Thought I had a soft tyre or maybe a warped disk and pulled off the motorway.

As we manovered the car onto the RAC truck the 4th bolt went with a crack and shot across the road:

#Edit – bear with me- Im trying to link to the photos

YIKES!!! :O

And the remaining bolt/ stud:

Lottery ticket time according to the RAC chap.

I never saw a car recovered so gingerly in my life- he didnt want to be the one scraping it on the ground.

That happened to an ex girlfriend. Someone had tried to steal the wheels from her Mini but couldn’t get the locking wheel nuts off. She lost a wheel in town, the Police then told her the other three wheels were about to do the same.

Lucky escape on a motorway.

Strange you mention that moonter: and I might be paranoid – but its possible.

The wheels were balanced 6 weeks / 2k miles ago.

The way the bolts have snapped it looks like they were over tightened. Did they chuck the wheels back on with the impact gun? Double check the other wheels when youve got that one fixed.

just before the last one went:

And yes – the rac guy said the problem was 99% they were over tightened or under tightened.

After seeing the quite frankly shocking way some garages put wheel nuts on, every time I come out Ill take them off and retorque them to put my mind at rest.

looks like the rest of the bolts are snapped in the holes.

I think I would be calling trading standards on Monday morning as someone could get killed.

PS get all the bolts replaced. The security ones are probably fine as I would hope they have done those by hand but it’s not worth the risk with the rest.

andyl- there are no bolts left really. The wheel is sitting on the hub. And thats it. The wheel is on the eastern side of the car. There is an easterly wind. I survived.

Realistically I need a new hub. Wheel bolts. Possible a caliper.

#Edit – just to be clear : they’re not bolts: the hub has them built in as “studs”. I may not have the terminology down pat but its new hub time. Maybe driveshaft too.

ahh crap, I forgot Ford use studs. You can replace studsbut it’s obviously a bit harder.

Did they do all 4 wheels?

All I can think is that they were either all put on too tight or they were put on loose or have come loose (I always check wheel nuts/bolts after a few drives when the wheels have been taken off) and it has caused the wheel to move around and damage them and put all the load on the tightest and then the next tightest and so on.

i would be very worried about all the wheels they did and potentially want all replacing. Could be worth giving Ford a call as they might be interested as 4 studs breaking is very serious and could easily lead to a fatal crash. they might be able to give some proper expert advise on why they failed.