broken wheel studs

selwonk

New Member
Sep 27, 2013
7
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callala bay nsw
hi all,i own a 2007 jayco expanda outback 16.49.1 OB,last sunday the family and i were heading down the coast for a few days away when all of a sudden the drivers side wheel on my van fell off and overtook us,we pulled over luckily with out creating too much damage and seen that all 6 studs had sheared off.now my van has done bugger all kms and i have only towed it about 100kms or so since it was fully serviced by a licensed mechanic.my first thought was that the wheel studs had been overtightened by a rattle gun or they were just a cheap crap chinese stud.my question is has anyone on here had this happen to them with a expanda?i am now trying to locate hi tensile wheel studs to suit my van as i do not want this to happen again to me.we were so lucky we didn't hurt ourselves or the runaway wheel didnt collect anyone .
 

Soaring

Well-Known Member
Jan 30, 2013
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Ouch! That is nasty. I'm glad the end result was relatively ok for you.
I've heard of wheel nuts coming loose, but not all six studs breaking.
In general, the usual cause of studs breaking on cars is the rattle gun warriors. You would have to assume the same thing with vans.
I would let both jayco, and the service mechanic know what happened.
 

chartrock

Forum Patriarch
Staff member
Sep 26, 2010
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That is bad and I agree with Soaring. Get on to the service guy and give him a serve as he was the last one to touch them and probably used a rattle gun. Good luck and keep us posted.

P.S. Welcome to the forum. :D
 

DRW

Well-Known Member
May 29, 2013
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Beautiful Burrum Heads QLD
@selwonk welcome, sorry to hear of your problems, it can make you sick in the guts I know.
Probably too late, I hade a rear wheel do the same years ago on a tri axel trailer on a semi. It appeared the so called mechanic did not tighten them!! Once the hub hit the ground the studs sheerd off, did you find any studs and did they have nuts attached? It would be good if you could find the exact cause rather than second guess every time you hook up.

cheers
Dave
 

CJ1177

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Jan 28, 2013
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A friend had the wheel come off his van soon after a service, it turned out that the nuts weren't done up any more than just nipped up.
He recovered his wheel & the holes were all elongated, he also discovered his other wheels were also loose & some missing nuts.

Great to hear that you got out of it safely
 

jed

Active Member
May 16, 2013
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hi all,i own a 2007 jayco expanda outback 16.49.1 OB,last sunday the family and i were heading down the coast for a few days away when all of a sudden the drivers side wheel on my van fell off and overtook us,we pulled over luckily with out creating too much damage and seen that all 6 studs had sheared off.now my van has done bugger all kms and i have only towed it about 100kms or so since it was fully serviced by a licensed mechanic.my first thought was that the wheel studs had been overtightened by a rattle gun or they were just a cheap crap chinese stud.my question is has anyone on here had this happen to them with a expanda?i am now trying to locate hi tensile wheel studs to suit my van as i do not want this to happen again to me.we were so lucky we didn't hurt ourselves or the runaway wheel didnt collect anyone .
Whow can't imagine how that would have been for you mate , its not something you expect to happen
 

Xpandafan

Seriously Likeable!
Aug 24, 2012
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My mech-mate always finishes of wheel nuts using a torque wrench (and although he sometimes gets laughed at for being old fashioned, he's never had a wheel come off.)
FYI Jayco's recommended settings are 115Nm for steel rims, 122Nm for alloys.
 
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selwonk

New Member
Sep 27, 2013
7
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callala bay nsw
yeah i recovered the wheel which rolled about 5 kms down the road and was completely undamaged,the stud holes in the wheel look perfect.but i didn't find any studs or nuts unfortunately.we were towing it with my 05 prado grande which has airbags in the rear and when the wheel let go the airbags seemed to compensate a lot of the shock stopping the van from doing silly things like digging in and jacknifing us.i had the van tilt trayed to the nearest town and a mechanic put six new studs in it the next day and it seems all good now but i can tell you it was a bloody slow trip home just with the worry of it happening again.
 

jed

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May 16, 2013
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Needless to say you had the other wheel checked ,I think i would of had them put new studs there as well and since your post selwonk i went out and bought myself a torque wrench and will be checking the wheels all the time lol damn how lucky were you
 
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selwonk

New Member
Sep 27, 2013
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callala bay nsw
yeah we were so lucky the runaway wheel didn't hit anyone and the van basically just dropped and we stopped pretty easy without too much damage and no one got hurt.could have been quite easily a lot worse considering we were on the princess highway and school holidays,the road was absolutely packed with traffic.the trip home which would normally take us 1 hour took 3 plus hours cause we were pulling over all the time checking wheel studs.i will post some pictures up later when i figure out how to do it.
 
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Xpandafan

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Needless to say you had the other wheel checked ,I think i would of had them put new studs there as well and since your post selwonk i went out and bought myself a torque wrench and will be checking the wheels all the time lol damn how lucky were you
Well done @jed. Only adds a few minutes to your inspection routine.
 
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BigSkiddy

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May 7, 2013
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That's scary stuff selwonk. I was speaking to a bloke with a 24ft Sterling who had the same thing happen. He put it down to the wheel not being tighten correctly when it was serviced. He was told that you should be checking your wheel nuts every 500km. (Seems a bit excessive).
He did a bit more damage to his van and as a result has been stuck at Dalmeny for 4 months.
 

selwonk

New Member
Sep 27, 2013
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callala bay nsw
yeah if had bought a 30 year old van for 5 grand i would have copped it sweet but i have a 5 year old van i paid 30 grand for and to have something like this happen is really not too flash.
 

Bmhdg76

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Oct 6, 2012
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My mech-mate always finishes of wheel nuts using a torque wrench (and although he sometimes gets laughed at for being old fashioned, he's never had a wheel come off.)
FYI Jayco's recommended settings are 115Nm for steel rims, 122Nm for alloys.
Even the Boys at our local Bridgestone tyre dealers at north Lakes do the same. They will only ever use a torque wrench/bar!

BJ
 
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Mike7

Member
Nov 10, 2011
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Ouch, scary. Im glad to hear you stopped the van safely.

Not sure if this is relevant to your van but mine is a 2008 model and there was a recall notice for my van where the wheel nuts were too short and the nuts were bottoming out on the threaded bit so was not tightening onto the wheel, which could potentially result in your experience. A guy came and replaced all the nuts with the right ones. I believe quite a few guys on the forum here had to have their nuts replaced:D

It might be worth having a look to see if you van came under this bulletin????

All the best,
Mike
 
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selwonk

New Member
Sep 27, 2013
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callala bay nsw
i rang jayco the other day to see if my van was affected by that recall and they run my chassis no which starts with a J,and they said it wasn't one of the ones under the recall.we damaged the brake drum on the drivers side and the brake backing plate so my next project is all new hubs,brakes and hi tensile wheel studs and all the wheels will be balanced.hopefully if i do all that it won't happen again to us.
 

blacky

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Sep 17, 2013
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My mech-mate always finishes of wheel nuts using a torque wrench (and although he sometimes gets laughed at for being old fashioned, he's never had a wheel come off.)
FYI Jayco's recommended settings are 115Nm for steel rims, 122Nm for alloys.

Scott at Ryans Caravans Dubbo told me last week during delivery on my van that they've bumped that torque up to 150Nm mate, not sure if the stud material has changed to suit or not, but yeah, they've increased the spec.
 

jed

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May 16, 2013
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Aldi has Torque wrenches on sale this Sat . $19.99