Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Took my son's Subaru to Tires Plus for something rattling. Got it back later in the day and he drove it back to Baltimore (from Philly). Drives it around for a week and before coming back here tonight calls me and says he hears some noise. Can't really say what or from where. I said don't take a chance and go back but he was too far along. After he gets here I took it for a test drive. Didn't take more than 100 feet before I recognized it must be the lug nuts and sure enough two were missing and the third one was loose and about to fall off. He was very lucky.
Now, I am going to take it back to the shop and I am 100% sure they will deny responsibility. The paper work from last week does show that they inspected the brakes and for that they must have taken the wheels off. BTW, the wheel and the studs are both shot. It is not going to be a cheap fix. How would you approach them and make them pay?
be calm cool and collected, but ready to fight if need be. often times if you lay out your case calmly, they will capitulate to keep a customer happy.
if they refuse to do anything, then tell them thats fine, you are going to b=see your friend at the TV station and the newspaper, and tell them your story for the consumer reports news, and make sure they get it on the air as soon and often as possible. and then walk away.
you didn't mention what year/model Subie ... but I'll suggest a couple of scenarios that I have seen with these cars equipped with alloy wheels and tire shops ...
do keep in mind that you do not have to pull the wheels on these cars to inspect the pad thickness on the outer pads, you can look through the wheel spoke gaps to see this. generally, one can assume that the inner pad has comparable wear, although when the outer pad looks "thin", it's best to pull a wheel to inspect both pads.
But, typically what I've seen with tire shops pulling the wheels on these cars is that they don't know or don't care to properly torque the lug nuts. And this is the big problem with Subie alloy wheels ... the lug nug torque is pretty low compared to many other cars. For example, a 2001 Subie OBW specs at 65 ft lbs, with a 10% overtorque allowance ... still only around 70 ft lbs.
So what happens?
1) many tire shops use their air impact wrenches to install the lug nuts and over-tighten the lug nuts. Sometimes, as much as 80-100 ft lbs of torque is applied.
2) many tire shop installers don't know the Subie spec and "assume" something like 100 ft lbs of torque on the lug nuts, which they carefully apply using their torque wrench to be "professional" about doing the job.
But the wheel studs in the Subie's aren't capable of taking this much torque. They won't fail immediately, but they will get damaged, usually cracking and breaking.
As you observed, the wheel was loose because "two" lug nuts had fallen off and a "third" was loose. The wheel was wracking back and forth as it rotated. My bet is that you'll find that the "two" missing lug nuts have broken wheel studs and the third is also broken most of the way through. I wouldn't trust the remaining two studs to not be damaged even if the lug nuts and studs appear to be able to be tightened up again.
You'll need the studs and lug nuts replaced. Front wheels studs are readily accessible to be driven out with the removal of the brake caliper and mounting frame to get the disc off. The rears, with the integral parking brake inside the disc are a bit more problematic, but still reasonably accessible to drive out the studs and fish in a new one. The new studs should be "set" by drawing them into place using a nut and spacers tightened up to visually see that the stud is fully seated. Again, this is a failure area in that many shops will simply place the new studs in position, perhaps using the new lug nuts on them while the wheel is still off the car. The studs will not be fully drawn into position and when they mount the wheel with the correct torque, the stud will not be set correctly. You can count on these wheel lug nuts being loose within a couple of miles and the wheel will again wobble on the studs, flexing them back and forth to a failure unless the wheels are torqued and re-torqued and re-torqued and re-torqued until there's no more tightening of the lug nuts. This process can take a couple hundred miles of daily re-checking the torque.
I've personally experienced this problem on my own OBW's and various tire shops that have done tire work on my cars.
Over the years, I've seen this recurring problem from other tire shops on my customer's cars. Few can get a tire shop to accept liability or to admit they caused the problem. I know I've isolated the issue because when I install replacement studs and lug nuts torqued to spec and retorqued after driving a few miles, the wheels and studs stay intact. The studs don't break and the wheels don't fall off.
