Potentially very bad/dangerous situation, which happily turned out to be just a big inconvenience. Traveling from West Palm Beach to home in Versailles, KY this past spring, and was making my way across Florida on the Turnpike when I felt a funny rumble in the truck. Pulled off to find the rear left tire on my TV had ballooned up like big marshmallow. It was a newish tire, so thought “That’s odd,” but then started rolling around on the ground to dig out the spare. A couple minutes into the job, one of FDOT’s Road Rangers pulls up to see if I want any help. I wasn’t aware of this service, but apparently they drive Florida’s roads helping motorists with issues. “Great!” I thought … count me in!
Fast forward 20 minutes, and the very kind Ranger had replaced the wheel with my spare, securing the lug nuts with a cordless impact wrench. Tipped him $20 and was on my way, feeling good about humanity.
About a hour later, and kawham! TV takes a decided lurch with huge crashing sound, settling out of kilter, nose high. As I was white knuckling to the side of the road again, caught a glimpse of my wheel (now unattached to anything) shooting past me on the left and coming to rest in the median a couple hundred yards in front of me.
Turns out the entire rear left wheel had come detached from my TV, causing my entire rig to drop onto the brake hub while I screeched to an eventual stop, tearing up a couple hundred feet of pristine Florida asphalt in the process.
After much discussion with various experienced folks, the best we could come up with is that the Ranger’s impact wrench was not set to the correct torque and that all the lug nuts worked themselves loose while I was blissfully tooling along at 65 mph. I did not think to check or tighten the lug nuts myself, a scary lesson learned.
In the end, got the TV towed (actually, carried on a flatbed) to a shop, while the travel trailer, I, and Penelope (loving Bernese Mountain dog) caught a ride to the Holiday RV Village park in Leesburg, FL, where we spent a fairly enjoyable week waiting for the repair to TV.
In the end, all is back in running order, could have been a waaaay worse outcome, and definitely taught me a very valuable lesson learned.
All the best, and stay safe out there!
Fast forward 20 minutes, and the very kind Ranger had replaced the wheel with my spare, securing the lug nuts with a cordless impact wrench. Tipped him $20 and was on my way, feeling good about humanity.
About a hour later, and kawham! TV takes a decided lurch with huge crashing sound, settling out of kilter, nose high. As I was white knuckling to the side of the road again, caught a glimpse of my wheel (now unattached to anything) shooting past me on the left and coming to rest in the median a couple hundred yards in front of me.
Turns out the entire rear left wheel had come detached from my TV, causing my entire rig to drop onto the brake hub while I screeched to an eventual stop, tearing up a couple hundred feet of pristine Florida asphalt in the process.
After much discussion with various experienced folks, the best we could come up with is that the Ranger’s impact wrench was not set to the correct torque and that all the lug nuts worked themselves loose while I was blissfully tooling along at 65 mph. I did not think to check or tighten the lug nuts myself, a scary lesson learned.
In the end, got the TV towed (actually, carried on a flatbed) to a shop, while the travel trailer, I, and Penelope (loving Bernese Mountain dog) caught a ride to the Holiday RV Village park in Leesburg, FL, where we spent a fairly enjoyable week waiting for the repair to TV.
In the end, all is back in running order, could have been a waaaay worse outcome, and definitely taught me a very valuable lesson learned.
All the best, and stay safe out there!
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