Hi, everybody:

I haven't posted anything for a looong time, though I've been dropping by regularly to see what's happening. But this I've got to share.

The short story: As previously posted on another thread, it is possible for a stupid tire guy to mount a front tire on an S2000 rear rim and vice versa. You'd think this would be easy to spot once its done, but it isn't unless you're looking for it.

Then, it's possible to mount the rear wheel (now with the front tire on it) on the front of the car. It looks normal when this happens, unless (again) you know what to look for. However, the wheel does not sit flush against the hub when Mr. Stupid does this. Even if torqued correctly it will wobble, and gradually and inexorably destroy your lug bolts. The steering will feel perfectly normal. Once the first bolt breaks, the rest will follow very quickly. And you will suddenly learn how the S2000 handles with three wheels.

The long story: It didn't quite get that far with us, but it came close. Last November I had new S03s put on the car. Everything seemed to go well. The car came back with correctly torqued wheels, and the wheels themselves were unscratched. Success.

A few months later I happened to be following my wife, who was driving the S2000, and I thought I saw a wobble in the right front wheel. I looked at it closely when we got home, checked the torque on the lugs, and decided it was just an odd pattern of dirt on the wheel. The next day I was driving the car and another driver pointed to the wheel and waved me off the road. I checked it again on the shoulder, found nothing, took the wheel off when I got home, checked everything, and remounted and retorqued it. Then I followed my wife again to check it, and saw no wobble. We proceeded to drive the car on a 1000-mile road trip.

Now it's a few months later, and this morning my wife was driving me to work in the other car. I forgot my lunch, and went back in the house for it. She waited in the car, looked around, and just happened to notice two sheared lugs on the right front of the S2000. I washed the car two weeks ago, and know for certain they were not sheared then. The car has probably not gone 50 miles in that time. The steering has felt fine.

Crap. Somebody must have been trying to steal the wheel. But a nagging feeling persisted, that (1) it was the same wheel I'd been worrying about before, and (2) even lowlives that steal wheels must know how to unscrew a bolt.

So I searched S2ki for "lug bolts," and found the critical post that described the exact problem. (I wish I could remember whose it was, and I haven't been able to find it again. Sorry, because the poster deserves all the credit for this one.) Once I knew what I was looking for, it was obvious. Big wheel on the front, small wheel on the back, tires on the wrong rims. At least Mr. Stupid got it right on the other side of the car.

With two lugs gone and the wheel not solidly against the hub, I figure I was just a few miles from a major problem. Maybe a lethal one. Thanks.

 

Scary! Thanks for bringing this up!

 

This deserves a bump!

Scary deal!

 

If they put one rear on the front, and one front on the rear, just for chit and giggles, you may want to have your diff looked at by your local dealer/service center.

Don't inform them the mismatched tires/wheels on your rear (unless they were the ones to do it).

Make sure they document any of there findings, that way, if the diff starts going in the near future, they have some record.

Mismatched tires on the rear can cause havoc on the LSD.

 

thanks for the info and glad to know no one got injured.


what are the signs that should be looked for?

 

Groaning sound and vibration, especially at initial accelleration.

To test the LSD raise the rear of the car. With the transmission in first gear turn one of the wheels. If the other wheel turns in the opposite direction chances are the LSD is OK. If there is substantial resistance, no movement, or movement in the same direction, chances are the LSD is toast.

 

That original post was probably mine. I got new tires a year ago, just before the Thunderhill track day, and they put the right side front on the rear and vice versa. Someone pointed out the wobble to me too. When I took the S back to the tire place they sheared ooff a lug bolt while Loosening the nut! The problem is the replacement. You can't just shove a new bolt in from the back. They had to tear it down to the bearings to replace it. And you need special tools to pull the bearing apart.
A very easy check is with a ruler. Stick it through the wheel and measure the width of the rim. The rear is an inch or so (can't remember exactly) wider than the front.
I will check it this way from now on before I leave the tire shop.

 

Morris is right; the definitive check is to measure the rim width with a ruler. The front rim is 7" and the rear is 8".

But you can also see the difference in the sidewall shape once you know what to look for. The front tire's sidewall is too flat, and the rear's bulges too much. But it's subtle. Sad to say, I had actually noticed it but put it off to the difference between S-02s and S-03s. What I failed to realize was that the tires on the other side of the car didn't look that way.

BTW, the shop (which is an excellent one in Raleigh) towed the car in, drilled out the lugs, replaced the wheel bearing (since they had to take it apart anyway), remounted the tires correctly, checked everything for damage (there wasn't any), replaced five lugs, and washed it. It was all free (as it should be), and done the same day. Basically, they accepted responsibility immediately and did everything they could to make it right. The irony is that the mistake wasn't even made by their mechanic -- they farmed the tire mounting out to another shop (now bankrupt, most likely by no coindicence).

Anyway, the takehome message is that this can happen to you, without you realizing it. If you've replaced your tires since the car was new, you'd do well to make sure your rims are on the right axles. And while you're at it, you can also check that the tires are rolling the right way (another bozo mistake I'm sure happens). And if you're really anal, don't forget to line up the H on the hubs to point at the valve.

 

On the stock rims, the rim width is also engraved on the inner circuference of the rim. The front rim width is 6.5 inches and the rear rim width is 7.5 inches.

I find it interesting that this is one of the few non-metric measurements you can find on the S2000.

 

glad no one got injured, but I hope the s2000 is all fine too. Maybe its a good idea to get only the front pair, or the rear pair replaced at a time to make sure something like this doesn't happen.