Wheel fell off car on motorway

manc187

Thanks Stevie - yeah I'm okay thank god and nobody else was injured so that's a massive bonus

manc187

Astronaught - unbelievably the motorway barriers stood up to the test and weren't that badly damaged.
At one point (split seconds) I thought I was going to flip over the barriers onto the motorway below the bridge I was on but thankfully I didn't otherwise it would have been a completely different story - I dread to think!

sillygoose

That shouldn't happen for sure, catastrophic component failure due to a poor quality brittle casting. You could have been killed and should be very angry.

Car should still be under its 3 year warranty. I would call Vauxhall customer service and tell them in no uncertain terms you want it all fixed as you were lucky enough not to have been killed by their shoddy car.

If they don't seem interested take the persons name and tell them you will be filing a vehicle safety defect report with the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) to investigate. I am sure they won't want that hassle as it could lead to an expensive vehicle recall.

https://www.gov.uk/report-vehicle-safety-defect

Looking closer, looks like a couple of the bolts snapped then the strain of the load snapped the casting. Still a manufacturing defect.

Astronaughtwannabe

manc187 wrote: »

Astronaught - unbelievably the motorway barriers stood up to the test and weren't that badly damaged.
At one point (split seconds) I thought I was going to flip over the barriers onto the motorway below the bridge I was on but thankfully I didn't otherwise it would have been a completely different story - I dread to think!

Yeah scary!


Was it that side of the car that clobbered the barrier?

enfield_freddy

photos to Vauxhall customer services first thing tomorrow morning , expect to collect 65 reg car tomorrow afternoon

captainawsome

I'd be kicking and screaming to Vauxhall about that I think. Followed by moaning to the likes of watchdog and anybody else who would listen incase it's not an isolated case. From the pics it looks to me like component failure of the hub carrier if your certain it hadn't hada recent impact.

You seem very relaxed about the whole thing, personally I'd be P'd off to say the very least that about spinning out on the motorway, people have died in lesser accidents.

manc187

Thanks sillygoose -
I'm no engineer, metallurgist nor car expert by any means but I know that what happened to me today is not the norm and probably an exceptional circumstance and like you said I or someone else on the road could have been killed or seriously injured.
I will be definitely be contacting Vauxhall tomorrow morning.
If there are parts on cars that are faulty/inadequate and prone to failure then the manufacturer needs to know a.s.a.p. before someone is killed or seriously injured
Thanks

enfield_freddy

Vauxhall head office , not local dealer , hit the top , and get somewhere , they pay the finance off and supply new FOC or it goes to the press

AdrianC

enfield_freddy wrote: »

expect to collect 65 reg car tomorrow afternoon

That'd be good going, since 65 plates won't be on the roads until September.



That's impact damage. You're looking down at the offside rear suspension arm from above, and the upper two mounts holding the hub to the suspension arm have been snapped off when the upper part of the wheel hit the barrier. You can see on the damper a clean section, probably where the tyre hit it.



That's a big chunk out of the inside of the rim - I wonder if some road debris was hit, taking the tyre out - look at the notch in the sidewall next to that chunk.

Pic of the outside of the rim, and the rear wing?

manc187

Astronaught - the wheel came off before I hit the barrier - it was 100 meters up the motorway when I came to as stop against the barrier facing the flow of the traffic - I will post a pic.