Walmart Forgot to Tighten Lug Nuts and tire falls off Going 35mph

[ohlancaster]

Yeah, Unbelievable, but this happened Friday Morning. Tires were installed Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, I was slowing for a red light when driver rear tire rolls 30 yards into the car opposite me at the red light.

I scraped a nice 20 yard arch to dead stop. Had a Flatbed tow the car back to the guys that sold me the tires.
Shocking how they addressed this. Since they were unable to fix, Manager encouraged me to drive it home with three studs before the tow driver intervened.

I'll add some pics to this in a minute, but there's a little body damage and my brakes suddenly got spongy.
No evidence of any leaks. Rear Shock is toast, but I'm able to drive. Found another mechanic to replace all the studs. Discovered non of the tires lugs had been tightened. Could have been any one of the tires that fell off.

I'm going file a claim under my own insurance to try to get the body and mechanical issues covered. They then will go after Sam's.

This seems like the best bet to recover fully. But, would this be collision or comprehensive? There's not a lot out there coving this kind of nonsense. Anyone have some insight on this situation?

 

[99toylc]

File a well documented claim with Sam's insurance and allow your own insurance company to work this situation out.

 

[TimCFJ40]

Make sure to check the lug holes in the wheels out well on all four tires. They get wallowed out pretty easily. You can see aluminum in the threads of the lugs on the wheel that fell off, I'm pretty sure that one is toast.

 

[Weedhopper]

Whether that’s a collision I don’t know. Comprehensive is ‘damage to your auto other than collision’ your agent can tell you in a second.

So you will have to go after them for the deductible as well as the damage.

I had a tire shop do the same thing but only one wheel. The wheel spun on ice then came off. The effect was the same as spinning a Hula Hoop backwards on the ground. I lost three lugs with that one.

Good luck!

 

[Battleship]

I've had really good experiences with Fix Auto at 4700 W Fullerton, they work on a ton of Lexus vehicles and they go to great lengths to get the truck back to 100%. The shop owner has a grey '15 LX.

Glad you and everyone around are OK.

 

[kcjaz]

Holy cow. That could have been a lot worse. I know you don't really feel lucky right now but you were. I carry a torque wrench in my LC. I always loosen and retighten all the lugs when I get home. I do this because of the total 6 flat tires I have had on the road in my lifetime requiring me to swap to the spare, I couldn't remove two of them and had to be towed because they were so over torqued I couldn't get the lug off. Now I might do this in the parking lot at the tire shop before I drive anywhere...

 

[bloc]

Are the brakes still spongy? The initial feeling could be because the brake rotor wasn't clamped to the hub face, which will push the rear caliper piston back more than usual.. when you hit the brakes it has to move a lot further than normal to actually clamp that disk. If the spongy feeling didn't go away after a few pedal presses once a wheel was mounted, could be something else.

Also your last picture of the sway bar bracket is normal, that curved metal is supposed to be like that and the gap in the rubber. The rest? yikes.

I concur with having the other wheels checked.. the way our lugs are constructed they should do a good job of keeping things centered, but still it's a small amount of effort with huge potential reward.

This is why I put Sam's/wal-mart in the Safelite category of businesses that will never touch my vehicle.

 

[greynolds]

I’m not sure I would use my car insurance for this, but rather contact the store manager at the Walmart that screwed things up and work your way up the chain if you need to. I would think Walmart would want to do what it takes to get your vehicle fixed and also give you some sort of additional compensation for your troubles. If this had happened at high speed, it could have ended very poorly for you and anyone else who was collateral damage, so I’m glad to hear that nobody got hurt.

 

[sadovnik]

I agree with greynolds, I wouldn't use my own insurance for this. I would pay for it myself and get Walmart to reimburse you. If they don't, there will be a line of personal injury lawyers willing to take the case. Make sure you document all your expenses well. Sorry this happened to you and good luck sorting it out.

 

[RET2]

I agree with greynolds, I wouldn't use my own insurance for this. I would pay for it myself and get Walmart to reimburse you. If they don't, there will be a line of personal injury lawyers willing to take the case. Make sure you document all your expenses well. Sorry this happened to you and good luck sorting it out.

I politely disagree and think you should involve your insurance, that's what it is for. Trying to play Perry Mason with corporate will get you nowhere. Let's face it they get paid to say NO.

 

[sadovnik]

I politely disagree and think you should involve your insurance, that's what it is for. Trying to play Perry Mason with corporate will get you nowhere. Let's face it they get paid to say NO.

That's precisely why you need a lawyer, because they get paid to say no to YOU. The moment they get a letter from a lawyer, they magically shift from "NO," to "whatever you want as long as you don't sue us" for a ton of money. Been there, done that. Didn't end well for the other party. Ultimately, it's the OP's call. I would call my lawyer and run it by him before doing anything. That's my .02 worth.

