Driving home last night I notice a wobble and thump coming from the left front. It decreases slightly while on the gas and gets worse while off the gas. so I figure it is power related, half shaft or universal joint some where. I pull over to inspect it but can't see anything hanging or broken because the car is low and covered in snow. I can't get on the highway because the vibration is too bad, so I take the back roads home. I stop at my friends garage to see if he can throw it up on a lift for a quick inspection, he's closed already. Now I am only a few miles from home so I keep going even though its getting worse. At this point I am figuring the damage is already done so I will have to pay either way. As I am climbing the last hill, less than 2 miles from the house around 30mph, it gets worse, then I fell the left side of the car drop. Luckily I was right next to a driveway so I pull in there to see what I already knew. The front tire had fallen off. Then I look at the hub and there are no lug nuts on it, WTF. The initial wobble was a loose lug nut or 2, then the vibration must have backed the rest off. When the tire came off, the car dropped right on top of it so the hub never touched the ground.

My neighbor was right behind me and pulled over to help. He went to his house grabbed his floor jack but we couldn't get it under the car. Another neighbor showed up and we all got to work. We had to use a scissor jack in the back to lift the front enough to fit the floor jack. After that I stole a lug nut from the other tires and was able to limp home on 3 out of 5 lugs. After I got home the 2nd neighbor stopped at the house and said " I found your last lug nut in the middle of the road" So I put that one on, and torqued the shit out of the remaining lugs on the car. So now I am rocking 4 out of 5 on all 4 wheels.

One stud was too damaged to put a nut on so I today I will call the garage to schedule stud replacement. There is some minor body damage to the drivers front quarter panel (which already has a dent) and the drivers door.

The odd thing is I put the snow tires on in Oct and haven't had a problem with them until yesterday. I had been out playing in the snow the last few days during the recent storm. But there was no wobble or noise on my way into work, only when I went to leave.

Last edited by Nightcrawler (2017-02-14 10:16:41)