This Lugnut Shooting Through A Windshield Is A Reminder: Torque Your Damn Lugs

It goes without saying that some car parts are more acceptable to shed while underway than others. A bumper sticker fluttering away due to loss of adhesion? Minimal issue. A mud flap falling off? Unfortunate, but not likely to cause too much carnage. However, you absolutely don’t want a wheel to come off your vehicle or any vehicle around you, because the consequences can be seriously scary. Just look at how this lug nut embedded itself in a windshield after a loose wheel caused mayhem in Canada.

On Thursday, Ontario Provincial Police responded to a report of a loose wheel collision near Aurora, Ontario. They arrived on scene and snapped some photos that seemed straight out of a Final Destination movie. But before we get to that, let’s take a good look at the carnage the loose wheel caused to the vehicle it flew off of.

Yep, that fender ripped clean off of its lower mounting, and judging by the rust evident both on the lower inside face of the fender and the mounting surface, a new one might not be the easiest thing to reattach. In addition, once the front wheel left the vehicle, the front left corner planted itself into the tarmac, causing some abrasion to the bumper cover and actually pulling said bumper cover loose from its clips, if not breaking them. From this photo alone, there’s no way of telling which underbody components received damage, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the total bodywork and mechanical repair bills total this Chevrolet Cruze. However, it’s not even the car involved with the most visible damage.

See, once a wheel comes loose, it has to go somewhere, and that’s usually into traffic, where it gets smacked by a vehicle whose driver just can’t get out of the way in time. In this case, it appears that a second-generation Ford Escape hit the tire hard, shattering its grille, fracturing its bumper trim, caving in its headlight, messing up its bumper, bending its radiator, and giving its hood the topography of the moon. Needless to say, this is brutal for the owner of the Escape because it means this older American crossover could also be deemed a total loss.

However, the Cruze and the Escape weren’t the only two vehicles involved in this loose-wheel incident. Ever wondered where the lug nuts go when a wheel flies loose? The owner of a third vehicle found out the hard way, as evidenced by this photo. That’s not a projectile fired from a conventional weapon, that’s a lug nut. Terrifying stuff.

While the fallout of this incident will likely play out behind closed doors, liability may not exclusively fall on the owner of the Cruze. According to the Ontario Provincial Police, “In this case, the driver had been to his garage recently and had only driven for a short distance before the tire came off.” Given that reporting, there’s a high chance the shop may come under government scrutiny, provided the driver hadn’t exceeded the recommended re-torque mileage.

 

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Even if someone else works on your car, it’s a good idea to buy a half-inch, click-type torque wrench. You can pick one up for under $30, throw on the appropriate socket for your car’s lug nuts, keep it in the trunk of your car, and know you have the right torque on each lug fastener by following the manufacturer’s torque guidelines and rotating clockwise until you hear and feel a click. Not only will this let you check lug torque at home, it adds another level of safety to installing a spare tire to get you home.

(Photo credits: Ontario Provincial Police)

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