Happy Rider ... the problem here is that very few tire shops will accept liability for the damage to your son's car. Most will point to a disclaimer that you are "required to re-check the torque on the lug nuts on alloy wheels within 50 miles of driving ". Be forewarned that the damage to the remaining studs/lug nuts on the wheels that were driven any distance with missing/broken/loose lug nuts will be present. I wouldn't trust a repair short of replacing all 5 studs and lug nuts on each affected wheel. And be sure to check that the lug nuts on the other wheels are secure at the correct torque.
IMO, the investment in even a "cheapie" 1/2" torque wrench (such as the $9.95 Harbor Freight) and 3/4" deep 1/2" drive socket is worthwhile to have in your Subie tool kit. I'd check the correct torque after any work has been done on the wheels of these cars before driving it off the lot. Even if that comes down to loosening the lug nuts slightly and then bringing them up to the spec'ed torque, it's well worth the time/effort to do so. Beats the alternative of the broken stud scenario I see with these cars ... especially if you're out on the road away from a repair shop that can replace the studs.
you didn't mention what year/model Subie ... but I'll suggest a couple of scenarios that I have seen with these cars equipped with alloy wheels and tire shops ...
do keep in mind that you do not have to pull the wheels on these cars to inspect the pad thickness on the outer pads, you can look through the wheel spoke gaps to see this. generally, one can assume that the inner pad has comparable wear, although when the outer pad looks "thin", it's best to pull a wheel to inspect both pads.
But, typically what I've seen with tire shops pulling the wheels on these cars is that they don't know or don't care to properly torque the lug nuts. And this is the big problem with Subie alloy wheels ... the lug nug torque is pretty low compared to many other cars. For example, a 2001 Subie OBW specs at 65 ft lbs, with a 10% overtorque allowance ... still only around 70 ft lbs.
So what happens?
1) many tire shops use their air impact wrenches to install the lug nuts and over-tighten the lug nuts. Sometimes, as much as 80-100 ft lbs of torque is applied.
2) many tire shop installers don't know the Subie spec and "assume" something like 100 ft lbs of torque on the lug nuts, which they carefully apply using their torque wrench to be "professional" about doing the job.
But the wheel studs in the Subie's aren't capable of taking this much torque. They won't fail immediately, but they will get damaged, usually cracking and breaking.
Why would Subaru install these weak stud/lug nuts? Cost savings? If the industry standard lug nuts are 80-100 and you put on 70 max, they knew this is only going to cause failure leading to death as a possibility to save a few pennies? For the duration of ownership your going to always wonder if the lug were torqued right anytime you got new tires, brake pads, etc...no thanks in my book. Or is this an alloy wheel feature? Can't be tightened past 70 max?
The shop isn't liable at this point. He drove for more than a week and several hundred miles if not more.
While the shop may not have tightened the lug nuts properly (we really don't know given the information in your post) it is common knowledge that they should be checked after 50-100 miles to make sure they are still tightened to spec. It was up to your son to keep an eye on things, to prevent further damage.
This did happen to me once... And I was the one working on my car. I was in a rush after changing the rear brake pads and I'd swear I tightened every thing to the proper torque specs... But two days later and about 100 miles later, my wheel is making strange noises and I see that I've lost 2 lug nuts and the rest are loose and tearing up the wheel. It's my fault that I didn't recheck my work and keep an eye on them.
I'd say chalk it up to a lesson learned. It's your son who should be handling the maintenance of his own car, not you.
I keep my breaker bar and lug nut socket in the back of my car for these just-in-case scenarios. My wheels come off my car pretty frequently and learned my lesson when my wheel almost worked its way off.
Why would Subaru install these weak stud/lug nuts? Cost savings? If the industry standard lug nuts are 80-100 and you put on 70 max, they knew this is only going to cause failure leading to death as a possibility to save a few pennies? For the duration of ownership your going to always wonder if the lug were torqued right anytime you got new tires, brake pads, etc...no thanks in my book. Or is this an alloy wheel feature? Can't be tightened past 70 max?
