I lost a tire on the freeway the studs broke and my wheel decided to take off ahead of me while driving in the rain. A cop was nice enough to find my tire. When inspected the seats were all eaten away. Clearly a sign of excessive force. On a friends car when we were swapping wheels. He had steelies and I was getting rid of my rims. His steelies had been tightened so badly, the lugs had grooves in the shape of the steelie seats. Some were rusted and broke the studs off together when removed. And yet another time, when an old roommate kept complaining of clicking when making right turns. Thought it was a CV and told her just drive it home. While she was exiting the parking lot someone ran up to her and was holding a lug nut with a sheared off portion of the stud. When she got home, she was running on three studs instead of five. When I was installing new studs a few days later, another one decided to go while torquing. That was a really close one. Can't imagine what woulda happened to her doing 80 on the freeway.
What have I learned from all this? Never let the tire shop guy use an impact gun on your wheels. Even if they use those thin torque set extensions. That is what happened to me and my roommate.
