I've got an '02 protege5 that I took in last week for new pads, rotors (brand new, not ground down), and struts on all 4 wheels.

It all seemed fine until I was about 20 miles away from the mechanic and the brakes and rotors heated up. Then, it sounded like a helicopter was following my car--there was a really loud rushing/grinding noise from the rear of the car.

So then I'm driving it for a bit longer, thinking there's a stuck caliper or something or that the pads were just bigger than they should be, but then every time I hit a bump in the road, the car started almost fishtailing--the back and the front just wanted to go different ways.

At that point, I'd had enough and I pulled off the highway and called a tow truck to haul it back to the mechanic. As I slowed down, there was a rhythmic thumping noise in the back of the car like there was a loose bolt hitting on something every time the wheel turned. While I was waiting for the tow, I noticed that on both the back wheels, the lugnuts were so loose that all but 2 had fallen off on each wheel, and the lugnuts that were still on were so loose I could unscrew them by hand.

Could the loose or nonexistent lugnuts have caused the noises I heard and the fishtailing, or did they mess something else up? I'm going to go back there tomorrow, but I'd like to know what damage to look for when they put it up on the lift.

Even if it was just that they didn't put the wheels back on right, could this have caused any other damage in the 30 miles or so I drove it? I'd like to know what to look for while I can still get them to pay for it.

 

I'm surprised that you needed new rotors and struts (especially rotors) on a 2002. Did you have extremely high mileage? I would say that all of the problems could go back to failing to tighten the rear lugs after the repair work.

Driving it that far could have caused a great deal of damage, including damage to your wheels. I would inspect everything very thoroughly.

 

It's got about 100k miles on it. I took them at their word that the rotors were pretty bad. I didn't actually look at them once they came off, but I could see from the outside that they were pretty bad-off. The struts were toast.

I'll make sure they take a good look at the wheels and any damage they might have caused the back tires as well. The wheel studs even got bent from driving it that far on 2 lugnuts a piece.

Thanks!

 

If this botch-up was done by a Mazda dealer, report it up the Mazda chain and demand a full inspection and damage report of everything done against the original work order by a Mazda appointed mechanic (not that collection of brain-dead trogdolytes whose handiwork could have resulted in an accident causing death or injury).
It is a serious offense under most jurisdictions for a garage to deliver a vehicle in an unsafe condition to a customer, and by all accounts your vehicle was delivered to you in an extremely unsafe condition.