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Actually if you knew a guy with a mill that wasn't a hack, a reamer could be run through the hub to "move" the hole half the .65 OR just drill 5 new holes in the hub between the existing 5 that are the right alignment and location. the 4x4 crowd has to deal with this due ot all the axle swaps..
Any good axle shop should be able to do this..
Also, did you have Spline drive lugs on those wheels, they have grooves instead of flats like a regular bolt.
Discount tire and many others have started pushing them with the new fancy wheels, IMHO they SUCK.
I finally bought the appropriate bit and had a friend blow the holes out enough to let me use regular nuts,
they are way smaller in diameter and seem to gouge the bottoms of the lug wells in the wheels under
high side load (Rock crawler Jeep) They also seem to be hard to keep tight.. OR they seize so hard you cant get them off,
OR in icy weather you cant get the lug wrench (Special one required) on them.
It's obvious that the wheel nuts came off. The two studs that broke might have been the last nuts still there but really loose and the wheel moved off the hub and the studs broke. You got your warning but you just kept driving.
Do not use anti-seize, and torque the bolts properly and re-torque after about 50 miles. Visually check that there's enough thread engagement as well.
Severe over tightening can cause this too because the wheel will yield under the nut a little while after assembly. Too many shops hammer down those nuts with large impact wrench and it's just plain stupid.
Not a fan of BMW bolt pattern on these cars, but I think it is not primary cause of this particular issue. Had the nuts been tightened properly you'd still be driving.
Do you think the shop didn't tighten them down enough? I had the car back for about a month before the failure, no warning until that day.. ..or do you think they just worked themselves loose.. ..I would guess if they were only hand tightened I would have noticed problems much sooner right? maybe they just worked themselves loose?
Do you think the shop didn't tighten them down enough? I had the car back for about a month before the failure, no warning until that day.. ..or do you think they just worked themselves loose.. ..I would guess if they were only hand tightened I would have noticed problems much sooner right? maybe they just worked themselves loose?
The photos in post #1 invite a very different conclusion. The threads on the surviving studs appear to have had the lug nuts ripped off by the radical leverage once two of the studs broke from being stretched enough to do the "911 steel" trick.
All those "it's obvious that the wheel nuts came off" and "worked themselves loose" and "hand tightened" explanations defies those photos. If you hear hoof beats in the US Southwest, think horses, not tigers.
Large version shows the ends of the studs are mangled some. Like from the lug nut being pulled laterally off the stud while being twisted by the insane leverage as the first two studs broke. The studs are also bent. "it's obvious the wheel nuts came off" No, they were ripped off undoubtably tearing apart the lug nuts too. NOT a result of loose lug nuts.
Do you think the shop didn't tighten them down enough?
Didn't tighten some nuts or didn't install. One thing you know for sure is that 3 studs either threw their nuts or didn't have nuts from the beginning. You know this because the nuts aren't there....
It actually doesn't take much to hold a wheel to the hub, you maybe wouldn't even notice with first drive that nuts are under tightened or even some missing, but that's not sustainable and the nuts will work themselves looser and can even fall off. Whether "hand tightened" or seated down firm with power tools, if the nut was not tightened enough then it is still considered under tightened and can come loose over time.
Vibration causes a loose nut to walk off the threads. That's how you end up throwing a loose nut while driving. The threads have to be good though, it can't walk over bad threads. The threads on your remaining three studs are damaged so whatever happened with the nuts was before the threads were damaged. That's why I think those nuts fell off first, or maybe some were not even installed.
Also, if an abutment slips under a bolted joint then it works the bolt/nut loose -- even a properly tightened bolt. Large cyclic bending loads do the same. With 3 adjacent wheel nuts gone, the other 2 bolts didn't have a prayer, even if tightened properly. At that point the wheel had too much freedom of movement and slipped the joint and eventually the nuts started to loosen (if not already loose from the beginning). It eventually got the point where the wheel fell off the hub ring and that's when things went really bad.
I think what you're really wondering is can you sue the shop for damages? Yeah you can, and you should if they were the last ones to touch the wheels. Will you win? I don't know. Using the wrong bolt pattern wheel can throw a cloud of confusion on this. One thing you can do right now to maybe help your case is have somebody (a 3rd party) paint mark the nuts on all the other wheels, measure break-away torque, and then tighten to torque spec again and measure how much angle the paint mark turns past the original location. If you find some very under torqued nuts then you'll probably win. Breakaway torque is less than tightening torque, they are not the same. I can't remember off the top of my head what is that relationship (80% ??).
