How many times have you told someone to "Drive safe" when they leave your house? I know I've said it occasionally, but due to recent events, I'm changing my goodbye advice to "Check your lug nuts".
We were driving home from my parents house on the evening of New Years Day, and as we pulled into our circle, the front right tire (the drivers side in the Hilux) started to wobble like it was flat. There's a lot of construction in our area, so I immediately thought we'd run over a nail or a screw or perhaps a misplaced skilsaw, but when we parked in front of our house and I inspected the tire, there was no sign of a leak at all. It was late, and we needed to get Emma to bed, so I left it alone and decided to take a look at it when the sun came up again.
Daylight revealed that the tire itself was not damaged in any way, but that there was only one lug nut holding the entire wheel onto the vehicle. Not only were the other lug nuts missing from the wheel, but two of the studs had completely sheared off the rotor. All the other tires had a full compliment of lugs nuts, so I'm not sure if we were looking at a failed attempt to steal my wheel, or some form of sinister plot, but needless to say, we're exceedingly happy that we discovered it before something terrible happened.
I took one lug nut off the each of the other 3 wheels and put them on the 3 bare studs still remaining on the wobbly wheel, and drove it to the nearest mechanic, which happened to be Country Hills Toyota. They quoted me over $600 to fix it, so I spat on their shoes and drove it down to Clint Maucieri's shop, and they fixed it for about half that.
I've told a few people this story already, and most have come back with some horror story of their own, and usually the folks in their stories weren't so lucky. I'm usually in the habit of giving my tires a quick glance before I travel anywhere you have to take a highway to get to, but after this experience, I'm adding lug nuts to the checklist. I imagine you might be too.
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