Wheel came off

Hi just thought i would share what happened to me yesterday while driving down the motorway.



was driving down the motorway and heard a very faint rubbing noise so i slowed down and was about to pull in at a layby i was about 10 yards from the layby when the wheel broke off passing me and took off down the motorway hit the centre reservation bounced about 20ft in the air crossing onto the on coming traffic straight in to the front of another car. its a mirical no one was hurt and lucky it hit the guys bumper/wing and not the windscreen or roof.

fiat will definitly be hearing about this and was wondering if this has happened to anyone else?

Wow lucky that no one was hurt.

One question: have the wheels been powder coated?

Thank goodness you were ok Hubby - also lucky it didn't cause a lot more grief to others.
You'll be scunnered too after getting a nice paint job on it recently
There are threads on here about rims developing cracks and falling apart, can't think where they are just now [?Baz possibly] but someone will point them out. It seems that refurbed rims are more prone to this happening.

This is the third time in the past two years I think. Nit good at all!!! Glad you are ok. As stated above....have the wheels been powder coated?

Jeeez!!

Really glad your ok Andrew! Thank goodness you noticed the noise and slowed down, wouldn't like to think of what may of happened to you or anybody else if you hadn't, and the wheel had broke off at speed!

Absolutely shocking, glad you're ok fella

Mods - time for a Sticky thread somewhere? - failing wheels are going to hurt somebody eventually - we should be talking to Fiat UK and getting them to contact all Coupe owners (can be done easily enough through DVLA)

EDIT - In fact I've taken matters into my own hands and contacted the same person at Fiat UK that I dealt with ten years ago with the 20vt exhaust manifold claim - I really think Fiat UK should do something to warn owners - I'll keep you posted

Those pictures are a scary site! Glad no one was hurt!

thanks guys, the wheels have been painted (not powder coated) they were not shot blasted or oven baked

as i say i am going to contact fiat but not sure who would be the best department to phone? would it be worth going in to see a dealership?

+1 that is shocking,never seen that happene before :0



yeah they should be made aware of this if it has happened a few times. Regardless of how old the car is.

I think I'm going to stick with after market wheels now.

WTF?! Glad you're OK mate.

BTW, what happened with the lovely Kei Racing wheels I sold to you a few years ago?

As Nigel suggested is there anything we or rather FIAT can do about it? It makes me think should I use standard wheels with track tyres..?

thanks Nigle keep me posted

This is what I've found for a quick search:

Cracks in powder coating


One failure for johnnyk then 2 months later another:
http://www.fiatcoupeclub.org/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1361227&page=1

And in the above thread the Baz thread from 2008:

http://www.fiatcoupeclub.org/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=42485&Number=530579#Post530579

I loved my Kei wheels but i found the ride on 17s to be a little hard so went back to standard kinda wish i hadn't

Glad you and everyone is ok mate, don't like the dark bits on the broken spokes

Very scary. Glad you are alright!

Glad your OK Andrew, phew bet that was scary.

If you are stuck, I could pop up at the weekend with a spare wheel to get you going again mate, just let me know.

That's just scary stuff.
Glad your ok mate!

I think my refurb wheels will be checked with a magnifying glass before fitting.

Looks like they had cracked along the spoke line and been like that a while till giving way.

Noticed the dark grey metal colour then the shiney fresh!
Ballocks me...

Thanks for the offer Ronnie but i have access to another car and will get the car repaired.

I think you are right about the wheel being cracked for a while but it has cracked from the back of the wheel out so very difficult to spot unless you take the wheel off

oh yeah so i did see 1..forgot about that
but still,that shouldnt be happening at all.

Glad your ok and that no one got hurt on the otherside,could have been a lot worse with a bouncing wheel

Amazingly, I have had a response from my contact at Fiat UK already - what great service!

This case is being referred first thing in the morning.

