I owned a 1998 Ford Windstar
I owned a 1998 Ford Windstar and at 69,000 miles the right front wheel came off as I was driving. I had vibration for a few miles before the “incident” but nothing looked out of the ordinary. I thought I had a bad brake rotor. All 5 wheel studs sheared off and amazingly nobody was hurt. I filed a complaint with NHTSA, as did over 1600 other Windstar owners, but when I called Ford I was told by a Ford lawyer it was my fault for either over- or under-tightening the lug nuts. The problems went away with a change in the van model year. These current problems are exactly the same as the problems I had. See http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/defects/ and do a search for 1998 Windstar wheel/lug nuts. Incidentally, when I retrieved the wheel the next day (in a ditch), all 5 lug nuts were still firmly attached to the wheel studs, the problem was that they were lying in the plastic wheel hubcap in a ditch and not on the car: the lug nuts looked just like they should from the outside. The problem in the late ’90′s and today is an unexpected stress placed on the wheels that Ford has not isolated; a recall will not solve the problem.