Well we had a flat tire over the weekend, rear pass side, no big deal, my full size spare is well maintained, and I need new tires anyway, so I put the ugly iron wheel and wrangler tire on , I ALWAYS use a torque wrench, so about 160 miles driving and all is well, but my wife was driving home today, about 30 miles away she phones and says " the car is wobbling like crazy, and making her feel sick". I think that perhaps the spare has dry rot or something, belt separation maybe, though it would be a surprise to me cos hey, I knew it did,nt.
So I told her to pull over and inspect all the tires, check the pressures etc, she did, and I trust her with what I tell her to do, she is no bimbo.
Long story short (not realy lol) she proper nursed it home on the back roads 10-15 mph, well when I looked at it I nearly died, THE WHEEL HAD ALMOST COME OFF THE STUDS !, WTF, the studs are worn half way through, and the wheel nuts are hangin on by the barest of threads, I almost cried that my wife was driving that !.
So anyway, ideas on why this happened, and what kind of damage do you think we have ?, obviously I am gonna need to pull the rear hub and replace the studs, how much of a job is that considering I found the front hubs to be about 3 out of 10 on the hard scale, but the studs were already fitted. Any advice here appreciated, thanks as always, Neil.

 

I honestly haven't looked at the durango wheel studs, but every other vehicle I have had, It was just a matter of pounding the old wheels stud out from the front and pounding a new one in from the back.

 

Mmmm, big hammer and maybe a blow torch, sounds like a fun afternoon, thanks.

 

According to my research... It is exactly the same on our Durango's as all my previous vehicles (mainly dodge) and I had to do one on my Intrepid last year. Jack the truck up, pull the wheel off, pull the brakes off... Remove the broken stud, and put in a new one, you can use wheel nuts to pull the stud back through the hub if you can't hammer it from the back side.

 

Always a good idea to re-torque the lug nuts after 50mi of drive, just to be safe.

 

Yup agreed, and I usually do, but its been "one of those weeks" and I never got around to it, I still have to think there was something else going on here, I am 50 years old and have always maintained everything since I was 17, from trucks cars to motorcycles, and hey, aint never had a wheel fall off like that!.
Un-believable no Autozone or Advance around here has a full set of studs and lug nuts, so we have to buy a little bit of it all from three separate stores, you would think they would at least carry a full set, wtf.
Anyways, fix it up in the morning and hopefully nothing else got tore up, wait for the next thing to break,....wash-rinse-f**k-repeat.

 

That wheel will forever have to be retorqued. I had a car actually drop a wheel once. From then on that wheel would have to be retorqued because it was actually loose at about 50 and then 100 miles and then it would stay tight.

 

Well I think I discovered why this happened, the studs I removed were 2" long, yet the new ones I purchased were only 1 1/2" long, the 2" studs are replacements for the front, so somehow I had front studs in the rear hub !, now this was no problem when the alloy wheel was on there, but when I fitted the steel spare and torqued up the domed lugnuts, well the steel wheel is thinner than the alloy, so they ran out of thread before they snugged up to the wheel properly. Shure it all felt tight, and there was no play in the wheel, but it wasnt right, and a few miles down the road it all worked its self loose.
Replaced all 6 studs and lug nuts with brand new.

 

sounds like the P.O. screwed up replacing lugs at some point

glad you got it fixed and found out what the problem was

also, thanks for sharing

 

I probably need to check the other side, I will be replacing shocks soon, so that will be a good op, the hub looks fairly new, no rust, but I thought they always came with studs installed, so who knows why they were in there, but scary stuff cos I love my family and I dont want the wheels to fall off !.
Anyway Sharps, just noticed I am a "Professional" now so I have nothing left to learn eh,