To not want to go back to the garage?

[Roififfufu]

I’m feeling really shaken today. Yesterday I came home from a holiday four hours away. I drove on the motorway for the first 100 miles, and then thankfully turned off ten miles early to have lunch in the countryside. I then made the decision to come home via country roads instead of rejoining the motorway.

Five minutes after leaving lunch, going 60mph on an A road, the car suddenly swerved into oncoming traffic and I couldn’t get it under control. There was a lorry coming towards me but thankfully, somehow, whether through his actions or mine, we didn’t collide and I finally slowed the car and parked and rang breakdown. I looked at the wheels and one was completely bent out of shape.

When they arrived they took the covers off the wheels and it revealed that two of the four bolts were entirely out, one was very loose and just holding the wheel on, and the fourth had snapped under the pressure of being the only one properly connected, and when it snapped it caused the swerving. I can’t stop thinking about if the car had swerved ten seconds later into the lorry, or if I hadn’t decided to turn off the motorway early.

The tyre of that wheel was changed by the garage as part of the car’s MOT two weeks ago.

Anyway, people are telling me to take it back and that the garage should be providing a new wheel (the metal had contorted under the strain and I drove home with the spare wheel on). I know the garage has taken on a 19ish man who they seem to be training up, and he was the one who told me which tyre had been changed so I assume he did the work. But 1. I think the garage will be arsey and try and deny responsibility and 2. I really don’t trust this garage any more.

The breakdown mechanic said I should tell them so they can get more training. Should I bother taking it back to them? I still feel really shaken by it all.

It was 200 miles each way. I’m not sure why it matters.

So how do you check your wheel nuts please people

You need to tell the garage. If you don't want the confrontation, tell them in a I'm.just letting you know kind of eat and the lad might need supervising.

Did you not hear the wheels were loose though? Mine made a noise, like there was something wrapped around the wheel and it was chugging

Ignore the posters trying to make it your fault. Some people are having a shit good Friday I think.

I don't think this is true any more, in the old days they weren't sure how tight the nuts were so you were (sometimes) advised to check or re-tighten them, these days they should use a torque wrench to ensure the right tightness, so they won't come undone, but they are not over tightened. The person who put the wheel on probably put the nuts on with the car up on the jack and then got distracted and never tightened them properly once it was on the ground.

Ive never heard of this or done this and i have had tyres changed twice a year for the last 20 years.

Who do you work for? <nosey>

Definitely let the garage know even if you don’t want to go back. You could have been killed. They need to know so they can give him more training. The next person might not be so lucky.

Yes, if one had come loose perhaps it worked loose, but all of them? They surely haven’t been tightened properly.

When one comes loose, the others can come loose.

Didn’t you notice a difference in the handling? It would have been pulling on that corner and probably quite noisy.

You should have a wrench in the boot of your car. Put it on the wheel nut and turn to the right/stand on it to turn it right. If it doesn’t shift it’s tight.

Because the longer/further you drove it, the less likely it was the garage’s fault.

You would have felt a vibration/knocking way before it got to the point where two of the nuts came off. The wheel would have been progressively wobbling as the nuts worked their way to the end of the the thread and fell off, and you would have felt that.

They should have been tightened properly at the garage. They probably were, but maybe they weren't. You will never know. Trying to pin blame because they have an apprentice who is 19 is a complete red herring, changing wheels and how to torque correctly will literally be the first thing he will have learned.

The garage will no way take responsibility. The paperwork will have a notice in there about re-torquing after a certain distance, and even then, they'll just ask why you didn't stop and check when the feeling would have started.

Chalk it up to one of those things, lesson learned, be happy nothing worse happened. You aren't going to get anywhere with the garage.

Absolutely nothing at all until it suddenly swerved right and I couldn’t get it under control. It was so sudden. I assume that’s when one bolt snapped.

Probably linked to wheel change but that’s not to say there weren’t correct when leaving

changing a wheel is bread and butter stuff it seems he’s already been deemed guilty as he’s 19 and an apprentice which is a bit unfair

just speak to garage

At its MOT it had 51,131 and now it has 51,818. I guess 100 of those miles were from where I broke down to home, so I’d done just under 600 miles altogether.

If I’d felt vibrations and knocking I wouldn’t have been driving it.

Just been and checked the paperwork. There is the MOT certificate and a receipt. Nothing else. No notice. Nothing in last year’s either.

That sounds utterly terrifying @Roififfufu, thank goodness you were able to stop safely. I do think it's important to let the garage know what happened, but you could do this non-confrontationally via email if you preferred. Rather than saying "Your apprentice did a crappy job and I nearly died", just something like "I just thought it was important to let you know that X happened when I was driving and the RAC guy said the wheel nuts hadn't been tightened properly." So you're not blaming them directly (if you're uncomfortable with this), but you are making them aware that their procedures may need looking at.

You are supposed to check the wheel bolts a short time after the wheel being removed and put back on again. But they shouldn’t have come out, so it is pretty obvious they didn’t do them up, they probably put them finger tight and then forgot to torque them up. But most likely they won’t admit it, and say it was because you hadn’t checked them. The garage didn’t rhyme with ‘cee buyers’ did it?!

No, it’s a local independent garage that I’ve used for years with no problems.

I think I’ll ring and just explain what’s happened. The owner will surely work out himself that the bolts weren’t properly tightened.

All I know is that most wheel nuts these days are changed with machines not hand tools as you can never get them off if you do have to change a wheel. So I'm not sure for a lot of cars you could even check yourself. Also I don't remember this being mentioned in the Highway Code when I read it cover to cover either 30 years ago or more recently when DD1 was learning to drive.

Also I would never think to check when it had just come back from the garage and had everything checked in an MOT. What on earth do we pay them for? I would certainly contact them and if they react poorly I'd be getting in touch with trading standards and the DVSA.

I had to get a tyre changed recently and it was printed at bottom of receipt.

Well they can print any old shit they like on a receipt, it doesn't absolve them of negligence or override consumer protection law or contract law.

This happened to us a very long time ago (25 years?) on the motorway. No one at the time said we should have checked. The garage that had serviced it repaired it for free without any quibbling.

hadn’t thought about it in a long time. There were my two toddlers in car at time. I’ve driven many thousands of motorway miles since, hopefully you’ll feel able to do same.

Do you think an MOT is a guarantee of nothing going wrong with your car? A bulb can blow as you drive away from the test centre. Don’t you ever check anything between MOTs?