Happy to be alive after LH rear wheel separates from my Patrol!

Agree wholeheartedly.

Too many reports of this now to be unrelated.

Hi Laura,

I've seen a few theories on the forum now, too tight, too loose, alloy wheel with steel studs and nuts, rattle guns used by service centres etc.

At the end of the day, I'm just glad that my family and I were not injured and killed.

Here's an interesting note, as we were coming out of Dubbo in the tow truck, we saw another Patrol with distressed occupants as they had just lost their LH front wheel! It certainly made the tow truck driver and I question whether there was a fault in the Nissan wheel design!

I have a friend who has a Disco with alloy wheels (also has a set of steels for the bush) - but interestingly after finding that the wheel nuts have a habit of coming a bit loose on the alloys he has attained the habit of check tightening his nuts (:-)) regularly..

I have never heard of a Disco having wheel nuts come loose, knowing how big Disco wheel nuts are (and Defenders too) can't see it happening unless they weren't tightened properly in the first place.

Although strander things have happened.

Baz.

Hi,

I have been told by the towie that I may not have tightened them up enough, I was told by the NRMA depot that I may have over-tightened them, I was told by the mechanic at the smash repairers that I may not have tightened them enough and the other repairer there said he thought it was probably too tight for the alloy wheel. Take your pick!

I didn't have a torque wrench (don't own one) at the time I changed the wheel so I won't ever know which is the case. I will go out and get a torque wrench now! :-)

Oh crikey! hehe.. you poor bugger. All the "experts" under the sun, and they all tell you something different. LOL!

Yep - do yourself and family a favour - go and grab one. They aren't cheap if you go for a well-calibrated quality unit, but any is better than none. If you broke studs - then I'd say the nuts were way over-tight, not under.

Good luck!

Sorry lads....but if tightening an alloy wheel was so critical EVERY vehicle manufacturer would be having a torque wrench in the kit.

Cheers.

Uhmm.... right.... ... ....

"How come it's Nissans again?" Oh come on. How many Nissan IFS front ends do you hear about collapsing? How many Nissan CV's do you ever jear about breaking? How many Nissan LSD's do you ever hear about wearing out in 20,000km?

Your band wagon is pulling up..... don't miss it! It's the one that's full of people who hear a couple of reports and judge a brand by them.

Yeah but this is the bloody wheel coming OFF not a CV or whatever else that aint going to make you loose control and wrap around a tree. Far go. I think there is certainly cause for alarm when it comes to being overtaken by your own wheel.

Where I work we used to run nissans and i have had a wheel fall off and it has happened to 2 other people in our crew.(same car) They now run 78s and i have had 2 wheels fall off so far, and other guys have lost about4 so i dont know that the problem is confined to just nissans. A wheel stud stretches and shrinks with heat and also flexes with corrugations ect and nuts will come loose of there own accord. I think regular checking is the key as they are definately not a fit and forget item

LMAO - there's three bandwagons I see in these and similar forums;
1. Nissan owners experiencing broken engines, gearboxes, wheels, chassis, vibrations etc.
2. Toyota (predominately) owners jumping in to bag Nissans.
3. Other Nissan owners jumping in to defend their marque with what can only be described as simlar to the actions of the 3 Monkeys.

Thing is that there is barely a day that someone doesnt post something bad about Nissan's...and 9 times outa 10 it is posted by a Nissan owner! Go figure. Dont hear anywhere near as many reports of broken IFS arms, CV's and rear diffs - yes of course they do happen.

We are looking at updating our 80 and were seriously looking at a GU but after driving my old man's many a time and constantly reading bad reports there is no way I would ever touch one! They are cheap for a reason.

Oh yes you do......just that Nissan owners are happy to talk about problems like this to try and resolve them...

...and now I'll wait for incoming missiles....

Don't know the figures for Nissan but L'rover alloys are tightened to a higher torque than the standards steel rims (heavy duty are higher again)

Alloy wheels - 130 Nm (96 lbf/ft)
Steel wheels - 100 Nm (80 lbf/ft)
Heavy duty wheels - 170 Nm (125 lbf/ft)

That's true Inspector - but Landy's are different to the norm. The studs are far thicker than on mosty other vehicles I've come across, and there's only 5 of them. I know that if mine are stuck (after a long period) on my Defender, it takes nearly 250nm to loosen them off.

