Wheel fell off car on motorway

manc187

Hi all,

I bought a 2014 Astra 1.6 Limited Edition 2 months ago.

Whilst on the motorway today my tyre blew and then my wheel along with brakes etc decided that it no longer wanted to be attached to the car and completely fell off.

I'm not a car expert by any means and I'm not sure what the part name is but one of the metal parts around the suspension/brake area has completely snapped in half.

Has anyone seen this happen before?
Should I contact Vauxhall/dealer and speak to them about it or is it "just one of those things" and I need to go through the normal insurance route.

Doing 360 degrees spins on a motorway at 60-70 mph is very scary and I'm just happy that nobody was injured but I'm finding it hard to accept that something like this can happen on a relatively new car with less than 8k on the clock.

Any advice appreciated
Scott

Alter_ego

Insurance only covers accidents, not breakdown.

manc187

Alter ego - not sure what you mean.
It wasn't a breakdown - the axel snapped.
I can PM you pictures.

Tilt

You need to contact the seller.

But I can imagine the explanations they will come out with; damage was caused by high speed blow out which can happen anytime. In my opinion though, I don't think the whole wheel assembly should become detached from a blow out. That is something VX should be looking at. So deffo contact the seller.

Astronaughtwannabe

the stub axle. Wheel bearing seized no doubts. Did you not hear any unusual noises beforehand?

Anyway, if it's only got 8k on the clock then you've probably got a case to take to vauxhall. Very rare for that sort of catastrophic failure in such a lo mileage car.

I'd be suspicious about it being a damaged repaired car!

enfield_freddy

yes the suspension /bearing failure caused your tyre to go , not just a simple blowout , Vauxhall warranty check and fix ,

Tilt

manc187 wrote: »

Alter ego - not sure what you mean.
It wasn't a breakdown - the axel snapped.
I can PM you pictures.

You wern't involved in an rtc (thankfully) so it's not an insurance matter. It's a potential mechanical defect which (given the age of the car and the length of time owing it) should be the seller's responsibility (assuming you bought it from a dealer).

manc187

cheers tilt
There was also significant body damage where a slid along the outside barrier before coming to a stop

Astronaughtwannabe

Whereby it becomes an RTC. There will now be a third party claim against your insurance.

Tilt

manc187 wrote: »

cheers tilt
There was also significant body damage where a slid along the outside barrier before coming to a stop

I understand where you are coming from but it would still be classed as a potential mechanical failure and as such, the dealer should deal with this rather than your insurance co. Any resulting damage attributed to the mechanical failure will fall into the potential warranty claim.

Please let us know what the dealer and VX has to say.

Astronaughtwannabe

Yes, post the pics up...otherwise we're all guessing what may have happened mechanically.