It will probably involve getting the broken wheel (plus photos of other failures) to Fiat - we should be able to arrange courier collection rather than having to drop the wheel off at a dealer

I will keep you all posted

at 10 past 10 at night? wow

Glad you walked away from that. I don't think anyone would've spotted the signs, even if you had the wheel off. I suspect the crack forms, takes brake dust in, and then in the same journey propagates til failure. I wouldn't have thought it's been like that for any length of time.

Nigel, what have you proposed to Fiat? And have any themes shown themselves? I have wondered if there are bad batches/different suppliers for the wheel.

Thanks Nigel
I was going to suggest you speak to your contact at fiat as you managed to get something sorted with the Manifolds.
Im not sure what fiat can warn us with though? Unless they offer to check and test peoples wheels?
A simple your wheels may catastrophically break probably isn't going to help much?

I wonder what Fiat will be prepared to do. I don't think this is the sort of failure that's going to always visible. Also wonder if there are any specialist garages that do ultrasound crack testing like they do on bridges. Probably almost certainly not as I've never heard of it, but this has seriously freaked me as I've no idea of the complete history of the wheels.

I was talking to Joe about this a while back. Apparently there are places you can get the wheels x-rayed (of equivalent) and checked for hairline cracks etc...

Nigel has him on speed dial

Hubby, are you standard or modded?
They could turn round and blame it on power increase as wheels were designed for 220bhp. (If you are modded)

This is worrying.

Scary stuff indeed. Glad to hear you're ok.

This may be of use to anyone who wants to check:

Clicky

I'm sure there are others that are cheaper, but this was the first one I found.

For anyone interested Google dye penetrant testing. This only helps detect surface flaws. So is no guarantee.

Glad your ok.

I have come across cracked wheels 3 times in coupes now.

Noticed them whilst servicing.

I worry about my wheels as they have less surface area than these and I run 3 times the intended power.
A failure of this nature is the worst fear of any driver as it can't be predicted.
Lucky your ok,

Is powder coating an issue as mine have been coated?

Might also be worth getting the wheel inspected first by metal fatigue experts.
The last one a friend of mine did involved valve springs failing.
Comprehensive report done cheap as this is another paranoia scare for all of us.

Your wheels look immaculate and unmarked around the edge and your also using the bigger 50mm sidewalls which should cushion the wheel further.

Do you know the history of the wheel?

Thinking out loud as it were, johnnyk, baz76 and Hubby's failures have all been on the front wheels. That doesn't offer much solace, not least because I rotate my wheels with each change.

An alternate view is all the failures above have been on refurbed wheels, powder coated or sprayed. Do we know of any failures on original and not refurbished wheels?

Is there a common theme here?

Yes Chris, I've scrapped 2 rims with cracking that have never been sprayed or powder coated.

Personally I put these issues down to out crap roads and the age of the rims. We don't know there history or what abuse they've been given over the years.

I think the only way to be sure is have each rim tested by means of none destructive testing, either ultra sound or xray, it's the only way to be 100% sure they're no cracking or hidden horrors.

So pleased no one was injured.

I dont know the history of the wheel but i have owned the car for 5 years now.

I really dont think refurbishing the wheels can have an effect on the structure of the alloy

As the cars are about 15 years old now i think you will be hard pushed to find many original wheels (still in use) that havnt been refurbished

Fair enough, just throwing it out there.

For what it's worth mine have never been done and sadly it shows, but I will be checking them inside and out.

I'm in agreement.
Wheels are under resonance,frequency,thermal changes and forces in all directions.
Can't see how refurbishment can cause such a failure.


The ones I have seen fracture or crack are the Plus wheels.
There Made by speed line I think.

After market wheels suffer more from cracking especially multispoke.
Also Audi/BMW stock wheels are extremely prone for cracking on cars sub 5 years of age.

Was there any wheel wobble prior to failure or did it just happen very quickly without any symptoms?

You can tell if a rim is cracked by the noise it makes when you tap it with a plastic mallet, the tyre would need to be removed to perform this test though.

