generally they work better when the wheel stays on.

[CmdrPopNFresh]

so this happened to me this past fall in my moms 94 sport. i borrowed it for a week or so while my truck was in the body shop.....another story altogether. so anyway. im headed up this windy road to go to a local hobby shop and i start hearing this popping noise......i figure...well my moms explorer is a pile of crap so who cares. then about 100 feet later CLUNK!!!! the passenger side front drops about a foot and i am laughing hysterically while driving my shiney new ford tripod. i knew exactly what it was right when it happened and i look out the passenger window right as the tire bounces up into view and then proceeds to fly ahead of me and bounce a good 20 feet high and over a fence.......i finally come to a screeching sparky hault and manage to get off the road and this lady pulls up next to me and yells "o my god are you ok that was insane?!" and i turn to look at her and im laughing so hard i cant breathe. she just looks at me with this terrified look....rolls up the window and drives away! man i wish i had that part on tape...it was great. im not sure why i was laughing so much....i was going about 40.....i just thought it was funny i guess....and i mean i didnt get hurt or anything. so anyway......there i am in the middle of no where with my right front wheel on some ranchers property and a fat gash in the middle of the highway. so i ended up spending my hobbyshop money on a tow truck that i had to wait 2 hours for. then i had to replace the rotor. all in all....it makes a good story....no body got hurt and i managed to scare the hell out of some lady in a new Expedition. o and one week after i got it fixed and told my mom what happened....she blew the tranny. that m5od is a piece of work.

heres a picture of my truck. that was just plain stupidity on my part. passenger door meet telephone pole.....telephone pole.....passenger door.

 

[CmdrPopNFresh]

here you can see the rotor and its weight reduction....i mean damage

 

[Forder]

lmao, nice.. was it still pretty east to control when it came off? Also, had she had the wheel off the truck recently or what...?

 

[Spdrcer34]

Been there, done that....

Ryan

 

[Spdrcer34]

Then almost exaclty a year later after that happened, I lost a wheel bearing along the EXACT same freeway over an hour from home. I STILL drove it home, and the next day I pulled it apart....this is what I found:

Had I known it was THAT bad, I would have paid for the tow...that was a slow, scary drive home at 3am!

Ryan

 

[CmdrPopNFresh]

hahahaha! hey that bearing is still good! and i guess she had a flat a week or so earlier and the wheel had to come off to get fixed......so i blame whoever fixxed her tire. it was probly sears. hahaha!

 

[Spdrcer34]

I used to work at Sears. If you show them pictures of your wreck/damage, they WILL pay for your new brakes, and tow job.

Unfortunatly, I saw A LOT of people that had that happen to them. It is all too common when getting work done @ Sears. As a matter of fact they did that to an employees car a few years back. She dropped off her car when she arrived to work, they did a brake inspection, and rotated the tires. She picks it up after work, drives EXACTLY 1/4 mi to the freeway onramp. As soon as she turns right onto the freeway @ about 25 mph, the car lets go of all 4 wheels at the same time...

The guy that worked on the car was promptly fired.

Between the damage to the car, and replacement wheels, Sears paid that employee over $2500...

Ryan

 

[CmdrPopNFresh]

o man! that sucks! i just said sears cause i was listening to ron white...the comedian. it was a joke just for me i guess.

 

[Masterd]

Looks like the rotor dug right into the ground, giving you EXTRA TRACTION

 

[shadowless127]

o man! that sucks! i just said sears cause i was listening to ron white...the comedian. it was a joke just for me i guess.

"I guess he missed lugnut day"

"I'm gonna change the name from Sears Tower, to 'Ron White's Big Ole F**king Building'"

As soon as I saw the picture I just started laughing thinking about Ron White.

 

[smbracing]

I had a similar fun experience in a truck I used to own ('92 jeep cherokee sport) and it was after installing new brakes on the front. I was testing out the truck about 3 a.m. on some back roads, heard a knocking sound and then crash, sparkage, wheel outran the jeep by about 30 feet. Had to walk 8 miles home in the dark and wake up my dad to help me get the wheel back on it, drove it home though with the flat spotted rotor. I sold that truck after two more wheel loss incidents, guess it didn't like having wheels on it (but the last two were rear wheels not front).

Had the wheel bearing experience in my current '94 last winter, 5 miles from home, drove 30 miles to work and another 35 back home with it screamin', toasted rotor and bearing of course, and the front ABS sensor, and I decided to replace the spindle bearings while I was in there, about $200 in repair when it was all said and done with

 

[smbracing]

BTW ryan how are the drilled/slotted rotors? I'm thinking about going that route on my '96 Mazda B2300, I've heard the drilled rotors can crack?

 

[Spdrcer34]

[attempting to thread hijack]

I have Cobra Brakes on my Explorer. They are AWESOME! But be careful on using STOCK rotors that are drilled.

I have my old stock ones down in the garage that are CRACKED BADLY! The rotors on the X now are over 1 Inch thick. (1.125"), The cooling veins in the rotor are directional. The metal's are better...literally EVERYTHING about the Cobra Rotor is better than the Stock Explorer Rotor. But they still CAN crack.

I will NEVER put drilled rotors on a stock 2WD Explorer again.

Ryan

 

[smbracing]

thanks for the info, probably the stock rotors that have been drilled just aren't relieved properly then, at least I'm guessing that's why they crack, I've been looking at some aftermarket ones that are slotted/drilled....

sorry to hijack the thread, carry on

 

[Robrt32]

I had a 79 Thunderbird that it happened to atleast 3 times a year.. The right front wheel would break the studs out.. I changed everything about it and never figured out why it would do it... The motor went bad and i took it top the scrap yard..

 

[eXcali]

My wife had something similar happen to her, she got an Oil change at Walmart and they gave her a free tire rotation..... .....
She called me and I had to leave work and go meet her a mile from Walmart. The right front tire came off. After calming her crying she told me she just had the oil change done at Walmart, I looked at the paperwork cuz I do all the work on my cars and knew there was something done by someone else. Sure enuff, on the bottom of paper was a hand written note saying "advise customer of damage done on 4 lug nuts on F/P wheel" Of course they never told her they busted off 4 lugs, I went in and had several store managers peeing their pants with talk of a negligence lawsuit. They paid for $4,300 in damages to the car and offered me free oil changes for a year, which I declined as I didn't want to find out they busted off my oil plug one day.

A couple years later, I stopped by a walmart on the other side of town for a quick oil change as I didn't have time because we were going on a road trip. I was shopping in the store and was paged to the service department, they asked me if I had a 2nd key, when I said no they asked why I locked my car. which was odd because that would have meant I drove it onto their lift which is FORBIDDEN. So they locked my keys in the car...... So it was stuck on the lift....

So I think you must have an IQ of 3 to work Walmart's service department in some places, as they didn't break 1, or 2, or 3 but 4 lugs off a single wheel. I could see breaking 1 lug, maybe even 2 if you have a really bad day, BUT 4?? After the 2nd one I would have definately stopped.

 

[calmac06]

Haha, working on my brothers '79 bronco one day, his girlfriend wanted to put a tire on it, so she put the driver front wheel on it. Later that afternoon we were headed down the road and all of the sudden, drop, sparks, tire is bouncing down the road. We skidded to a stop, jacked the truck up, robbed some lug nuts off the other wheels and drove it home. Rotor looked like the one pictured above, didn't change it and has since put a few thousand miles on it.