Pike2350
Registered User
- Location
- Salt Lake City
So last weekend my g/f and I, along with her friend and friends brother went down to Moab. This has sort of become an annual trip for us (going on 4 years now). We've been planning it for about two months, and finally, with the condo rented, the Rodeo loaded up on a trailer, we headed out Thursday night. We didn't get on the road until around 8, after dropping the dogs off at the g/f's parents house.
Friday, we woke up and decided to do Gold Bar Rim, and then shoot on over to Long Canyon since I had done Long canyon last year with my 2 brother-in-laws and my g/f really liked that you drive under the large rock. It's obviously not a difficult trail, so that's why we were going to to Gold Bar Rim, since I haven't done that for at least 8 years. Well, the day didn't go as planned. We first dropped the tow rig and trailer off at Grand Tire Pros to have a tire on the trailer replaced since the treads were getting very low....as well as a new spare, since, upon borrowing the trailer from my g/f's dad, he realized the spare his company had for the past few years was actually the wrong bolt pattern
. After that, we headed up Highway 191 onto the Gemini Bridges turn off. Everything went find until I started to move into the turn lane....then out of nowhere, the front driver's tire came off. I hadn't felt anything, nor did I have any idea what happened right away. At first I thought I hit a big pot hole, then my next though was that I blew a tire. It wasn't until I looked forward and saw the tire rolling off into the parking lot that I realized what was happening. THANK GOODNESS there was no oncoming traffic right then because I couldn't steer and veered right across the southbound lanes and onto the shoulder (still sticking out a little into the road).
I was pretty shaken, and inspected the damage. Luckily, there wasn't too much damage....mainly just a flat spot on the rotor.
The real damage happened from the tire. It rolled, and watching it go was seriously like a movie. It rolled across the highway and right towards a newer Audi and 4Runner parked in the parking lot. Somehow, miracously, it actually hit a berm and shot over both vehicles without touching either. I thought for sure it was going to come crashing down on the roof, or windshield and cause severe damage....but, I was lucky. However, after it launched over those, it turned and started heading east, into the parking lot....still at a good pace. Luckily it missed an older couple standing by their vehicle. Unfortunately it hit a pick up pretty hard. It ripped the fender flare right off and put a very large dent in the truck. The only saving grace was that at least it was on the bed and not the cab.
Here is the parking lot from in front of the Rodeo...the Audi and 4Runner are right behind the "No Motor Vehicles" sign and the truck it hit is the one above the short yellow pole.
I got the wheel back to the Rodeo and put it back on....I had to remove one lug from each wheel, and somehow we found one of the lost ones in the parking lot. We wrote out information for the truck and put it on his windshield. A Highway Patrol stopped to make sure we were ok. At this point I told him what happened, and asked if he should do a police report.....because I didn't want the guy in the truck to be screwed, but at the same time I didn't want to get screwed either. The office was extremely nice and he filled out an official report and put it, along with all my written info into a bag and put it on the windshield, and gave me a copy. The only other thing that was damaged, and will need to be replaced is that, one of the holes on the wheel developed a crack in it.
After some debate, and realizing I didn't have access to the trailer right away, we decided to drive it back to Moab very slowly....this was obviously going to kill the weekend. I made some calls and found that NAPA had a rotor (luckily it's a solid axle, and a basic D44 rotor) While I could've replaced it myself, I didn't want to kill the day for everyone else and finally got a hold of Ben Wilson from Wilson Fabrication and he said he could get it done. I also asked him about maybe, for temp purposes doing a small aluminum weld to the wheel, but he felt it was unnecessary since the wheel needed to be replaced anyway, and it cracked only half of the whole, as well as having 5 usable holes. We dropped the Rodeo off and headed out to do just Long Canyon in the other guys FJ Cruiser. By the time we got back Ben had the truck all done....Thanks Ben.
