

OHSIXX

Thank your lucky stars! :)

BSeery

Funny thing you mention this....
Normally I drive my truck as my Vette has collector car insurance on it, not supposed to drive to work (SSSSHHH!! -- Don't tell!!).
Today was so nice out, and I was feeling low, so I just had to take her out for a run. About 1/2 into my morning drive the semi truck in front of me kicked up a large chunk of ??? (might have been tire tread, could have been road kill, don't know what it was). I couldn't move over as the lanes were full and I just braced for impact!! It was coming right at me but managed to clear the car. I don't know how much room I had, since I had my eyes closed for a split second. It had to have been pretty close.

The irony is that had I been in the truck, the chunk of ?? would have hit square in the windshield !!