When struck it should have a ring about it if you get what I mean, cracks would dull that noise and make it more of a thud.

Hopefully fiat wont have the same mentality as ford

V.Scary indeed! Glad you are OK. Is that a date stamp in the 4th photo? (97) Worth a check against other failures for a potential bad batch perhaps?

Glad you're ok Hubby and glad you noticed and started slowing down

Another possibilty of the cracking could be down to the heat from the Brembo's maybe?

These worrying failures have all been front wheels and in the same area at the base of the spokes.
I'm wondering if 10 years of heat cycles from front brakes has caused the alloy to become britle in that area where the wheel will be exposed to the highest heat transfer from the brakes?

I'm not really sure what Fiat can do for a car that's been out of production for 10 years except to issue a warning to all current owners.

Do we have contact with any European owners clubs to see if they've seen similar failures?

Hmmm, interesting theory. I always swap front and rear wheels/tyres to equalise wear and buy new tyres in sets of 4, but most people don't, and so once a front wheel, always a front wheel...except when refurbished, they will likely all get swapped around randomly.

But presumably then, those people who have had one front wheel fail are likley to suffer another failure on the other side and should be checking very carefully. The close up on the last pic seems to show an inner dirty side to the crack, so it could have started on the inner side (closer to the disc) and grown larger and larger (and getting dirtier and dirtier) until the remaining half of the spoke arms could no longer hold up.

But also, some people use the brakes more heavily tnan others...and even though the discs get mightily hot, how hot are the wheel spokes likely to get?

Exactly what I'm aiming for, at least initially

Too hot to touch the wheel with bare hands, at least in the centre and part-way along the spokes

Yes, I PM'd the President of FCKP (Poland).

Joe is an honorary member of the Wheeltapper's and Shunter's Social Club.

Quick reply from the President of FCKP in Poland - have not heard of any problems with wheels falling apart.

EDIT - most Coupes are imported to Poland from Germany or Italy.

Ok what about our other European Coupe clubs, can the board contact those as well?

I have been reading this thread with equal measures of interest and horror.

Also, I note that all failures are standard 20vt wheels, although I think JBT said that Plus wheels have also failed. Can someone confirm that Plus wheels have actually failed on the road? My car's a 20vt6 and has Plus wheels, so would be interested.

As for methods of checking your wheels, Joe's suggestion of tapping the wheel is very sensible. It's a time honoured method of checking for cracks in many different materials and happens to be a method used by some car manufacturers when checking body panels that have just come off of the press. Only problem, as Joe says, is that you have to take the tyres of first.

The use of dye penetrant has been suggested and I think that this is a good one. Over 30 years ago I used to use this method for checking aluminum castings when I was doing my apprenticeship. It's fairly simple as long as you can obtain the dye penetrant and the white powder spray that you spray on afterwards. It's not harmful in any way and will pick up any cracks on the surface.

Ultrasonic and X-Ray testing are not within the realm of the average user, however, although very effective.

OK, reasons for failure and why the right front in particular

The thermal cycle that the wheel goes through has been suggested as a potential contributor to the problem. I would agree with this and add that the difference in temperature across the wheel may also be a factor as the outside of the wheel will stay cool and the area around the hub may get very hot with heavy braking.

Thermal shock could also be a factor if after some heavy braking, you then have to drive through a flood, or a ford etc., and cool the wheel down suddenly. This might sound like grasping at straws, but the effect could be cumulative over time, so you might not associate this with a subsequent failure.

But, why the right front?

Look at the geometry of the wheel and it's asymmetrical design. Under braking, the forces acting through the wheel spokes act differently on left and right wheels. On the right, the force is acting across the spoke, almost like a shearing force. On the left the force acts in a different way, like the shear force is acting at an angle across the spoke, therefore sharing the force over a greater area (or more correctly volume) and to some extent the force on the left wheel is a combination of this more spread out shear and an element of tension.

