I was just washing my S2K and noticed that one of my spline drive lug nuts is missing on one of the rear wheels (not sure how that happened!!)--so now the passenger side rear wheel has 4 lugs on it instead of 5. I don't know how long it's been that way, but that last time I washed it (2 weeks ago or so) I didn't notice it, so I'm guessing it's been sometime since then.
Everything has felt totally normal and the wheel/hub looks OK other than the missing lugnut, so is there anything that could be messed up as a result of that lugnut missing?
Is it real harmful to drive like that for a short time until I can get another lugnut in (I'll have to have one shipped to me ASAP from the place I bought the wheels from so it'll match and fit the rims)?

Thanks!

 

Make sure they are torqued to 80 and you should be fine to drive on it for a little while. don't do burnouts or take corners super hard.

 

 

regarding the rear, i lost one of my half-shaft nuts shortly after my differential swap but never an actual lug nut, random torque checks on my lug nuts sometimes revealed loose nuts and i was uncomfortable with just that, let alone one missing completely...

 

Did the lug nut break of the stem or did it just fall off? If it fell off go to you local auto parts store and buy one for 2 dollars. No point in driving on it like that for no reason you never know what may happen...

 

Yes, it is a problem! Scary thing is that by now you *may* have fatigued the other studs. Get it fixed IMMEDIATELY if not sooner!

 

so, there is this guy driving down the side of a road when he gets a flat tire. He proceeds to change the flat tire but loses the lug nuts. He doesn't know what he's going to do, how is he going to secure the wheel without the lugnuts. Luckily for him the road was next to an insane asylum, and just then one of the crazies behind the fence gives him some advice. He says your problem is very easy to solve, just take one lug nut from each of the other wheels. The guy is amazed, he couldn't believe how the crazy had managed to figure that out. So, he ask, how such a smart man could be in an insane asylum, and the crazy responded, I'm crazy, not stupid.

 

Hmm..has anyone personally drove with only 4 lugs on a wheel? I have b/c when I got my new tires, the stupid shop stripped one lug out. I drove for a week without one, on the highway at about 70mph, twice, with no problems whatsover. I had to wait for my new lugs to come in and its my DD, so if I had to go anywhere, I had to drive my car since its my only car.

 

 

Older Civics/Integras, etc all came with only 4 lugnuts in the first place, and they are still rolling around just fine. So losing one lugnut out of five isn't a huge deal. The car is engineered with some margin of safety.

Just don't stress them out on purpose by trying to drift, etc.