So how about that, front wheel flew off!

29 now, but when I was 18/19, I was daily driving a 2000 civic (i know...) and for some reason I removed the front spindles/control arms. When reassembling, the large castle nut holding the assembly to the lower ball joint gave me some trouble beginning threading.

I decided it would be a good idea to buzz it on with the impact wrench. The other end of the stud ended up looking completely smooth like a rod. no threads left.

But it was tight, i said. So put it back together.

A few days later, I was turning left on to Canoga from Nordhoff, and the nut gave out, and threw the entire front wheel, braking assm, and suspension out from the bottom.

At that point, I decided that I would never do anything that stupid again, and slow down, and be sure you're working on 100%. I used to try to pull the all nighter stuff 10 years ago. Im not even 30 yet, but I can definitely tell the difference in my output when I'm not 100%.

Also, on a side note, regarding that same civic, The LAST AND FINAL time I let anyone work on any of my cars was at my family's trusted mechanic, who we used for years. The job was a simple brake job on the civic. Leaving the shop in West Hills, I was driving on the 101 east around the 405, I went to apply the brakes, and got a giant clunk and then continuous grinding noise. Made it back to my inlaws house in North Hollywood, and pulled wheel off. They failed to fully tighten the upper caliper bolt, and when I hit the brakes, the top half of the caliper flew forward and etched a very geometrically accurate ring into the inside of the aluminum wheel.

Since then, no one has worked on any of our cars, except for out-of-car machine work on engines.

Glad you're ok after this, I still think about that lower control arm, and if it happened on the freeway - I might not be posting this, or anything.