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nope never done it. Totally forgot and in the old days there was no such thing. I will check them next time out.

I have never done it and never had a problem either on this caravan with alloy wheels or any of the other caravans that I have had with steel wheels. They get visually inspected each time before I set off, but that is all.

Quote: Originally posted by Brian T on 28/5/2009

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For goodness sake what happened to common sense. 

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Quote: Originally posted by tykey on 27/5/2009

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Has anyone ever had their caravan (or car wheels) come loose?

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The wheel came off my parents caravan a couple of years ago when they were holidaying in France. 

It was a new van, they had only had a couple of weekend outings in it before the holiday.  They were on a motorway at the time, so a relatively high speed incident resulting in a lot of damage but thankfully they got out of it safely, albeit shaken.  The supplying dealer pointed out the small print in the sale agreement states that you should check your wheel nuts after the first thirty miles of use, and regularly thereafter.  My parents now check their wheel nuts regularly.

Far more regularly than we do in fact  (makes mental note to get on and check them!)

Bought a torque wrench a couple of weeks ago? only because it was brand new Machine Mart returned stock and £6!!! Never felt the need to own one until then, growing up in engineering, it's second nature to how tight things should be.

The problem for the inexperienced is a lack of 'feel' for how tight a nut/bolt should be, the torque wrench takes that problem away and turning the amateur into a reasonable expert

Why do wheels come off caravans? (and they do all to regularly!), is most often because the wheels are not balanced and then only the nearside one.will work loose, the offside bolts/nuts actually tend to try and tighten themselves up!!

Other reasons are widely short of the correct torque in the first place, or, quite common for rust/dirt on the mating surfaces to break down and allow an apparantly correctly torqued nut to come loose.

Another 'reason'  I've heard is the wheels have been half stolen! in other words someones loosenened them ready for removal later!!, all things are possible I suppose??

For myself, I never check van or car, fiirst I know they were clean and tight enough in the first place and second all wheels are of course balanced.

One more thing, when you do check them with a torque wrench, always loosen first and bring back to the correct torque, never just 'pull' them up or you can get a false reading

Gary- surely by loosening the nuts and re-torquing them, you will then need to re-check them after another 30 miles?

Personally I always torque every nut that I have the correct setting for, but mainly to prevent myself from overtightening it.  I found that by fitting wheel nuts with a wheel brace you naturally put the nuts on too tight.  I've also stripped the threads on other nuts before now through my own clumsiness!

Quote: Originally posted by tykey on 28/5/2009

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Quote: Originally posted by Brian T on 28/5/2009

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For goodness sake what happened to common sense. 

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It's gone out of the window. Perhaps people are being affected by all the Safety nonsense we keep hearing about.
(Not that safety isn't important, but not where the risks are obviously miniscule)

If you actually followed all the advice available,(such as cleaning the towball) you would never set off on holiday.

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This is nothing new, when we bought our first caravan in the early 90s, there had been a spate of wheels falling off caravans. There was a large sign at the exit to the caravan dealer saying "Have you checked your wheel nuts?"

Our caravan had its first service last month with a mobile dealer and he commented that the wheel nuts on ours were not tight. The risks are obviously NOT miniscule. As has been pointed out above, while we get car wheels balanced, caravan wheels are not and this may explain why it could be a problem with caravans and not cars.

Quote: Originally posted by Captain Caveman on 28/5/2009

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Gary- surely by loosening the nuts and re-torquing them, you will then need to re-check them after another 30 miles?

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A good point but two things, as I said, done correctly in the first place there should be no need to check your work later?!

Second though, I'd say 30miles is far to long, I'd expect a 'loose' nearside wheel to come off before that. If I was concerned, I'd give it 5 miles to shake any muck loose and settle, then simply re-tighten without slackening first. If infact I did find slackness, then I would recheck the same way again, perhaps after a total of 30 miles.

What I was saying earlier is, after a good time the wheel nuts will 'set' and extra torque would be required to pull them tighter so perhaps giving a false reading. Following on from that fact, why disturb them?