I have a 98 jeep cherokee sport that i absolutely love. it has 250K+ milage, strong engine, strong tranny. However… a few months ago i busted a wheel bearing on the front passenger side… got it fixed and got new tires as it caused my front passenger side tire to warp. everything was going smoothly. until i noticed a grinding noise in the front driver side wheel. it stops when i hit the brakes. the grinding noise gets pretty loud, very noticeable. was kind of thinking maybe a stuck break pad? not sure. my boyfriend is a mechanic… usually his answer to my concers about the jeep are, “what noise?”… anyway… yesterday he was taking the jeep to go to work and the front driver side wheel flew off. no one was hurt, including the jeep. he put the tire back on with new lug nuts. my question is, was it really just a case of maybe loose lug nuts or is there something way more serious going on that i should be taking the jeep to someone other than the boyfriend or should i push it off a cliff? it’s a great jeep, it’s treated me so well for the last 2 upstate new york winters and i really don’t want to get rid of it, but i don’t want to get hurt or hurt anyone else. Thanks a lot!
IF you like the jeep, keep it. Consider this a one-time incident unless proven otherwise later. I hope your boy friend check all four wheels and checked the torque on all the lug nuts, not just the one that caused the issue.