Tire Shoots Off Truck...

Javelin said:

SuperDave said:

 Assuming the part was installed, used, and maintained according to the manufacturer's instructions.

This is going to be a mess.

Being that the truck is lifted with oversized wheels and tires, that's going to be a no.

Not just oversized, but with a giant outward offset and the dramatically increased hub and bearing loading that comes with it. Honestly I'm surprised we don't see more bro-dozers losing front wheels.

Additionally the Bro trucks out there can have saggy rears and less than good offsets, as mentioned.

I've seen some dumb E36 M3 out there. More bad motorcycle accidents than I want to think about, they can split lanes. Also, forget if it rains. Slippery as berkeley due to oil.

Once upon a time, I was driving my '89 Civic around a westbound curve on I-84 in Hartford. The eastbound lanes to the left were elevated by about 30 feet.  
 

All of a sudden, the car immediately in front of me starts swerving frantically, but with nowhere to go because we are in the center lane with heavy traffic. I stabbed my brakes, opening a gap between us, just in time to se a lonely wheel and tire coming from above and headed directly for the center of my windshield at 60+ mph. 
 

Thank god I had hit those brakes, as it landed about 20 feet in front of me and bounced back into the sky. 
 

I looked in the mirror to see it land, and when it hit the pavement the second time, it just took off down the center lane, directly into the oncoming traffic. I could see the cars swerving behind me, but couldn't see if it had hit anyone, as I was rounding a corner. 
 

Needless to say, it was terrifying. I has always thought that it was the result of an accident on the eastbound side above, but now that I read this thread, I'm thinking it was one of those failed wheel bearing/hub assemblies. 
 

Side note: As I'm writing this, more details of the day are coming back to me. I was still living with my parents at the time and when I got home, I told my father about it as we were watching the Branch Dravidian compound burning on live tv. 
 

April 19, 1993

That looked like it was straight out of a bad TV show or movie.  I am glad that no one was seriously hurt.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

Javelin said:

SuperDave said:

 Assuming the part was installed, used, and maintained according to the manufacturer's instructions.

This is going to be a mess.

Being that the truck is lifted with oversized wheels and tires, that's going to be a no.

Not just oversized, but with a giant outward offset and the dramatically increased hub and bearing loading that comes with it. Honestly I'm surprised we don't see more bro-dozers losing front wheels.

I saw three this month in person on the side of the road. 

You chose a fine time to leave me, loose wheel.

Maybe it was all staged for YouTube hits.

Couple Arrested for Allegedly Crashing Cars to Get YouTube Clicks

My boss with the mall crawler Jeep lost his bro-tastic spare off the tailgate swing arm, probably on the freeway. It probably weighed 75 pounds.  He has no idea where he lost it.

.

.

.

YIKES

In reply to Duke :

I've been wanting to weld up a spare carrier for my Subaru but I'm too chicken for this exact reason. Yikes indeed 

Duke said:

My boss with the mall crawler Jeep lost his bro-tastic spare off the tailgate swing arm, probably on the freeway. He has no idea where.

I dodged a full cat-back exhaust system sliding down the freeway towards me once..

In reply to Keith Tanner :

There are some really interesting physics here. As a friend noted, a loose wheel has a LOT of energy, especially a heavy one. And it's wrapped in a material specifically designed to transfer that energy as effectively as possible. The CUV was tall enough that the front bumper hit the face of the tire, which would have an upward direction equal to road speed - let's say it's likely about 70 mph. The top of the tire is moving forward at twice ground speed, so it's moving at 140 mph relative to the ground - or a bit less than 70 mph relative to the CUV. So the front of the car got yanked up with a fairly significant jerk and then tossed forward. The impact was hard enough to trigger the airbags immediately.

There are a lot of things that had to line up just right to make that happen. Hell of a ride.

It's not really funny if you were in the accident, but the tire coming back to finish the job does make me laugh.
 

I got to test those physics out myself 20+ years ago. It was really neat seeing what my accident likely looked like. Mine played out a little differently with a similar result. 
 