The forces acting through the spokes are generally higher under braking than acceleration and much higher on front wheels as opposed to rears.

This is only my theory, but have a good look at the geometry of the wheel design and try to imagine the direction of the forces acting in the wheel and see if it makes sense to you.

If I'm right, there's no simple solution, as Fiat should have made different left and right wheels, where the spokes trailed in opposite directions. The other solution is to use aftermarket wheels that are strong enough for the job.

Yes. Under braking, the front right wheel is under compression along the spoke and over the centre; the front left is compressed along the spoke and under the centre. In both cases the weight of the car is acting down on the centre of the wheel and increasing as the braking force increases.

Which would mean though that there's a greater bending moment on the *left* wheel lowest spoke, not the right. But relative to the spoke, the bending is in a different direction.

(I am not a structural engineer)

I have contacted the French club management and posted on their forum.

glad your ok hubby, very scary,once happened to me in a bedford in the army!!!!!!

Bedford lorries have 20vt rims fitted, now that I gota see

I would try and post on the forum at fiatcoupe-freunde.de but can't get access at work Many of the other links to Coupe club web sites are no longer valid...

lol country cruising, knew as soon as i posted that some friendly forum banter would appear.

Scary stuff guys.

The 1st time it happened I remember checking my wheels thoroughly and giving them a darn good clean (they get very dirty on the inside!).

Sean_C owns my old wheels now, and they were never repainted or powder coated in 10 years of ownership.

Chris

I have a couple of thoughts. Sorry that they are a bit obvious.

Looking at the photos the crack appears to have started at the back of the wheel where there isn't a proper corrosion-resistant coating. Presumably all wheels are getting slowly eaten away at the back like this.

The wheels appear to fail at exactly the same "stress point" which might be down to some effort to get the wheel to clear the inner edge of the Brembo caliper.

To answer the above
They haven't failed I have just notices hairline fractured on checkovers.
If you tap them you can here the facture is across the wheel:

Not known one completely fail though.

Couldn't resist

I think there are a few hundred Plus models in Malaysia (UK-spec), with most of them running Plus wheels, and I've never heard of this happening here. But of course the majority of owners are not active members of the community.

Glad nobody was hurt, the main thing for now!!!

As for Speedline wheels (Italy), they are a fairly well respected name in the wheel world and started off making rally wheels. They moved into the OEM business and appear to supply may European manufacturers and some far eastern manufacturers' option wheels which are fitted by dealers locally. They claim production capacity of some 2.5m wheels a year.

The are owned by Ronal of Germany now. However, I doubt that they would be of any real help. I asked a simple question once about the Speedline wheels I bought for my wife's Impreza and they never replied

Is there exposed porosity on the back face of the wheel spokes - there looks to be something but it could be specs of dirt? I'm wondering if a "gassy melt" may have resulted in multiple fatigue cracks initiated at gas pores exposed on the surface.

Would be interesting to know when the other wheels that have failed were made - i.e. is it one batch.

Update from Fiat UK

My contact has made some enquiries and found the person she needs to speak to. Unfortunately, he's in Italy at the moment, but they will speak when he returns

I'll keep you all posted

In the meantime Hubby - please keep your wheel - I'll let you know how/when Fiat want to see it

PS - can I suggest that you take the other front wheel off and have a close look at the spokes, especially on the inside face

Not good, glad the final result wasn't too disasterous!

yeh dont worry the other wheels will be checked very carefully

thanks nigel keep us all upto date

They have not yet come across this problem in France.

Probably because they don't have shite roads out there

Could well be so.

again? jesus! we have all been lucky for this not to happen at speed and cause an accident!

last night i checked my mate's wheels over.

his car has lived a nice life, 150k and going storng.
His wheels have been powder coated around a year ago and all seems well.

spekaing to are powdercoaters he does not think that powder coating could be the casue.

he thinks its definatly some thing to do to the heat from the brakes transfering to the wheel and then hitting a bump or some along them lines.

