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Wheel split…. 😳…. UPDATE with cause post #27

LHC Kirby

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Headed to Havasu.,. 15 north was jacked up bad from 91 to the 10. So decided to take 71 to Euclid to Foothill blvd. To the 15 …. might not save time, but at least I was moving.

Foothill approached vineyard red light. 5-10 mph and all of a sudden… back right off suburban drops with a horrible noise. I get out and look… flat tire… but it didn’t sound like a blowout. 😯

I pull in to the Arco station on the corner. As I drove it… I’m thinking, this does not feel like a flat tire…. 😩
Look under the car…. Fluid puddle developing at tire. AND the wheel is split in two.

Okay… so the trip to Havasu is officially canceled.

It’s 6:15 … so car rentals are closed except at the Ontario airport. UBER !!! left the wife and dog with the Burb, got a rental and back to the wife.

2.5 hours for the flat bed. Got the tow back to Mission Viejo and will see the mechanic in the morning.

Wondering if there was a bolt loose that rubbed on the wheel… created a weak spot? I have only one other thought - wheel just failed. Internet search didn’t help.

Anyone else experience this?

Last picture is just a thank you for looking at this post to the end.
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Crazyhippy

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Kick a brake pad out? How old are the rear brakes?
 

Backlash

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That's the best looking rearend I've seen in a few hours! 😉 Glad you are all OK and nothing serious happened. Sucks to hear your trip was cancelled though. 👎
 

Orange Juice

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I’m sure if you look close enough, you’ll see what is rubbing on the inside of the rim.

I’d check the other side too. Might have same situation.

If that’s brake fluid, I’d start with the calibers. Did you recently get new brakes, or new wheels?
 

Riverbottom

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Factory wheel or aftermarket? Seen this a few times with Chinese wheels when I worked in the body shop.

P.S. nice rear end !
 

DB / HAV

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Factory wheel or aftermarket? Seen this a few times with Chinese wheels when I worked in the body shop.

P.S. nice rear end !
This would be my question- stock or aftermarket wheel? Glad everyone is okay and this wasn’t out on the 40. Hope your day gets better
 

LargeOrangeFont

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As stated, caliper came loose or rock got wedged in there and sawed the wheel in half.
 

monkeyswrench

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Have another theory, but have never seen it: if the service brake rotor itself broke free of the park drum section, in theory it could drop out of position. It would wedge by rotation between caliper and rim. Never seen it, but have seen some real interesting "covid parts" the past year or so. Things with messed up tolerances and machining.

We would like to launch a full CSI inquiry into this incident ;)
I'm curious as hell, and have the same setup on my wife's ride.
 

CLdrinker

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Take it to a brake shop and toss on the spare.
 

DaveC

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Damn. You better get a closer look at that rear end….. maybe check it’s oil. Does it need a dipstick?

safety first 👍
 

Badchoices03

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Not sure what year your burb is or if it even matters....but years ago we were in my friends suburban in Mexico and pulled up to one of the toll road booths just as it was closing and we had to back up to get into a different lane...as my buddy started backing up and it felt like the brake was on, he gave it some gas, and nothing, put it in drive and moved forward no problem, put it back in reverse and the burb would not move....we get out and I crawl under to check if maybe the E-brake was sticking and I noticed the rear brake caliper had lost the top bolt and fallen back onto the wheel, so in forward it would just rub but in reverse it would actually jam up...I used some shoe strings to tie the caliper back up and it got us to the next little tire shop where they were able to put a bolt back into it....the rim had a perfect line inside where the caliper had been rubbing...we had driven in from Whittier that day, so who knows how long it was like that, but my buddy said he never felt anything different while driving.

Could maybe be that same scenario??
 

LHC Kirby

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Stock wheels.. brakes done about 3 years ago. No weird noises prior to failure. Brakes operating normal until failure. It’s at the shop, I’ll post pictures and what we THINK or know what happened when I find out.
I’ll check the other side for sure.
If no clear reason on failure of the rim (no outside force - just failure)- I’ll replace all four.
Tire will be replaced, although it’s new back in January, tire sitting with that mess on it since 6:15 last night.. toast!!

