KillerTofu

Moderator, please move this topic as needed as I'm unsure if it should stay in this forum or not.

So I was about to go to work this previous Wednesday when my car starts making this loud repetitive "thunking" noise briefly after I got on the freeway. The "thunks" get progressively louder in volume as I'm on the freeway. Although, when I accelerate the frequency of the noise increases as well, but then seems to diminish and is not so prevalent at higher RPM's. Also, the steering wheel would shake back and forth at about the same frequency of the "thunking". Was it tire related? Well partly. As the wheel on the driver side was worn down and had cracked in one noticeable area and showing small patches of metal in two areas all on the inner side-wall. Defective CV inner/outer joint? Will probably never find out now since I already swapped it out for a new one at Autozone.

So today, as I was about to loosen the lug nuts and take the wheel off and narrow down the source of the "thunk", I noticed that the lug nuts were already loose as I you could untorque them by hand with a 1/2" rachet and a 19mm socket with hardly any effort including the lock nut. No problem. They just backed them selves out. Must have forgotten to retorque them to spec after about 500 or so miles. Oops. So I check the rear driver side lug nuts to see if they are firmly in place and yeah they were. Not so on the rear and front passenger side. They were in the same state as the left driver side, but the lock nuts were still firmly in place. Plus two of the lug nuts on the rear passenger side were completely off. Gone actually. So now I'm thinking that I've been infiltrated by a thief, but my mechanic friend firmly believes that the lug nuts worked themselves out because I forget to retorque them after slapping on the rota's and that the loud repetitive "thunk" was probably from a defective outer cv joint from my driver side wheel rolling ****-eyed due to the fact the lug nuts were loose. Well before I took the wheel off I shook the wheel back and forth and left to right and it was on there pretty planted. So now Im really puzzled. If the lug nuts were the reason my axle gave out then why didn't the passenger side cv axle give out two. Maybe the lug nuts didn't work themselves out, but were being loosen by an unwanted 2nd party, but they were loosened to the point where you can untorque them by hand and all the thief had to due was jack up my car and take off with them. What do you guys think?

illicon2003

could be your fender well dragging on the ground or scraping your wheel......