Last night driving on I-80 at approximately 55mph the wheel & tire on the driver side front of my 2004 Dodge Ram fell off and hit a car coming in the opposite direction. Fortunately noone was injured. Has the wheel falling off happened to anyone else. As a side note, I have aftermarket wheels which were tightened to Dogde specs.

 

Sorry to heat about that. Did you determine why it fell off? Broken spindle, broken studs, etc? Glad to hear no one was hurt as that could have turned tragic really fast. I've seen tires fall out of trucks and bounce down the road, but not an entire wheel fall off. Unless the aftermarket had a wrong pattern to it, I don't see why it would have fallen off. I know that there is a very minor difference between metric and std sizes that can cause problems, but just need more info about your tire and wheel setup and what went wrong.

 

Did you re-tighten after a couple hundred miles. Everytime I get new wheels I get the typical "check the lugs" in a couple hundred miles.

 

If using closed-ended lug-nuts, they can bottom before tightening appropriately against the wheel--or if they are not the correct taper for the wheels. Did you use your stock nuts or ones supplied with the wheels. My guess is "bad nuts!"

You lucked out this time, get the problem fixed before driving it again!

All the best.

 

Thanks for the replies. I went to see my truck yesterday and all of the bolts are still there. Two of them are bent inwards. The only vibration I felt was when the wheel actually came off. About a month ago I heard a squeaking noise coming from the area of the same wheel/tire. The dealership check it out and said they didn't see any problems. Not sure if it is related to the wheel coming off, but it seems pretty strange that it was the same wheel. I also went to look for the wheel since the cops couldn't find it the night it happend. I found it but could not retrieve it. It is sitting in the median of the highway and the median is a gulley with no where to pull over on the side. I thought about pulling over on the right hand side and crossing but it is just too dangerous with all of the traffic on the highway. I informed my insurance company of where the wheel is located so I am leaving it up to them if they want to get it.