Remember to pre-trip your lug nuts

An East bound semi lost the driver side steer tire at milepost 6 on I-80 in Wyoming. The tire jumped the median barrier and struck the westbound pickup-truck. The driver of the truck was transported to the Hospital.

I drove past several minutes later, and the semi still had it's brake drum etc... So it should have been shaking the wheel or the driver should have seen evidence of loose lug-nuts with any reasonable pre-trip.

It was a large carrier so no crazy spikes or other chrome to hide those problems during an inspection. Sure it is possible that someone had installed his lug-nuts too tight and they were just waiting to blow...but with the carrier involved I am betting it was just a lack of proper pre-trips.

I hope that the pickup driver is OK.

 

I dunno if the driver can be too blamed. Don't get me wrong the lugs need to be checked along with everything else. But back when I was working for Swift every time I seen a tire being replace the parts changers would impact them on until it stopped. Not a torque wrench in sight. It took my second job to even realize there was such a thing as a 3/4" torque wrench (Although if I thought about it it's obvious they would) existed.

 

Impact should not be used to tighten lugs.
You snug them, then use torque wrench to final torque. If nuts don’t turn before torque wrench yields or clicks the fastener is too tight. Over torquing causes stress cracks in the studs also destroys the elasticity of the studs. That diminishes the clamping force. So turning some monkey loose with a impact is a dangerous thing.

 

Ugh. Just imagine pulling a camper, just minding your own business doing 58 in a 75, and a semi truck tire smashes you.

Not sure if it's bad luck or karma...

 

Wife and I had a set of duals hit our car while on vacation. Destroyed my VW diesel. We only had minor injuries. Dumb ### driver didn’t do a Pre trip and oil had been slinging out of hub and oil streaks all over inside of tires. Burned the bearings up. Just plain ### laziness. Got a nice little settlement 6 figures for his laziness.
Pisses me off I lost my car.

 

Could it be possible it started leaking an burnt the bearing while he was driving. Did a proper pre check?

 

Possible but he had only been on the road for about 40 miles. Look of the equipment
The other 3 hubs were slinging oil and barely any oil in them.
I get things can happen. But I grew up around trucks and own trucks and have worked in dealerships as a mechanic and in the military. Wheel offs are 100% preventable. Lack of maintenance and attentiveness by driver. When you do brakes you pull hubs down and replace the seals and inspect bearings. Reassemble everything and replace the oil or semi fluid grease. Problem is most people are too ####ing cheap to maintain the equipment and cut corners snd never inspect things and run everything on the edge of safe/unsafe. Just Like I mentioned before with impacts being used and a over zealous grease monkey over tightening studs with impact.

 

Agree with your statements. However, 100%? Equipment does fail, it's man made. #### happens.

 

True enough, that is why for years I have used one of these and my other 2 trucks have them. Every time we stop hubs are shot with it. Not this exact model but you get the idea. Indicates overheated hubs and or possible out of adjustment brake. One hotter than the rest or cooler. Before that regular old temp guns.

 

I had to get mine out of side box for model # It was $400.00