I was commuting to work in my '88 Mazda 626. I was in the #1 lane on an elevated section of freeway in Sacramento, with a concrete barrier to my left. Unknown to me, a Cadillac hearse had just lost a wheel. I later learned that he had been driving with loose lug nuts and sheared off the studs. At least it wasn't in service- it was an older private vehicle and the driver was in a hearse club. The wheel ping-ponged though commute traffic. I spotted it as it bounced off a car ahead of me to my right. Cars were swerving all over, and someone jumped into the lane next to me, cutting off my out. The tire bounced off the wall and directly into my path. I braked for a split second- this happened really fast and there was not much time to scrub speed. I let off the brakes right before the hit, which was at over 60, figuring my momentum would at least keep me going straight in my lane. The expected impact didn't come at first. Instead, I went up. I could see over the concrete barrier to my left, which had obscured my vision just fractions of a second before. Everything got really smooth. Until I hit the ground, then came the expected impact from an unexpected source. The car died immediately but I had enough momentum to get it to the left shoulder. I got out of the car and the front end actually looked okay. But the left front suspension was collapsed and radiator had broken from below. The back door did not want to open smoothly and there was a slight wrinkle in the roof.  The car behind me pulled over to check on me. "Hey, are you okay!?! Because I could see completely under your car!" It must have looked a lot like the video, but without flipping over. Good thing, because there was quite a drop to beyond the barrier to the ground below. CHP was on scene almost immediately, and got me all of the info, as the hearse was across 6+ lanes of traffic. He did ask me if the tire was stopped or moving when I hit it. After I said moving, he replied "good." He told me that if you hit a stationary object, it's your fault. If it's moving, the person who set it in motion is at fault. And not necessarily the car that loses the wheel.  He said that if the wheel stops and is struck by another car, the car that hit it could be responsible if they send it into another car. It looks like I got pretty lucky in hindsight. 

Slightly away from the original but some years ago I had pulled out onto a 90 Kph highway and as I accelerated away a van going in the opposite direction dropped something. The car behind me, an Aussie Valiant, got it fair square in the front and I watched in the mirror as it reared up in the air before crashing down on it's wheels again. The driver, with a whole lot more clear thinking than I would have had, put on his blinker and pulled to the side of the road. I stopped too, being a witness and all, to see if I could help. Surveying the damage it all looked quite benign with a bit of crumpling round the front bumper, some more at the rear and lots of missing paint on the 9kg  propane bottle that had made it happen. Looking underneath was a different story, half the sump was missing, the bottom was torn off the torqflite, the driveshaft had been pushed up into the back seat and the diff housing was no longer straight. 

Fortunate it got caught on video. I'm a fairly experienced insurance adjuster but even I would see the damage to the Kia and be like, "This all happened from hitting a wheel on the highway?"

There are a lot of armchair experts in this thread, people who often decry our over-litigious culture in the USA.

Lots of assuming large piles of fault for the truck driver, simply because of profiling them as a bro dozer.

We're better than being the angry pitchfork mob.

Raise your hand if you've never driven a vehicle on the street that you knew had a questionable part or mod. Raise your hand if you've never made a mistake wrenching. Raise your hand if you've never had a near-miss in the shop or on the road that immediately made you think "well I was just being stupid and got lucky". Raise your hand if you've never had a part fail unexpectedly. 

Absolutely think the truck's insurance should be responsible. But let's try to have some compassion and imagine that any of us could be in the truck driver's shoes.

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

I think it would be easier to count the vehicles I've driven that DIDN'T have a questionable part

many years ago my Uncle bought a brand new Toronado He was going from Pa to Upper Michigan to see his kids and needed a new car anyway, so he bought it just for the drive. Going through the Detroit area, a Semi going the other way lost the rear hub on it's trailer. This hunk of metal crossed 4 lanes of traffic, the medium, bounced up into the air and landed right in front of my uncle's car. Like the Kia, it launched the  front of the Toronado straight up into the air. When it came down, it was missing almost everything forward of the firewall. Engine, drivetrain, most of the sheet metal. Just a little faster and my Aunt and Uncle would have been killed. 