All you need is a hair line fracture and then the weather and the roads will do the rest for you.

all i know is im going to be checking the shizzle out of my wheels.

afterall.. not exactly a lucky person when it comes to coupes

LOL well obviously they will say that regardless!

why would they?
they havent done my wheels or any one that im aware of from the forum.
he has no reason to lie to me.
he's a man who will tell you straight.
not sugar coat a blag.

knobber!

You said he was "are/our" powdercoater"
Anyway regardless of if he does work for you or not why would someone who powdercoats wheels for a living openly turn around and tell you that it could be the reason for wheels failing? Its not going to do the market any good.

Anyway I don't believe its to do with powerder coating or heat from the brakes. I simply think its down to the shocking state of the UK roads combined with stiff suspension that many of us have on these cars.

He has spoken...

LMAO

so why havent others had failures?
surley that would be a big thing..

how many lowered cars are out there with stiff suspension?

if it was that then im sure there would be people with wheels breaking off.

Well how many people have had their wheels powdercoated
Its down to bad luck
a combination of events which cause it to happen.
Depends on what holes you have hit, how hard, how many times, all different things. To narrow it down and say
all powdercoated wheels will fail, or all lowered cars will fail is ridiculous. Its a combination of different events which have led to these failures over time.

bet your holes have been battered.
MANY times.
VERY hard.
Proccy told me so.

Don't get me started on our roads. Marco knows!

You're bang on Mario, these wheels have had a hard life over the last 15+ years/xxx thousand miles. Unless you've had the car from new you've got no idea what they've been through.

My Alfa is on standard suspension and OE Alfa wheels and I destroyed a wheel hitting a pothole crater the other night.

But the wheels fail in exactly the same place, sorry but that's not coincidence or just unlucky.

Yes totally agree, the area these keep failing on is exactly the same on each spoke on every "wheel fell off" post we've seen these past few years, but the question is do pot holes start the issue.

Partial fracture could be to blame. Maybe from the poor UK roads etc.
I think it may not be just one thing that is giving the wheel failure.

Age plus compound fatigue could be the cause.

I have about 20 odd 20vt wheels knocking about at different milage. I will try and check them out.

If you keep battering the crap out of a wheel it will fail at its weakest point. So of course they will all fail there. It's the weakest part of the wheel. Once one spoke cracks the rest will take eneven strain thus causing them all to eventually fail.

There's coupes in countries with roads and climates much worse than the UK so lets see what the feedback from other countries is like.
I don't believe this is a case having lowered suspension or pot holes or as you say "battering the crap out of a wheel" (I don't know anyone who would do that?)

Jesus christ, that's some scary stuff. Glad your ok dude. I have a set of plus wheels in the garage that I'll be checking inside & out first thing in the morning!

I've got a spare 20vt Rim that I'm going to give a serious beating.
Also put in the parts washer and keep it at a consistent heat cycle, then drop it from the second story racking.

Keep repeating the process till it brakes.

Any ideas chuck them my way so I an do a mock (kida) test on it!

Very scientific approach Marco

I have seen a few of these coupes barrel rolled into hedges and various obstacles without the failure of the wheels.

Not uncommon to see wheels sheared off in the same place following hitting kerbs.
Large pressure to a small surface area will result in such a failure.

So I don't think a mass panic is needed but its worrying and all of my customers are mentioning this thread.

All these wheels have seen various kerb damage,oxidation and refurbishments.
How long does a manufacturer guarantee an alloy wheel for?
Or does it recommend replacement at a set interval or distance?

Might be worth following this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/consumer_advice/bmw_latest.shtml



The following quotation may be key:-


BMW's Corporate Communications Manager Wieland Bruch said: "The root cause why these wheels crack to a higher degree in the UK whereas they are not conspicuous in other countries, is still under investigation.

Jimbo
Im not saying that the sole reason for the wheel to fail is due to the road, suspension and a battering. Im saying its a contributing factor. There is clearly a series of events that have led to these wheels failing all of which have contributed to slowly weakening the wheel over time thus resulting in an unfortunate failure.

It will be interesting to see what fiat come back with.

A small tash about 3cm long to go directly under your nose maybe??

A little more news from an admin on the French forum.

They have seen a few 20VT Plus wheels with cracked spokes but none on standard 20VT wheels.

I'm thinking Clarkson and a coupe in green. That wheel was well out of balance and under some serious stress and it failed in exactly the same point.
The weapon was bolted to the end of the spokes iirc yet the wheel failed in exactly the same place as all of these. My first coupe had a single cracked spoke on the front right and that was 60k non refurbished.

I think we need to pool some info from the owners of failures to see if we have a trend:
power, suspension set up, did the brakes bind at all, was the front wheel bearing failing causing excess heat, track day use and anything else that might give a clue. Most fails have been on cars owned for a few years so we should beable to get some good history?

If I remember correctly the drilled holes in the spokes, which could easily weaken them. Probably discount that evidence.

The breakage of the TG Coupe wheel was caused by weakened spokes (hole drilled through them) and the fact that the bloody great spike dug into the Lexus400 and bounced the Coupe into the air

Also the coupe was being driven by an idiot

I wonder how long alloy wheels have been used as standard spec on production cars?

As mentioned in the link at begining of thread a specific temperature/time is used to give the metal its strengh. Therefore does any time at this temp or above have an affect?

Individual life time physical abuse to wheel (uk roads)?

Seems to be a life time issue as is possible in the bmw/audi issue.

Given the age of our cars cannot see how fiat could be considered in any way responsible says alot for customer service that they are even interested

Any one got any decent wheels for sale

I've got a full set of LE wheels in the garage, although unused for 4 years I'm still going to check them for cracking.

The front wheel of my plus fell off and caused £lots

My point was that it failed at the same point as this one even though it was drilled at the rim end of the spokes.
So far all ive read lots of guesses and no evidence gathering.
Anyone on here can laterally load a wheel to see what force it takes to bust a spoke?

All a bit pointless unless its attached to a car Marco, you need the load of the car through the centre of the wheel....unless you're chucking the whole car off the racking?

Wouldn't put it past him.....

Give him a break Jimbo, that's pure science for Italians

It would explain the decline of the Roman Empire though.

Yeah but no matter what methods they chose they always make it look good.

Any gibbon can do that...

All right, all right, I'll get my coat!

That deserves capital punishment

Back on topic, a perfunctory search doesn't reveal a serial outbreak of failing wheels but perhaps these instances are pointing towards a "shelf life" for the coupe's particular design. I feel reassured that mine were changed to a different make a few years ago.

Sorry Simon: Any Gibbon can do that...

But I didn't want to make it *too* obvious!

I was in Hubby's part of the world over the weekend and the state of the roads are (still) terrible, even the main roads. Even in a Stilo with large sidewall tyres and soft suspension.

It can't be a coincidence that most of my car repairs over the last 5 years or so are suspension related - I don't remember changing suspension arms 20 years ago, just very occasionally worn out dampers.

So I suppose my point is that the shock of hitting road 'imperfections' (Fife's speciality is sunken manholes) and potholes is going through the wheel to get to the suspension which must eventually add to failure at any weak points?

I agree
10 years of constant abuse is eventually going weaken a wheel no matter how strong it is

FWIW, I cracked three of my Team Dynamics ProRace 1 - all were hairline cracks on the inside rim (where the wheel flexes the most)

Team Dynamics were 99% confident that these cracks were caused by prolonged driving on poor road surfaces (the inside of the wheel flexes when it hits bumps - the outside doesn't, as it's supported by the spokes)

Different failure, I know, but it illustrates the point that even high quality wheels can fail with a repeated beating

I warned the members of the dutch forum aswell

TimR is spot on, the roads in Fife are really bad