My only guess is that the lugs came loose over time....and I'm very lucky. I put the new wheels on back in May and drove the truck as my DD for another 2 months before getting the F150. I think in that, I forgot to ever retorque the wheels, and that is the only thing I can think of that may be the cause.
Friday, we woke up and decided to do Gold Bar Rim, and then shoot on over to Long Canyon since I had done Long canyon last year with my 2 brother-in-laws and my g/f really liked that you drive under the large rock. It's obviously not a difficult trail, so that's why we were going to to Gold Bar Rim, since I haven't done that for at least 8 years. Well, the day didn't go as planned. We first dropped the tow rig and trailer off at Grand Tire Pros to have a tire on the trailer replaced since the treads were getting very low....as well as a new spare, since, upon borrowing the trailer from my g/f's dad, he realized the spare his company had for the past few years was actually the wrong bolt pattern
. After that, we headed up Highway 191 onto the Gemini Bridges turn off. Everything went find until I started to move into the turn lane....then out of nowhere, the front driver's tire came off. I hadn't felt anything, nor did I have any idea what happened right away. At first I thought I hit a big pot hole, then my next though was that I blew a tire. It wasn't until I looked forward and saw the tire rolling off into the parking lot that I realized what was happening. THANK GOODNESS there was no oncoming traffic right then because I couldn't steer and veered right across the southbound lanes and onto the shoulder (still sticking out a little into the road).
I was pretty shaken, and inspected the damage. Luckily, there wasn't too much damage....mainly just a flat spot on the rotor.
The real damage happened from the tire.
It rolled, and watching it go was seriously like a movie. It rolled across the highway and right towards a newer Audi and 4Runner parked in the parking lot. Somehow, miracously, it actually hit a berm and shot over both vehicles without touching either. I thought for sure it was going to come crashing down on the roof, or windshield and cause severe damage....but, I was lucky. However, after it launched over those, it turned and started heading east, into the parking lot....still at a good pace. Luckily it missed an older couple standing by their vehicle. Unfortunately it hit a pick up pretty hard. It ripped the fender flare right off and put a very large dent in the truck. The only saving grace was that at least it was on the bed and not the cab. Here is the parking lot from in front of the Rodeo...the Audi and 4Runner are right behind the "No Motor Vehicles" sign and the truck it hit is the one above the short yellow pole.
I got the wheel back to the Rodeo and put it back on....I had to remove one lug from each wheel, and somehow we found one of the lost ones in the parking lot. We wrote out information for the truck and put it on his windshield. A Highway Patrol stopped to make sure we were ok. At this point I told him what happened, and asked if he should do a police report.....because I didn't want the guy in the truck to be screwed, but at the same time I didn't want to get screwed either. The office was extremely nice and he filled out an official report and put it, along with all my written info into a bag and put it on the windshield, and gave me a copy. The only other thing that was damaged, and will need to be replaced is that, one of the holes on the wheel developed a crack in it.
After some debate, and realizing I didn't have access to the trailer right away, we decided to drive it back to Moab very slowly....this was obviously going to kill the weekend. I made some calls and found that NAPA had a rotor (luckily it's a solid axle, and a basic D44 rotor) While I could've replaced it myself, I didn't want to kill the day for everyone else and finally got a hold of Ben Wilson from Wilson Fabrication and he said he could get it done. I also asked him about maybe, for temp purposes doing a small aluminum weld to the wheel, but he felt it was unnecessary since the wheel needed to be replaced anyway, and it cracked only half of the whole, as well as having 5 usable holes. We dropped the Rodeo off and headed out to do just Long Canyon in the other guys FJ Cruiser. By the time we got back Ben had the truck all done....Thanks Ben.
My only guess is that the lugs came loose over time....and I'm very lucky. I put the new wheels on back in May and drove the truck as my DD for another 2 months before getting the F150. I think in that, I forgot to ever retorque the wheels, and that is the only thing I can think of that may be the cause.
Last edited:
