Someone tried to kill me (and obviously they failed)

[NuclearNed]

A couple of weeks ago my wife took my truck to the local Toyota dealership. My airbag light has been on, and for safety's sake she wanted to get it fixed. While they have my truck, they gave me a loaner vehicle. She and I had been driving it around for over a week when the following happened.

Saturday she and I parked at a grocery store. As she got out of the vehicle, she noticed a lug nut lying on the ground. She pointed it out to me, and I noted that it was spinning in place as if it had just fallen off a vehicle. We thought to ourselves how strange that seemed, but then shrugged it off and went inside to do our shopping.

When we came back out, my wife noticed that the lug nut (which was still lying on the ground) looked just like the lug nuts on our loaner vehicle. Then (thankfully) she looked a little closer - the rear back wheel just happened to be missing a lug nut. Finally my common sense kicked in and we realized what had happened. I checked all the other wheels. The front passenger wheel was fine. The other three were not. Every last lug nut on them was loose. Counting the one which fell off, there were three which weren't even hand tight. I took the tire iron and tightened with ease every lug nut on those three wheels.

When we got home, I called Toyota. Since it was a Saturday, their service manager was off. I left a non-angry, matter-of-fact voice mail explaining what had happened. He has yet to respond. I assume that he thinks I'm lying in order to get something for free - but I'm not that kind of scumbag. I just wanted someone - anyone - over at Toyota to know that some incompetent idiot in their service department caused a very near miss.

Rate my experience.

 

[nakedfrog]

See what being a well-known internet raconteur gets you?

 

[NuclearNed]

See what being a well-known internet raconteur gets you?

Obviously someone wants to steal all the money this glorious title has gotten for me.

 

[lxskllr]

Had a wheel almost come off a truck once. I noticed when it became wobbly. The holes were egged out on the wheel, and two studs were either missing or useless. Others were damaged, but functional. I was || close to having the wheel fall off at highway speed. I got the holes aligned best I could, and tightened the rest down, and it got me home.

 

[VashHT]

I saw a wheel come off a car once at a really big intersection, guy slowed down to make a right turn and the wheel just kept going, ran into a car going through an intersection. Guessing the dealer just messed up in this case though, I've had plenty of times where they mess things up on my cars.

 

[BoomerD]

Dammit. That dealership owes Earl a refund.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

A couple of weeks ago my wife took my truck to the local Toyota dealership. My airbag light has been on, and for safety's sake she wanted to get it fixed. While they have my truck, they gave me a loaner vehicle. She and I had been driving it around for over a week when the following happened.

Saturday she and I parked at a grocery store. As she got out of the vehicle, she noticed a lug nut lying on the ground. She pointed it out to me, and I noted that it was spinning in place as if it had just fallen off a vehicle. We thought to ourselves how strange that seemed, but then shrugged it off and went inside to do our shopping.

When we came back out, my wife noticed that the lug nut (which was still lying on the ground) looked just like the lug nuts on our loaner vehicle. Then (thankfully) she looked a little closer - the rear back wheel just happened to be missing a lug nut. Finally my common sense kicked in and we realized what had happened. I checked all the other wheels. The front passenger wheel was fine. The other three were not. Every last lug nut on them was loose. Counting the one which fell off, there were three which weren't even hand tight. I took the tire iron and tightened with ease every lug nut on those three wheels.

When we got home, I called Toyota. Since it was a Saturday, their service manager was off. I left a non-angry, matter-of-fact voice mail explaining what had happened. He has yet to respond. I assume that he thinks I'm lying in order to get something for free - but I'm not that kind of scumbag. I just wanted someone - anyone - over at Toyota to know that some incompetent idiot in their service department caused a very near miss.

Rate my experience.

Close, I'll get you next time around.

 

[pmv]

Early on when cycling I had a friend (more experienced cyclist) insist that my handlebars weren't on correctly, so he insisted on removing them and putting them back on. A whole later, while cycling fairly fast down a hill, the entire handlebar-headset assembly came out of the head-tube (because he hadn't secured them back into place properly afterwards). Was left holding the handlebars, that were no longer attached to anything. Somehow managed to slow to a stop without crashing.

 

[Brainonska511]

Early on when cycling I had a friend (more experienced cyclist) insist that my handlebars weren't on correctly, so he insisted on removing them and putting them back on. A whole later, while cycling fairly fast down a hill, the entire handlebar-headset assembly came out of the head-tube (because he hadn't secured them back into place properly afterwards). Was left holding the handlebars, that were no longer attached to anything. Somehow managed to slow to a stop without crashing.

Wow. That also sounds like something straight out of a cartoon. Glad nothing more serious happened.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Malicious compliance is a bitch Ned.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

A couple of weeks ago my wife took my truck to the local Toyota dealership. My airbag light has been on, and for safety's sake she wanted to get it fixed. While they have my truck, they gave me a loaner vehicle. She and I had been driving it around for over a week when the following happened.

Saturday she and I parked at a grocery store. As she got out of the vehicle, she noticed a lug nut lying on the ground. She pointed it out to me, and I noted that it was spinning in place as if it had just fallen off a vehicle. We thought to ourselves how strange that seemed, but then shrugged it off and went inside to do our shopping.

When we came back out, my wife noticed that the lug nut (which was still lying on the ground) looked just like the lug nuts on our loaner vehicle. Then (thankfully) she looked a little closer - the rear back wheel just happened to be missing a lug nut. Finally my common sense kicked in and we realized what had happened. I checked all the other wheels. The front passenger wheel was fine. The other three were not. Every last lug nut on them was loose. Counting the one which fell off, there were three which weren't even hand tight. I took the tire iron and tightened with ease every lug nut on those three wheels.

When we got home, I called Toyota. Since it was a Saturday, their service manager was off. I left a non-angry, matter-of-fact voice mail explaining what had happened. He has yet to respond. I assume that he thinks I'm lying in order to get something for free - but I'm not that kind of scumbag. I just wanted someone - anyone - over at Toyota to know that some incompetent idiot in their service department caused a very near miss.

Rate my experience.

- For a slightly different response, I appreciated how honestly you communicated that your wife was the one that actually caught and followed up on the problem. Would have been easy to leave those details out but you didn't.

OR

Maybe she loosened the bolts and then "caught" the issue just to lord it over you for all time?

The world may never know.

 

[bba_tcg]

Not a wheel, but my daughter and her husband had their oil changed in Colorado and the oil drain plug fell out about 30 miles from their destination in Texas in 2015.