Tires Gone Missing
 

In 1972 it took me a month or so to $ave up the $27 for *one* new tire for my old VW Beetle, less than a week later I came out to discover a bald tire in it's place.....

I was in Castaic driving North on the i5 when an old guy in a battered looking Alfa Romeo passed me on three wheels, his missing wheel passed me on the right and plopped in the ditch ~ he signaled and pulled right to chase it .

Probably lug bolts not torqued properly and worked loose on their own.
Walk out to my 85 300d finding the exhaust system laying on the ground, thought someone trying to steal it for scrap. Found the brittle doughnuts on the ground before calling the po-po. Five bucks and three minutes fixed, lucky they did not let go on the road.

^^^ X2

I had the same thing happen on my SL. Worked on the suspension and had all 4 wheels off. Torqued all the lug bolts (or so I thought) and went on my way. A few days later I kept noticing an occasional soft knocking noise when changing lanes or making a very slow turn. It got progressively louder until I pulled over to take a look. Found all 5 lug bolts on the front right wheel loose. I'd snugged them, but not torqued them once the wheel was back on the ground.

Don't jump to conclusions that someone's stealing your old Mercedes rim. If they wanted it, they'd have taken it.

Folks, I never said I thought someone was trying to steal my wheel/tire. What I said was lately we have had some instances in town where kids have been playing around with peoples car, and I think someone may have loosened the lugs on the one wheel just to be funny.

Anyway, that apparently was the cause of the knocking sound as once I retorqued the lug nuts, the car was fine again.

Or someone was going to steal a wheel and for some reason did not finish.
It does shows the importance of checking the basics.