Wait, how did you still have the original lug nuts AFTER the wheel had fallen off ?
You would not have gone 2 miles let alone 200 if someone had removed your lug nuts. They just loosened up. Also there is no way the studs weren’t damaged. That thumping noise you heard was the wheel studs and the holes in your wheels chewing at each other. At least you now what a loose wheel sounds and feels like and won’t have on one again.
No, don’t have the original lug nuts on that wheel. I had all the other lug nuts replaced on the other wheels, and of course they put new ones on the wheel that fell off.
Before the wheel fell off it was a thunk-thunk sound that was clearly syncing with the wheel rotation. There wasn’t any vibration. There was no problem with the car pulling. Of course immediately before the wheel fell off it got shaky but up until then the car was steady feeling.
Today I had the car towed because yesterday when I started to work the car was vibrating strongly. I’ve gotten thin-skinned about driving it with any problems since having the wheel come off.
The one thing I see in common between the first incident and this one is that both times the car had been recently loaded up with a lot of weight. On the first trip we were going camping and had the back loaded to the gills. Last weekend I did a lot of landscaping around my house and hauled a bunch of heavy bags of soil. So, maybe that is a factor.
That wouldn’t be a factor. Excess weight could cause other types of damage, but not problems with the studs & lug nuts, or with the lug nuts coming off the studs.
But, in fact, the studs were not damaged and neither was the wheel. This is why my mechanic believes the car was tampered with. I vacillate between thinking that is crazy and thinking it is the only explanation. What I keep getting hung up on is that the car ran so well all the way to the event and immediately started making the noises when we left. My mechanic figures someone took off most of the nuts and left one or two lightly screwed on.
Anyway, the shuddering went away and my mechanic can’t find anything wrong with it. I’ve been driving it the last three days and it’s back to being perfect again. I’m still skittish about every little noise and bump but right now it seems to be in good shape.
That’s good to hear. Yuo might want to keep a torque wrench with the proper size deep socket handy in the wayback just as a precaution.
That’s a good idea. I like that. It at the very least will make a nice security blanket. 
Personally, I think that all drivers should carry a torque wrench in their car.
If you have to change a tire by the side of the road, you don’t want to wind up damaging your brake rotors by applying improper/uneven torque to the various lug nuts. And, even if you have AAA or some similar service do the actual tire-changing for you, you can still step in at the last moment to ensure proper lug nut tightening.
Harbor Freight has decent-quality torque wrenches at very good prices, and they even come in a nice plastic case that will keep it from being damaged if it is thrown around a bit in “the wayback” of your car. While those HF torque wrenches might not be sturdy enough for constant use, they are fine for the car owner who only uses them occasionally.
Ha ha the “wayback.” hadn’t heard that in a while. We used to call it “the deck” when we were kids and we would sleep on the deck in the station wagon on long trips to grammas. Oh those were the days! The days before child safety seats that is.
Good Lord, you’ve brought back memories. We used to put everything flat and sleep in my dad’s 195? Pontiac wagon.