 

[bhsdriller]

Probably was but how do you prove it was the tire shop's fault

 

[lx200inAR]

Man, I did my wheels/tires a few months back and decided to do it all in my driveway after having new tires mounted to new wheels. I was hating myself after all the lugging of 5 old wheels/tires and 5 new wheels/tires between my shed in the back yard and changing them on the truck. Thinking to myself, why didn't I just let the schmucks at the tire place do all this work for me. Now I don't feel as bad.

Glad everything is okay, I know I'll definitely be double checking my lugs anytime someone might have a reason to take a wheel off.

 

[greynolds]

I politely disagree and think you should involve your insurance, that's what it is for. Trying to play Perry Mason with corporate will get you nowhere. Let's face it they get paid to say NO.

I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life on it, but I would definitely give the store manager, at the very least, a chance to make it right. Wouldn’t getting your insurance involved result in a ding on CarFax? If so, that’s something to keep in mind for future resale value. If Walmart covers the repair costs, you could potentially avoid a CarFax report.

 

[linuxgod]

My $0.02 - If you have full coverage call your insurance company. Just like in a multi-driver accident, they will handle it for you. The manager at Walmart isn't going to reimburse you for an expense like this, it will have to go to corporate and you're going to spend weeks upon weeks trying to get it resolved through their insurance company

Not saying you can't work your way up the chain, but I once had something similar happen on a 1966 mustang I owned. Mr. Tire didn't properly torque the lugs. Their tech admitted to me afterwards that they were unable to properly torque the aftermarket wheels. Even still the shop refused to pay a dime. Corporate was no help. I only had liability insurance. Being a poor college student lawyering up wasn't really an option for what ultimately resulted in one the front fender being damaged and requiring some new wheel studs - far less cost to repair in ~1997 than to find a lawyer interested in even writing a letter.

YMMV of course

 

[Weedhopper]

I would also get it in to a good body shop and a reputable dealer to look for underlying problems.

 

[ATwoZ]

My $0.02 - If you have full coverage call your insurance company. Just like in a multi-driver accident, they will handle it for you. The manager at Walmart isn't going to reimburse you for an expense like this, it will have to go to corporate and you're going to spend weeks upon weeks trying to get it resolved through their insurance company

Not saying you can't work your way up the chain, but I once had something similar happen on a 1966 mustang I owned. Mr. Tire didn't properly torque the lugs. Their tech admitted to me afterwards that they were unable to properly torque the aftermarket wheels. Even still the shop refused to pay a dime. Corporate was no help. I only had liability insurance. Being a poor college student lawyering up wasn't really an option for what ultimately resulted in one the front fender being damaged and requiring some new wheel studs - far less cost to repair in ~1997 than to find a lawyer interested in even writing a letter.

YMMV of course

I'd agree with this.

While lawyering up sounds great, aside from this being what you pay your premiums for, the whole lawyer approach isn't going to be effective with Wally world. I'd you're lucky a Gener Manager might be able to resolve the situation etc if you worked directly with them, but as soon as you involve a lawyer I can almost guarantee they'll have a policy that would prevent them from doing anything else and they'd have to defer to their legal team as well, and at that point you're weeks if not months away from a resolution.

Personally I'd file the claim with insurance and then also work up the chain at the store to get to a GM or regional VP etc, they can likely help get deductibles and other added compensation taken care of. If you want to go nuclear with a lawyer have at it, just know it'll likely be a much longer process.

 

[greynolds]

I'd agree with this.

Lawyering up sounds great, aside from this being what you pay your premiums for, the whole lawyer approach isn't going to be effective with Wally world. I'd you're lucky a Gener Manager might be able to resolve the situation etc if you worked directly with them, but as soon as you involve a lawyer I can almost guarantee they'll have a policy that would prevent them from doing anything else and they'd have to defer to their legal team as well, and at that point you're weeks if not months away from a resolution.

Personally I'd file the claim with insurance and then also work up the chain at the store to get to a GM or regional VP etc, they can likely help get deductibles and other added compensation taken care of. If you want to go nuclear with a lawyer have at it, just know it'll likely be a much longer process.

Agreed that getting a lawyer involved would most likely turn the whole thing into a circus. Giving the store / regional manager a chance to rectify the situation and/or help cover deductibles and such makes a lot of sense to me. My only real concern with getting the car insurance company involved is the hit on future resale value as I'm assuming this is something that would show up in the car's history - there's a good chance there's enough damage that it would.

 

[ATwoZ]

Agreed that getting a lawyer involved would most likely turn the whole thing into a circus. Giving the store / regional manager a chance to rectify the situation and/or help cover deductibles and such makes a lot of sense to me. My only real concern with getting the car insurance company involved is the hit on future resale value as I'm assuming this is something that would show up in the car's history - there's a good chance there's enough damage that it would.

Good call on accident record.

 

[e25price]

Had the same thing almost happen about a week ago. Brake felt spongy, I thought damn, did they not bleed the brakes? Had steering wheel wobble going 55 mph to work, pulled over and front right wheel was almost off. I got reimbursed for the labor from the shop after talking to the owner. Glad you are ok.