They never did find the truck the hub came off of.

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

I expect the insurance company to deny the claim because the vehicle was modified, and modified in such a way as to be a probable direct cause of the accident, UNLESS the insurance company was in full knowledge of the deviations from stock.  (Everyone tells their insurance company this, right?)

bobzilla said:

Keith Tanner said:

It's not really funny if you were in the accident, but the tire coming back to finish the job does make me laugh.

I saw that and thought "The one body panel not destroyed... wait nevermind." 

I thought of Happy Gilmore and the Bob Barker fight at the end when Barker says, "Now you've had enough, bitch."

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

I expect the insurance company to deny the claim because the vehicle was modified, and modified in such a way as to be a probable direct cause of the accident, UNLESS the insurance company was in full knowledge of the deviations from stock.  (Everyone tells their insurance company this, right?)

That's not how any of it works at all. 

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

They won't. The Kia will be covered by the insurance company.

They may drop the truck as a customer after the fact but I doubt it unless he outright lied when he had the policy set up. If he has full coverage, they may even cover damage to his vehicle except for possibly the aftermarket parts. He would need to read the fine print. You can walk into just about any truck dealer and buy a brand-new lifted truck off the lot. They will even roll the cost of the lift into the financing on the truck. It's not like this is something new or dangerous. There are 100s of thousands of lifted trucks on the roads. They aren't any less safe than any other vehicle on the road and probably safer than some of the crap we all drive. 

In reply to Toyman! :

Keep in mind that something the dealer does is not necessarily safe, legal or considered stock by insurance. My local Dodge dealership could put a lift kit and huge tires on a new truck to sell it, but Dodge would definitely deny coverage if it has a wheel bearing failure as a result. If the lift was engineered and designed to be installed by a franchised dealer, and the wheel/tire package was also a factory size, that's different.

My coworker has a set of aftermarket wheels on his truck. He swears they're a factory option, but they're not. They were bolted on by a dealer trying to move some metal. The fact that it was a dealer and not Big O that installed them doesn't matter.

I disagree that a 20' long, 4 ton vehicle that towers above traffic is "not any less safe" than other vehicles.

In reply to Toyman! :

When I insure a vehicle, they ask me if it is modified.  I imagine other carriers do, too.  

In reply to Keith Tanner :

We aren't discussing warranty or if they are factory options. The fact remains that new, lifted trucks are available from the dealers. The insurance companies know this. The insurance companies underwrite insurance for 100s of thousands of lifted trucks every year. This is nothing new. 

The insurance company is going to pay out for the vehicle that hit the tire. There may be civil repercussions to the truck owner after the fact, but the injured party is going to get reimbursed for damages. 

There are few inherently dangerous vehicles. Most accidents and crashes are caused by dangerous and undertrained drivers. The number one cause of crashes is distracted driving.

Wheels have been falling off of vehicles all the way back to the days of horse and buggy. It's one of those things that happens. This instant just happened to be more spectacular. There is very little to nothing the truck owner could have done to stop it. 

I know a lot of y'all hate lifted trucks and think they should be outlawed. The fact remains that they aren't. It's an interesting crash but it's not going to magically make every state change its laws on truck modifications. They are already producing lift kits for the electric trucks that are coming to market. Lifted truck are going to be around for a long time. 

Javelin said:

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

Javelin said:

SuperDave said:

 Assuming the part was installed, used, and maintained according to the manufacturer's instructions.

This is going to be a mess.

Being that the truck is lifted with oversized wheels and tires, that's going to be a no.

Not just oversized, but with a giant outward offset and the dramatically increased hub and bearing loading that comes with it. Honestly I'm surprised we don't see more bro-dozers losing front wheels.

I saw three this month in person on the side of the road. 

We call this the "kachow mod" in reference to Lightning McQueen from Cars.  I'm used to seeing this more as a ball joint failure on the Carolina Squat trucks but same forces are at play here.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Glad I put Timkens on my Express Van.

Hope they are better than they used to be.  I went through several Timkens on my rallycross Corsica.  Switched to parts store brand and suddenly they started lasting a lot longer.