Wheel Studs / Tires / Rims

[jsikora]

So I have a 2006 Fleetwood. This spring I upgraded all the rims and tires to Aluminum Alloy Rims and new tires. On our way out of town last Thursday we broke all 12 studs on the right side tires/rims/hubs. Once we got the vehicle stopped and road side assistance arrived they were able to move one hub from the left side to the right so we could slowly head towards home. Well 10 miles from home the last alloy rim snapped all the studs. Long story short the camper is in my driveway but am in search of a place to find good studs and reasonable rims and tires. The studs are 1/2-20 RH .560 knurl 2-3/4" long. I was able to find a suitable stud at Advanced Auto however just a bit shorter. Tires are 225 75R15 with a 6 lug rim.

Called all the local RV dealers and they are over 200 for a steel wheel and tire. I was able to locate some online, however am curious to know how many folks run Bias vs radial ?

[Charlie_D_]

Broke some studs on my fifth wheel. The nuts were tapered at the contact surface. The hex area of the nut was a tad too large and contacted the recess on the rim so that the taper did not contact the rim even though the nuts were torqued. The nuts that were used when the new rims were installed were chrome and longer that the original. It took a close inspection to see the scarring of the recess to determine that. When the smaller, shorter nuts with the chrome covers were reinstalled, I had no further problems.

Please let us know what you find.

[jsikora]

Well we have a claim in with Progressive and awaiting a callback. Im kinda ticked at them anyway as when the orginal incident happened I requested a trailer to move it and got a mechanic to the site. After arguing for 2 hours I gave up on the phone. Will see what they say when they call back.

Tires and wheels were on the trailer since spring. We took one 60 mile trip 2 weeks ago and when i got home i checked all the air and checked the torque again. All was fine. Before we left i checked it again.

The wheels and tires were bought online so i am to blame if they were wrong. No one told me that i shouldn't do this and the guy i bought them from never mentioned there may be a different stud i should have for aluminum wheels. I know the center hole is the same as the steel ones i had on there as i had to measure to order the others. It does not ride on the center of the hub like most but uses the studs to center the wheel.

Regardless of all the issues I am still in search of steel wheels and tires so i can move the camper to the repari center. We are supposed to go to New Hampshire in 3 weeks but not sure it will be road worthy by then. I wish i had not sold the old rims and tires for sure.

[fpresto]

I agree with down home. There are two basic types, hub centric where the hub centers the wheel and lug centric where lugs center the wheel. Using the wrong type can cause your issue.

[down_home]

If the wheels are lug centric then they need shoulder nuts and washers.
If the wheel centers on a flange on the axle as old cars do they usuall use cone shaped lug nuts. They don't do well on aluminum wheels unless they have steel inserts, in heavy applications.
I suspect wrong nuts and no washers on the wheels.

[Old-Biscuit]

Got the new rims/tires in spring.

How much has trailer been used since then?
Did you check retorque lugs at 25 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles until you didn't get any more movement?

ALL lugs should be checked/retorqued when rims have been removed....especially alloy rims.

[j-d]

Rob said what I was thinking. Something is wrong with the way the wheels meet the hubs. If the wheels are centered to the hubs and the wheel center holes are too large, the weight would have to be borne by the studs alone.

Tandem trailers put a lot of strain on wheel/hub/axle components anyhow. Just look at how the tires "scrub" during tight maneuvers. Surprised, though, that the failure happened on the passenger side. The driver sides of vehicles used to have left-handed thead on the wheel fasteners because the left side tends to loosen rihgt-handed thread. Most of the time, if there's going to be lug trouble on a trailer, it'll start out on the left side.

[robatthelake]

There is something not right about this situation. It sounds to me that Your Tire Store did not use the correct combination of Wheels and Hubs!.

On a larger Class A as an example ..You can't always just install Aluminum Wheels due to the Hub differences!

Just because they seem to fit doesn't make them always correct!

[time2roll]

I would be asking my insurance company if they can help.
I think the studs at some point were over torqued with a gun. If you had aluminum and radials I would let the insurance replace with same. Possibly new drums vs replace all studs.

[jsikora]

The lugs were torqued per the spec that came with them so I am not really sure at this point. The mechanic that came out to fix it said he has seen this before with alloy rims. He asked if we had steel prior (which we did but where 6 years old) At this point I am not blaming anyone just want to get the camper moving again so I can get all the other repairs done (ripped out black and grey tanks, part of slide and all trim from tires back)

[BurbMan]

I would run radial over bias any day. The bigger question is why did all the lugs snap? Did you tighten them with a torque wrench? Sounds like they were severely overtightened, which stretched the studs making them snap. Definitely shop online, you can get pretty good tire/wheel packages that are a fraction of the cost of buying local.