Wheel fell off car on motorway

bigjl

AdrianC wrote: »

Umm, if the bolts really came in from the outside, how come the shanks are still visible in the holes in the hub, yet there's nothing in the arm?

Just look at the photos - there's plenty of space to feed the bolts in from the inside of the arm, yet feeding them in from the outside would require the brake backplate to be removed.




OP - photo of the outside of the wheel, and of the rear wing, please.

Click left or right on the photo page.

Clearly show the rear wind and 1/4 panel have been in contact with something a fairly high speed.

Which fits with a tyre blow out and the car sliding sideways, hitting the armco barrier, then the damage to the hub carrier and the resultant spin.

AdrianC

manc187 wrote: »

Unfortunately at the moment I don't have a picture of the outside of the wheel - as you can probably understand I was a bit shook up at the time and it was one of the photos I neglected to take

As somebody else has suggested looking around your photobucket account, can I remind you of...




You can clearly see where the rim hit the barrier.

manc187

The recovery garage have just sent me the photos of the outside of the detached wheel and I am now starting to think that rather than the wheel just simply "falling off" which I assumed whilst in a state of shock and anger immediately following the accident the sequence of events was more likely to be as follows:
1. Tyre blew
2. Car spun out of control
3. Car hit barrier at speed and therefore with a lot of force
4. Wheel was snapped straight off
See pictures of outside of wheel below

manc187

another picture of wheel

manc187

Adrian - I just received those whell photos from my the garage 5 mins ago- see my post from 1 min ago

manc187

Having received photos of wheel and rear wing from garage this morning it's all starting to make sense now.
Insurance claim on me.

AdrianC

Good on you for accepting the situation differs from your initial beliefs. Few new posters here do...

manc187

Adrian
As you can imagine whilst in a state of shock I just wanted to blame someone - namely Vauxhall.
I feel such a plonker now to be honest!
There have been 68 posts to this thread and if I had the photos of the wheel when I originally posted the thread on Thursday it would have been completely obvious to most people what had happened.
God, I feel such a nob!
Tyre blowouts can happen to anyone at any time.
I'm just so relieved that nobody was seriously injured or killed.

manc187

Case closed!
Thanks for everyones input and opinions and apologies for wasting your time.
Scott

AdrianC

manc187 wrote: »

God, I feel such a nob!

Don't. You're there, driving down the m'way, when all of a sudden you're looking other drivers in their somewhat-surprised eyes. It all comes to a stop, you see three wheels on the car, and the fourth a way up the road - 2+2 does tend to equal something that looks a lot like 4 at those moments.

Tyre blowouts can happen to anyone at any time.

Hmm. They don't really "just happen". They're caused by something - underinflation or impact damage from a pothole or debris, usually. Actual tyre failure is very rare, and usually comes with warnings, such as vibration due to delaminating carcasses, or big eggs on the sidewall, assuming it isn't just extreme old age. A 12mo/8k old Conti, factory-fitted by Opel, with no warning? Very, very unlikely to be a manufacturing failure.

I'm quite surprised by how little damage there is to the car, tbh.