Yes. I have taken to looosening and retorquing the bolts any time I have tires replaced. Some garages claim to use special torque-flexing bits, but they work only if you use them right.
I often found a tree frog or lizard under the charge flap of my BMW i3. One of them might have been useful in your case.
Mice will, on occasion, eat the insulation off wires. Of course, liking a humid environment, they also piss on everything in sight. It can be almost impossible to trace when they get in deep. But if they get the right parts of the right harness, they can total a car even if it doesn't burn.
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Another thing you could do to help loosen a nut is to carry a mallet along with the cross wrench. It's something I learnt from my father, he'd usually kick down on the wrench, but he always carries a plastic head mallet as it's often easier to bash the wrench that way.
Whilst I can, and have, changed a tyre ( or more accurately a wheel I suppose), if I'm by the side of a busy road then I'll leave it to the professionals for safety's sake.
Be a man. Put out a flare, get out the jack and go to work.
No thanks, I'd rather not end up dead.
That's why you put out the flare. But I get it. I guess I wasn't born with a silver spoon. The benefits of being privileged. Must be nice. Never called anyone ever to change a tire. In fact, if I see someone with a flat tire I'm likely to change it for them if they don't know how or are unable.
By all means put out a flare, but it won't stop you getting plowed into if the driver isn't paying attention and I'm certainly not comfortable changing a tyre on the hard shoulder of the motorway with lorries going past a couple of feet away at 56 mph.
Hey, I get it. It's scary as hell sometimes changing a tire in the wrong spot. But they can also plow into your car while you wait for someone to arrive and change it. I don't like that idea either. I'd rather get it done in the ten minute it takes me to do it. Like I said, I don't have enough extra cash to pay someone to do a job I can easily do myself.
While I am much in the same situation owing mostly to cussedness rather than necessity, I must point out that many of the vehicles now produced are not so amenable to some of the things we once did, and many of the roads likewise. I live out in the country in the USA, where quick roadside service is not likely to be had, and the roads around here allow one most of the time to get safely off on the side. You still run some risk in the breakdown lanes of major highways, but that's the case even if all you do is stop and wait. I don't belong to any auto clubs and the like, so I don't know whom I'd call anyway. But I'm a crusty raggy old swamp Yankee. I like to do things not everyone likes to do.
It's not so much scary as dangerous. And standard practice is to get out of the car and wait safely away from the vehicle, exactly because there is a significant risk of someone colliding with the stopped car, even on motorways that (still) have a dedicated hard shoulder.
