A few months ago, I picked up a cheap 2005 4Runner V8 2WD, which had a slight front-end vibration that I wisely ignored until recently.
A week or so ago, I felt a pretty severe thunk from the front LH wheel, followed by another thunk per wheel revolution. I managed to nurse it home. When I jacked it up and removed the wheel center cap, I saw this:
After removing the wheel, I saw this:
I was able to tap out the broken studs and replace them with some generic O'Reilly studs and new lug nuts.
Question What, other than over-torquing the lug nuts as tire shops are known to do, would cause this? These overly-blingy 22" aftermarket wheels also may be thicker than the stock wheels where they mate with the hub. I'm wondering if these require longer wheel studs.
Another disturbing phenomenon: one of the missing lug nuts fell out when I removed the center cap. The other two missing ones were nowhere to be found. This, to me, implies that the last person to put the wheel on didn't bother installing them. Thanks a lot, Tire Shop Dude. It's not like I use this thing to cart my kids around or anything.