Is it possible to have a wheel hub custom made to fit my car and use the 5x120 bolt pattern? I've been googling and can't seem to find an answer. I do know you can drill existing hubs to the bolt pattern you want but it from the responses I've seen online alot of people are leery about doing this.
Is it possible to have a wheel hub custom made to fit my car and use the 5x120 bolt pattern? I've been googling and can't seem to find an answer. I do know you can drill existing hubs to the bolt pattern you want but it from the responses I've seen online alot of people are leery about doing this.
Of course. That was what I recommended previously. It's an adaptor, made of AMERICAN aluminum, (pathetic contentious comments not withstanding), and as I wrote it can made sufficiently thin as to not distort how the wheel fits. OEM the car easily fits a 9" wide wheel so fitting one 9.5" wide really isn't hard. The adaptors have been extensively tested including off road in absurd conditions and work without fail.
Last edited by wssix99; 06-07-2023 at 11:55 PM.
Reason: removed non-sponsor mention
I once looked into using 5x120 mm bolt pattern because the wheels cost so much less than what's available for my car. I spoke to a certain BMW wheel manufacturer and the lug hole position tolerance was 0.1 mm (not to be confused with the tolerance of the size of the hole). This can cause the stud to bend, and studs don't like to bend.
There is always somebody in threads like this that says it's fine because tolerances are so large. First of all, they're not large. And second of all, larger tolerances actually make things worse because it increases chances that things can get even more out of whack.
OP: You learned a lesson the hard way!! Torque your wheels do not assume any shop / repair service has your best interest in mind. You will never know if wheel was torqued down from day 1 of ride tech install. Live and learn have a torque wrench and correct socket in your tools. Everyone who has done or does track days knows to check lugs nuts!!
OP: You learned a lesson the hard way!! Torque your wheels do not assume any shop / repair service has your best interest in mind. You will never know if wheel was torqued down from day 1 of ride tech install. Live and learn have a torque wrench and correct socket in your tools. Everyone who has done or does track days knows to check lugs nuts!!
Just look at the photo with the mangled studs and the broken ones, then factor in that the 5X120 does not properly fit a 5X120.65 hub. It does bolt on deceiving you that it fits. It doesn't. It's a time bomb waiting for an opportunity to fail. Lots of people have gotten away with it, which is why they swear you will never have a problem either. They are sincere and dead wrong. For this I get called an *** wipe by those who don't know any better. Happily, electrons have no effect.
Also to the OP, I'm very sorry for the damage to your beautiful car. That's not fun, man. Hopefully the shop will fix it up good and get the paint matched.
Just curious, what do you guys feel about Wobble Nuts?
You are about to have a repeat of your experience with 120 vs 120.65 input.
Many of the responses will seem reminiscent and be just as wrong.
Wobble bolts/nuts are less safe. You are thinking that the bolts/nuts only purpose is to hold the wheel in place when it's dimensionally a little off, but they also counter all the torque. Add in ABS and you're basically pounding against these bolts with tons of weight. Now, with normal bolts this force is applied as intended, with wobble nuts it is not. The additional forces may not be significant enough to matter. And your life and others may be put at risk by using them.
As with the sizing of wheels for your car. These choices seem benign. They are not. Some have expressed consolation for your misfortune. Actually, what you got was Justice, with the capital J, which is "getting what you have earned". Earned as in "how the universe works" and "everybody gets what they deserve". Innocent bad choice=just as bad as malicious bad choice. Not harsh, reality. Just imagine the result if you had been driving 30 miles an hour faster. Or even faster. Dangerous choices that many get away with their whole lives or shortening their lives.
Wobble nuts=Russian Roulette, or you can believe the cheerleaders. The universe doesn't care which you choose, it's entertained either way.
OP needs to use stock acorn nuts with the stock pattern wheel and hub unmodified.
Keep an eye out for that style wheel if you insist on that style. I they aren't in production any more but people are selling them. I found one on ebay it was NOS.
And there are places like Audio City that sell various wheels like that with every pattern for each style.
Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and bite the bullet and buy new wheels. Kinda sucks because it's a major unforseen expense but I can't risk that happening again and it's too difficult to fully point it at the shop while knowing the bolt pattern was slightly off... ...I decided against modifying the hub or using the wobble nuts as well as it pretty much puts me in the same potentially hazardous situation.
I was looking at the WELD VENTURA s104's (not sure if they will clear my CTS-V Brembo's) as well as the customizable Forgestar wheels... ...I was thinking if I had a customizable wheel I could have them drill the blank to a 5x120.65mm -- but is that enough or is there anything else mounting related that I need to look for?
I wanted to go wider in the rear than my current setup. Will 19x11's fit back there with a +50 offset?
Last edited by Need4Camaro; 06-06-2023 at 12:21 PM.
Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and bite the bullet and buy new wheels. Kinda sucks because it's a major unforseen expense but I can't risk that happening again and it's too difficult to fully point it at the shop while knowing the bolt pattern was slightly off... ...I decided against modifying the hub or using the wobble nuts as well as it pretty much puts me in the same potentially hazardous situation.
I was looking at the WELD VENTURA s104's (not sure if they will clear my CTS-V Brembo's) as well as the customizable Forgestar wheels... ...I was thinking if I had a customizable wheel I could have them drill the blank to a 5x120.65mm -- but is that enough or is there anything else mounting related that I need to look for?
I wanted to go wider in the rear than my current setup. Will 19x11's fit back there with a +50 offset?
11" wide wheels have some mixed reviews in the wet. No rain driving? Okay. Offset might need to be closer to 60. Tire will matter the taller it is. As the Dodge 18X11 guys learned, no rain, no way. Over 70 offset.
My 14 Z/28 uses 19X11's OEM on the front. 19X11.5 OEM on the rear. Both F+R wheels weigh exactly the same, 26.2 lbs. 5X120.65. Matched weight deliberately by GM, taking "square" to an extreme.
A 295/30-19 is 26.0" diameter. STILL difficult to fit in the front. Your "Thread Staggered..."
A 305/35-19? Square? It fits on a 10"wide wheel. Great rain and dry. Front needs more than a fender roll. Much more.
A 315//30-19? At 26.6" diameter, REALLY a challenge front.
I find the 285/35-18 MPSS square optimal for my 98 F. but if you need 19" for Brembo's, then 19's.
Last edited by LSX Thunder; 06-07-2023 at 07:05 AM.
My 14 Z/28 uses 19X11's OEM on the front. It is an 11 mm offset. 19X11.5 OEM on the rear, 32.25 mm offset. No comparison to the offset needed for 3rd/4th gen f body.
Previously I wrote that having a wider wheel on one end did NOT change a square designation being accurate. My Z is what convinced me.
This thread has been cleaned up and interventions have occurred. I have removed names of innocent vendors from the title, removed the insulting commentary, off-topic responses, plugs for non-sponsors, and mentions of genitalia.
This thread has some good insight/information and also some bad suggestions. I have NOT removed any incorrect information or suggestions in the interest of stimulating the technical conversation we are known for. (Don't believe everything you read on the internet.)
I trust that the conversation going forward from this point will be constructive and technical.
Great to see the OP is well after this incident and this vehicle will be coming back to the street!
I think the suggestions above that lug nuts came off and then the remaining studs sheared under the stress is spot on and the logical sequence of events that would lead to the configuration of parts left after the incident.
Getting to the matching bolt patterns between the hubs and wheel is key. A mismatch (even by a small radius) will make it impossible to properly torque the lug nuts. Even if a torque wrench reads properly, the lug nuts will not be properly tightened. (So, one could not pin this down on a technician.)
When lug nuts (or any bolt) are tightened/torqued, the bolt stretches along its main axis. This causes the threads to come more closely in contact with each other and develop greater friction forces on those threads. This helps keep the bolt and nut from coming loose with each other. In the case of a lug nut, these forces are sufficient to keep the lug nuts from coming off during driving.
If the radius of the wheel bolt pattern is mismatched, a few things can happen. The conical end of the lug nut will not be properly seated in the machined socket in the wheel and the stud will bend when tightened. Both conditions, even when the proper torque is developed in the bolt, will cause the friction surfaces to be uneven and out of full contact with each other along the length of the stud. This can lead to the lug nuts coming loose.
06-03-2023, 08:52 PM