The secret here is to use copper grease to stop them from binding.

Hi dave,
Just out of interest, the post '96 Prados were recently recalled for rear wheels falling off. Due to some manufacturing fault with the axle shafts. Very few vehicles were affected, but a costly recall because of the safety issue.

Not many Phil?

A mere 20,688 Prados sounds like a few too many to me.

My father in law has just had his done.

Problem is apparently a crack forming in the rear axle flange.

Site Link

Dave

Hi Dave
Sorry I was a bit vague - it was after midnight and we'd been out to dinner with a nice Coonawarra red :-)))
But only a few instances where someone's wheel fell off is what I meant. But its a safety issue, hence the big recall.

Cheers
phil

That's okay Phil,

If you've been out for dinner with a nice bottle of red isn't there somewhere else you should be instead of on ExplorOz?

:o)

Dave

Yep, you're right Dave. But she was sleeping peacefully after a NZ Sauvignon Blanc.............

Cheers
phil

"sorry to hijack the topic, it just seemed an appropriate place to warn people that it could happen to YOU! "

Yeah so could being hit by a bus as you cross the road. Drive to your own skill level (whatever that is) and respect the skill level of other road users (whatever that is).

Regards, Trevor.

I think that if you use common sense & drive to conditions, there is no drama driving at the speed limit with a trailer or not, as you pointed out, its just one of those things.
"But my concern is the folks that abound (here and on the road) that seem to think that driving with a loaded trailer at 100-110 kmh..."because they've been doing it for years!"...and they think they are totally safe! "
anyone would be a fool to think you are totally safe weather you are at 20k's or 120k's, doesn't matter, but if people are going to start thinking like that, they might as well live in a bubble.
I sit on the speed limit as much as I can when I feel its safe to do so, not because I have a "get ahead at all costs" attitude, its because I have a "don't hold up traffic so they don't get frustrated & try to pass me at a stupid moment putting themselves, oncoming traffic & my family in danger" attitude.
don't get me wrong ArthurKing, I'm not having a go at you.
as stated in an earlier post, I've had wheels nearly come off on me in my car, but that was my own stupid fault for not checking it myself after they fitted them & again, I've had a wheel come off atrailer at 100kph, same thing, my own stupid fault for not checking (a mate of mine with no mechanical knowledge helped me change the wheels over & I didn't check his side when we finished,, just read that back & it sounds like a cop out eh?) that same trailer has done 1000's of miles behind many cars at 100-110 and its only happened once though my own doing.
The only thing I think Patrol driver could have done different maybe was to check with a torque wrench when he got home but as I've said, I've stuffed up twice so I don't have the right to judge anyone.
Just my 2c worth.

arthurking83,
What the hell has that babble you put up got anything to do with the original post ?
Seeing as I'm here now I may as well reply to it....what Trevor said.

Pezza

Two questions...

Why isn't there a torque wrench in every spare tyre kit? If it was critical every vehicle manufacturer would have them.

Why does every tyre supplier use rattle guns to tighten wheel nuts?

If you answer truthfully....

It sounds like a Nissan manufacturing problem to me.

Cheers.

Feral, the tyre guys I go to use a torque wrench.

Alloys or steel wheels it don't matter.

Hell, I'll give 'em a plug..... Ardross tyres, Canning hwy, Applecross. WA

As for a torque wrench in the kit, yeah right....

But it does say in your owners manual to re-check the wheel nuts after 100 klm.

Feral, I know lots of tyre guys use rattle guns to put on wheels, and they can be roughly adjusted to a torque setting. I use one myself for this, but finish off with a torque wrench.

Now on the smooth roads in the burbs, it probably doesn't matter too much, which is why a lot of tyre fitters take the rattle gun shortcut, but when you get up onto the corrugations on the bypass road on Cape York, you find people breaking wheel studs. Why? If the stud is under a lot more initial tension than specified, the stud will fatigue with fewer stress cycles. On corrugations, you get lots of big stress cycles. So you can reduce your chance of a problem by accurately setting the torque.