Wheel Studs Broke - Truck Rolled

I understand what would make you say this, but think long and hard.

You still have your life, not a total loss.
You still have the carcass of a truck with a good drivetrain, drivetrain alone will fetch decent coin, part-out will fetch even more.

Will you be at some loss? Absolutely. Chalk it up to a pricey lesson, one which could've easily ended your life but didn't.

You asked if others had seen this? While not exactly the same, when someone's discarded key blank punctured my tire a few months back, while taking off the old wheel I quickly found - like many others in this thread - some knuckle-dragger at the tire and/or brake shop went nuts with the impact on my previous owner and 1/3 of my studs sheared on removal.

It was pretty clear to me while in there repairing things, at least one or two of the studs had already been replaced on that same wheel. I really should get in there to check the others, I bought a handful of replacements at the LAPS for the front and rear while I was there, expecting to find this when I eventually change tires later.

Your situation sucks all-around. If you can, try to think bigger picture, though. You're here to tell about it, the advice you're sharing could save the lives of multiple members and/or readers, and through that truck you managed to find a solid group of other folks who share interests.

I'm glad you made it out alright.

 

I have a 2015 Tundra. Yesterday, I broke the passenger wheel front stud off while pulling a small fertilizer buggy. About 4 months ago, 3 studs broke off of my driver’s side front. Thankfully the truck was shaking so rough that I pulled over before anything worse happened. This happened a few weeks after having pulled a small buggy from the local farm store. Neither load was excessive. One person told me it was most likely caused from using an impact gun. Now that I’ve read these responses after yesterday’s incident, I plan to change all of the wheel studs. Thx for the forum!

 

I'm surprised the comprehensive coverage wouldn't cover this?
Whenever someone else mounts my wheels, as soon as I can, I loosen each nut and re-torque to the proper value. I've never had any that seemed grossly over tightened but like they say, "trust but verify".
Glad you're okay. I rolled over as a passenger when I was in high school in a Honda civic, with no seat belts on and managed to come out okay too with just a few lacerations and bumps. Cheers.

 

You'd need a closeup photo of the studs that are broken off in order to determine if it was overtorquing that caused the failure. If it was overtorqued, there will be a distinct clamshell like damage pattern on the face of the broken stud. If there's no clamshell, something else caused the damage like undertorquing that would result in the wheel coming loose and shearing off the studs with cyclic stresses.

 

I doubt this one post wonder will be back to share pics of an event that occured over a year ago


Also, I guess welcome since I see this is your first post too

 

I am sorry for your loss and I am glad that you walked away. Toyota spent a lot of time and money developing the head impact protection and airbags behind the headliner in that truck. It looks to have done its job!

I have seen this happen with under-torqued nuts (most common). I have also seen failures like this on old studs that I don't know the history of. Likely over-torqued a pile of times.

If I buy a car and I don't have a good history of who did the rotations/changes, I will replace the studs. It is cheap and not all that hard. The results of not doing this can be ugly as we can see here.

Good steps to take when installing a wheel/tire assembly:
1. Always clean your studs. I have a toothbrush that I will use but a little brass brush would be better. A little dirt can make your lug nut hit torque before it is clamping the wheel appropriately.
2. Always clean the back side of your wheels. Again, a little dirt or debris between the wheel and the hub can cause as loose condition.
3. Never over torque the lug nut. If they have been over torqued even for 1 second the damage has been done. Studs are quite forgiving and as such we don't give them the care that they really need. The problem is that they give almost no warning before failing.
4. Always make sure that you have at least ¾" of thread engagement between your stud and your lug nut. Too few threads can stretch easier and again this can create a loose condition.
5. Always seat the lug nuts before torquing. Doing this by hand is the best but..... I will use my impact to run them down at a very slow speed and ideally it does not ug-a-duga at all. I will wiggle the wheel before moving on. Any movement and I remove the lugs to determine why they are hanging up.
5. Always torque your lug nuts in a criss-cross pattern. More torque is almost never better
6. Make sure that your torque wrench is verified from time to time. Many don't bother with this and it is rarely a problem but they do drift.

The other thing to do is to find a good tire shop. Yes, they are more expensive. But, this is one of the most critical interfaces on your truck. Is it worth a few hundred dollars? It could be your life.....

 

Posting on a 3 year old thread

 

I did not look. However, it is a good discussion to keep in front of us.

 

Also a good reminder to check the OP's 1st post date.

You're both right. But to @The Black Mamba's point:

• It's the thread resurrecter's 1st post
• Original thread is in the 1st gen/2000-2006 Tundra subforum
• Thread resurrecter is driving a 2012 Tundra
• We see a lot of one-post drive-by spam that's similar

Seriously doubt it's a bot, the username is unique, and I found an account with the same username on a Nissan forum from 20yrs ago, and a home improvement forum, and usually the bot-created accounts don't tag themselves as ex-mil.

All that to say: I apprecaited @svichitnand's update, mostly because I learned something new today. I'm also curious if the clamshell being concave vs. convex would serve as an additional indicator of cause.