<ALL> Flying Wheel Mystery

["Mike Theuri" <mikesoft@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm trying to solve an incident that happened three
weeks ago. I happened to be indisposed at a time
when my car had a flat. So I had someone trustable
enough change the wheel and then have the original
put back on when it was fixed so that it wouldn't run
on the spare. This was on the rear left tire. He did 
say that he tightened all the lug nuts all round. It 
so happens at about 2am travelling on I-40 from 
Little Rock at about 80 the wheel flies off. Thanks to
German engineering and a seat belt the driver is in 
full control and manages to get the car to a complete
stop safely off the road on three wheels and the hub 
gets to rest on the grass. The wrecker guy is shocked,
he says if it wasn't a freak accident then it had to be
sabotage. Two lug nuts are broken while two didn't
leave a trace that they ever existed. Further examination
reveals that the two missing lug nuts were next to 
each other and not opposite same case for the remaining 
two lug nuts. The hub is not damaged, something needs
to be straightened but no big deal. A set of new lug nuts 
from the dealership and a next day trip to find the missing 
wheel do the trick and the car is back on the road as before 
no problems at all.  Only one question remains.....what might 
have caused the wheel to fly off ? Hope someone can enlighten 
me. Thanks.

Michael Theuri 
'86 325

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