Following the incident that was reported on this forum with Emero and Ajay, I have spent most of the today in collating the facts and circumstance before and after and have conclude the following points.

 

As reported on this forum Emero and Ajay were travelling along the M6 when a noise occurred from the rear of the car and the car then led to the right towards the centre barrier, Ajay was able to recover control and pull over to the hard shoulder and stop.

 

A break down service was called who I understand diagnosed possible bearing failure.

 

The car was recovered and further investigation showed the cause to be 4 of the 5 wheels studs had sheared on the near side (passenger) rear wheel, these have been replaced with new items by a third party..

 

Having spoken to the independent third part and Emero it would seem there was a number of people present when the car was recovered and some of the reports appear to have a number of inaccuracies within them, these are dealt with below.

 

 

Subject Points:

 

Wrong wheels fitted

Poor quality / wrong spacers fitted

Insufficient wheel stud thread

Wheel nuts not done up

 

 

 

1) The wheels fitted to the vehicle were in fact Japanese spec as they were the only ones available to us at the time in the repair time frame we had. The inference has been made is they were unsuitable, I would suggest you take that up with Nissan as they supply them as standard on their own home market car and fit without problem to a UK car as the hub assembly is the same.

 

2) Whilst I agree after consulting the fitter involved that wheel spacers were already fitted it would seem and is beared out by their condition that they were fitted to the car before we worked on it and were left on as they went with the car, we did not supply or fit these. Further more the use of wheel spacers is widespread and making a sweeping statement to their unsuitability is incorrect.

 

3) The spacers in question have been inspected by a third part and reported them to be approx. three mm in depth, this would leave more than enough wheel stud to retain the wheels.

 

4) The failure has been with the wheel studs themselves, having sheared at the hub unit this proves that the wheel nuts did NOT come undone due to a low tightening torque in fact we always correctly torque wheel nuts for this very reason.

 

 

 

I take any problem seriously and will continue to look in to this and inspect the remaining studs (still in Emero`s possession) the wheels and spacers.

 

It seems without doubt that a failure of the stud integrity led to this incident and to draw conclusions as to why this occurred without the full facts( as many have done) is simply put a non technical and amateur approach of which I take no part in.

 

But in the vain of similar conclusions made by others it could be argued that as previously to the accident damage repair the vehicle had NON STANDARD NON NISSAN 17” wheels fitted with SPACERS that the extra load those wheels had exerted on the studs had been the root cause of the problem and possibly if the car had not suffered accident damage the studs may of failed in time anyway..who knows. This is not my conclusion but could be if using the same methods of others who have posted on this thread.

 

At no time does any vehicle leave us with wheels, brakes or any suspension part loose or incorrectly fitted. We have a professional approach and make every effort to ensure mistakes are NOT made and in fact utilise a checking system to prevent this.

 

I must add also that the vehicle left us some two months previous to the incident, the vehicle has been used in between then and we have no control or knowledge of how, when or how often. That said, the repair we undertook was concentrated on the front of the vehicle and the the changing of a single rear link on the opposite side of the vehicle to which has had the stud failure.

 

The vehicle was inspected by ourselves, body alignment centre and a Ministry Approved Centre who passed it.

 

I am sure that the changing of wheel studs on any vehicle which had suffered accident damage could be argued but when in this case even the official insurance report did NOT mention it would seem unlikely that it is usual practice to change these. In fact how far do you go? who decides? the skill and experience of the repairer? well in this case the car has passed through many hands after the repair with no mention to the studs? Also some time following the repair a serious puncture meant two new tyres were fitted albeit at the front but the point I am making is did those guys have any responsibility to check the rear studs? no course they did not but this is where the US style blame manufacturing has crept in to our everyday life.

In fact what is the life expectancy of a wheel stud? it could be argued that they should be changed as a precautionary measure at 50K miles or less? this illustrates the ridiculous nature of so called keyboard experts that have question the stud failure without knowing the true facts.

 

 

Repair cost £3k

Finally although this does not directly effect the origin of the forum post some of you seem to be alarmed at the repair cost that was charged to correct the accident damage. I am dumfounded by the severity of the criticism again without cause or full facts.

 

The car was an uneconomical write off by virtue that an insurance quote was in excess of

£7k !

The car was undoubtedly repairable and it was the decision of the owner to buy back the car and have it repaired at a lower cost by using used parts and have some cash left over for the trouble and that is what happened, A ball park figure was reached based on available part prices and the £3k price agreed in full BEFORE any work was started.

 

Whilst the work was underway labour costs from the body shop and alignment centre were higher than expected and also was the time (not necessary the cost) locating and collecting good used parts, the mileage and hours involved actually doubled our cost's but we did not increase the price at all and took only a modest profit regardless of what anyone else thinks we covered our man hours, workshop costs and that was about it. Emero would tell you this herself as we conversed through out the repair process and incidentally many of our visitors saw the extent of the damage and many of you were complimentary when repaired pictures were posted! to the one involved in the personal character assassination of me you can't have it all ways! that simply is unfair and unjust.

 

If anyone has anything more to say why not call me or even better visit me and I will explain the cost breakdown of the repair and how the work was done and then you just might have a different opinion.

 

I have said all I am going to say on this subject now and to the people who know me well and have mailed and called me thank you for your support, and to the baying hyenas who trawl this forum just looking to crucify any unsuspecting unfortunate well you will conclude whatever you want I cannot change that just don't let you prejudice against me spoil this forum for the rest of the members.

 

Emero has advised me she may post tomorrow.

 

Jeff

Jeff, although we all feel this is an important subject do you realy have to post it on 8 seperate threads (& counting) FFS

Jay i really do take your point but I wanted to be open and factual and to post on most of the forums seemed the right way to do it, that way it is unlikely to be missed by anyone and also prevents anyone accusing me of trying to bury it.

 

Jeff

Jeff,

 

A lot of people look at posts using "View New Posts" so we got a fairly healthy bombardment. Despite my flippant remarks, I do respect you for being open with your views. There's plenty of companies who've received a grilling on here yet I only recall one other prepared to respond (Pete R years ago).

 

I do hope the whole thing is resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

 

Dave