Thanks for the feedback
 

LargeOrangeFont

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View attachment 1153293
Stock wheels.. brakes done about 3 years ago. No weird noises prior to failure. Brakes operating normal until failure. It’s at the shop, I’ll post pictures and what we THINK or know what happened when I find out.
I’ll check the other side for sure.
If no clear reason on failure of the rim (no outside force - just failure)- I’ll replace all four.
Tire will be replaced, although it’s new back in January, tire sitting with that mess on it since 6:15 last night.. toast!!

Thanks for the feedback

Those are single piece cast alloy wheels. Something made a groove in the wheel and it just cracked along the groove. I’m sure the culprit will be obvious when you get the wheel off.

You can see how tight those wheels are to the caliper too. If a bolt backed off, the brakes would still work while the caliper was dragging on the wheel.
 

Riverbottom

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Are you the original owner of the Suburban? I have seen reconditioned factory wheels ( Keystone etc. ) that have had half the rim replaced and welded on. I hated using them, but some insurance companies are cheap.
 

MK1MOD0

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The inside of the wheel will tell the story, whether there is a cut groove or not. Interesting to say the least. Luckily, no one was hurt !
 

pixrthis

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Headed to Havasu.,. 15 north was jacked up bad from 91 to the 10. So decided to take 71 to Euclid to Foothill blvd. To the 15 …. might not save time, but at least I was moving.

Foothill approached vineyard red light. 5-10 mph and all of a sudden… back right off suburban drops with a horrible noise. I get out and look… flat tire… but it didn’t sound like a blowout. 😯

I pull in to the Arco station on the corner. As I drove it… I’m thinking, this does not feel like a flat tire…. 😩
Look under the car…. Fluid puddle developing at tire. AND the wheel is split in two.

Okay… so the trip to Havasu is officially canceled.

It’s 6:15 … so car rentals are closed except at the Ontario airport. UBER !!! left the wife and dog with the Burb, got a rental and back to the wife.

2.5 hours for the flat bed. Got the tow back to Mission Viejo and will see the mechanic in the morning.

Wondering if there was a bolt loose that rubbed on the wheel… created a weak spot? I have only one other thought - wheel just failed. Internet search didn’t help.

Anyone else experience this?

Last picture is just a thank you for looking at this post to the end.
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We had that happen to a Ford passenger van at work, same exact thing.
 

Justfishing

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So he didnt get a flat tire first. He didn't hear anything. He didnt have driveability issues such as pulling when braking etc. I would guess a catastrophic failure at a weld.
 

LHC Kirby

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Top bolt of brake caliper fell out, caliper rubbed on wheel long enough to cause wheel to fail.

Yes I do my own brakes, I have for over 40 years. I always use a torque wrench to specs. Did I miss this one? Freak incident?
I know I will check all caliper bolts every time I rotate tires from now on.

Fluid is brake fluid, we think it just loosened the fitting, as the hose connection is loose - not broken. but they are going to do a full check, fill, bleed and double check for leaks.

On my way to get tire and wheel so they can complete the repair.

Thanks for the feedback guys!


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Ziggy

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I just happier than pig in shit the freeway was jacked up, you were on side roads and not on the 15 or 40 doing 75+. Your guardian 🧚‍♀️ was clearly looking out for you guys.👍🥰
 

jetboatperformance

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Nice Tush "split" !!! sorry bout your wheel have tens of thousands of Mechanical damage inspections under my belt never seen that ever
 

Badchoices03

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What kinda stereo you have in that thing, that had to made a horrible grinding noise for awhile.

You would be surprised, read my story above, same thing happened to us but we caught it before any real damage happened, and nobody in the car heard anything and the driver said he didn't feel any difference while driving and braking
 

River Runnin

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Some things I just won't do! -- Even if I did sleep at an Howard Johnsons! ;)
 

C-2

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Top bolt of brake caliper fell out, caliper rubbed on wheel long enough to cause wheel to fail.
This recently happened on my daughter's piece of shit 2014 Jeep. It's yet ANOTHER known problem on Jeeps.