It's not a case of "weak stud/lug nuts" as you would have it.
It's a case of installing the items that are quite well designed for the task at hand. Properly torqued to spec, the studs and lug nuts perform quite well.
The problem, however, lies in the hands of the ham-fisted "techs" out in the field who don't know or care to know or don't follow the spec. Overtorquing the fasteners can have drastic results. Indeed, you can accomplish the same failures on other cars by doing the same thing .... overtorquing the wheel studs/lug nuts. And I've seen that happen on a bunch of other cars/pick-up trucks where some idiot at a tire shop who thinks he's got a magic touch with a air impact wrench runs the lug nuts down to a couple hundred ft lbs before getting off the trigger.
The shop isn't liable at this point. He drove for more than a week and several hundred miles if not more.
While the shop may not have tightened the lug nuts properly (we really don't know given the information in your post) it is common knowledge that they should be checked after 50-100 miles to make sure they are still tightened to spec. It was up to your son to keep an eye on things, to prevent further damage.
This did happen to me once... And I was the one working on my car. I was in a rush after changing the rear brake pads and I'd swear I tightened every thing to the proper torque specs... But two days later and about 100 miles later, my wheel is making strange noises and I see that I've lost 2 lug nuts and the rest are loose and tearing up the wheel. It's my fault that I didn't recheck my work and keep an eye on them.
I'd say chalk it up to a lesson learned. It's your son who should be handling the maintenance of his own car, not you.
This is not true, you entrust professionals and when they breach their duty they are liable. As a consumer you pay professionals because you trust them to do things you can't/won't do. They are lucky (as is OP) this wasn't any more serious than it is.
Start in a pleasant matter and gradually turn up the leverage if they try to claim they aren't liable. Mechanics are a word of mouth industry and I'm sure you have friends, online reviews can be written for free, TV news stations like to be called with these sorts of matters, etc.
This is not true, you entrust professionals and when they breach their duty they are liable. As a consumer you pay professionals because you trust them to do things you can't/won't do. They are lucky (as is OP) this wasn't any more serious than it is.
Start in a pleasant matter and gradually turn up the leverage if they try to claim they aren't liable. Mechanics are a word of mouth industry and I'm sure you have friends, online reviews can be written for free, TV news stations like to be called with these sorts of matters, etc.
He has a point. With that much time and mileage passing. The shop can very easily make a point that by continuing to drive when they suspected a problem that they "failed to mitigate further damage" thus making things worse and they arnt responsible for the excess damage.
He has a point. With that much time and mileage passing. The shop can very easily make a point that by continuing to drive when they suspected a problem that they "failed to mitigate further damage" thus making things worse and they arnt responsible for the excess damage.
Unfortunately, true. Not retorquing the lug nuts in a modest distance after the work was done is an important task that most shops will advise the owner to perform, usually in the "fine print" of their work order/receipt for services. Of course, few owners have the means to do so and this is frequently overlooked on many cars.
Subie mitigates this concern by using steel inserts in their wheels rather than having the lug nuts bear upon the soft alloy of the wheel. But the problem is still aggravated by the overtorquing performed at many shops. And as the OP acknowledges, the car was driven quite some distance after it left the shop ... with the driver hearing "a noise" that should have been cause to stop the vehicle and investigate the source of the noise. Of course, by the time the noise was heard, most of the damage had been done.
If the failure had shown up within a matter of miles from the tire shop and the owner returned immediately with the car, the liability issue wouldn't be so clouded.
IMO, it would fall into a "customer goodwill" warranty for the shop to do anything about this now under warranty. OP, you can ask for some help on the damage to the car, but I wouldn't be expecting much, if anything, at this point.
The cost of the studs/lug nuts is pretty nominal, and the labor to install around 1/2 hour per wheel. So that's not a big expense. The wheel, if not fit for further service, may be a bit more expensive.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
For the duration of ownership your going to always wonder if the lug were torqued right anytime you got new tires, brake pads, etc...no thanks in my book. Or is this an alloy wheel feature? Can't be tightened past 70 max?
