Recently while on route to a western Qld hunting property I lost my right rear wheel on my 2012 Hilux. We were fully loaded with gear and towing a bogie axle trailer loaded with two quads and gear. At about 110km/hr, for a couple of seconds it was pretty hairy and when we finally came to a stop I was thankful we were all in one piece. When we got out to examine what had happened we noticed 150m or so back that there a grass fire on the side of the road, the backing plate of my brakes had dragged along the road and ground away creating molten metal which then ignited the grass. Thankfully we got that out after some tense moments. On examination, all my wheel studs were snapped. After some bush mechanics we got rolling again and limped into the next town and got repairs the next morning. The mechanic told me that he sees snapped wheel studs a quite bit with alloy rims and weight. Obviously I'm wanting to find the reason this happened so I have asked around a bit since and get mostly scratching of heads.
I rotated my tyres before I left, the same way I have done countless times in the past. After the first 500km I checked them all for finger tightness and they passed that check.(maybe I should of used a spanner) We made it to the first property only to be rained out and then have to move on to the another one. I would of travelled near 2500km when it happened. As I said all studs were snapped. On the wheel only a couple of holes had a little flogging out but it was on the inside and looked like studs that had snapped earlier had caused it. Just before it happened we had done 70km of dirt with a fair few cattle grids but it was by no means really rough dirt roads. I'm guessing my wheel nuts came loose but I'm far from convinced, especially being the right side and travelling that far. After the incident I obviously checked the tightness of all the other wheel nuts. On maybe 3 of the 18 I might of got 1/4 of a turn if I was lucky, not what you would call indicative of loose nuts.
Anyway I am interested if anyone has had similar experiences or may have an opinion on the matter.