Except in her case, when you braked it sounded like somebody hit the rim with a hammer. The rear top caliper bracket bolt backed out and it was the caliper hitting against the inside of the rim.

Luckily I caught it pretty quick, but I asked her...how the hell can you miss that noise? Yup, loud stereo.

I had to wait two weeks for a new OEM bolt to come in and then I re-torqued all of them with Loctite.
 

Flying_Lavey

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You would be surprised, read my story above, same thing happened to us but we caught it before any real damage happened, and nobody in the car heard anything and the driver said he didn't feel any difference while driving and braking
Were those calipers on the rear of the axle though? With the OP's being on the leading side of the axle, the top bolt falling out would put it in position to bind up like you described. And I know how that feels and works as I had the same thing happen in my '95 Thunderbird once. Caliper bracket bolt fell out (I likely didnt tighten it after the last brake job and driving down the road it was fine, but as soon as I hit the brakes, all kinds of weird noises and vibrations.
 

LargeOrangeFont

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Were those calipers on the rear of the axle though? With the OP's being on the leading side of the axle, the top bolt falling out would put it in position to bind up like you described. And I know how that feels and works as I had the same thing happen in my '95 Thunderbird once. Caliper bracket bolt fell out (I likely didnt tighten it after the last brake job and driving down the road it was fine, but as soon as I hit the brakes, all kinds of weird noises and vibrations.

The caliper is so close to the rim of the wheel on his combination you’d never really notice, and it can’t move far enough of the pads to lock up the drive wheel or make a horrible noise. It was probably like that grinding away on and off for awhile.
 
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Flying_Lavey

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The caliper is so close to the rim of the wheel on his combination you’d never really notice, and it can’t move far enough of the pads to lock up the drive week or make a horrible noise. It was probably like that grinding away on and off for awhile.
For mine the rotation of the rotor pushed the caliper out into the wheel. When I let off the rotation pulled it back in. Kinda weird, I know, but thats what it did.
 

boatpi

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Turo car rentals, get the app go on your credit card and they will actually bring the car to you. Try to use an All-Star host they usually have 20 to 30 cars in their pool
 

LHC Kirby

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The caliper is so close to the rim of the wheel on his combination you’d never really notice, and it can’t move far enough of the pads to lock up the drive wheel or make a horrible noise. It was probably like that grinding away on and off for awhile.
Exactly. Nailed it !
 

lbhsbz

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Metal rubbing on metal is surprisingly quiet on these…when they went to rear discs in late ‘99/2000, the banksia parking brake setup was a dumbass design…the shoe on one side would fall out of its retention and rub itself raw on the brake rotor hat, going metal to metal and usually resulting in significant wear to the rotor….and it was always silent.

It doesn’t take much wear to create a stress riser and a fracture in a stress component like a wheel. I doubt it was rubbing for very long.
 

lbhsbz

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OP be like...note to self...stop doing my own brakes at home. 😂😂
You would be amazed how often this occurs. Anyone that's ever done brakes on the back of one of these things has fought with the stupid bolts holding the bracket onto the knuckle...they're covered in yellow threadlocking glue and torqued by THOR himself. They still fall out...somehow. We used to get lots of cores in that we had to scrap because they had wheel rash on 'em.

I'll admit this....I did a brake job on a mercedes for a friend of the boss one day. I got a call from bossman about 3 years later one night saying that his buddy called him and something was grinding, so he'd pulled over and walked the block and a half to dinner somewhere in Brentwood. Being the way I am, I grabbed a handful of hardware and tools and headed out there. Same thing had happened. Bolt was gone. dunno where it went or why it took 3 years to disappear, but it was gone. Luckily I found a suitable replacement in my handful that I brought along.
 

bk2drvr

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The reason it takes so long for the bolt to back out (years) is caliper brackets are always held on with fine thread bolts. They use them intentionally for this reason. I’ve done brakes on the Chevys I’ve owned my whole life. May start using a thread lock after seeing this. Glad you were rolling slow when it let go.
 
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