You`re absolutely right, Klaus. Last Spring i had my Montana "indie" guy looking for a set of rims but he hasn`t come up with anything yet. I`m thinking I`ll just go on the Cdn version of Craigslist to see what`s available.
These tire shop guys just can`t be trusted!

For me (I used 4 studded tires, alternating with summer-only high performance tires, on all my cars), I do the season change-over myself on all 3 of my cars, with an electric wrench to rapidly loosen and a torque wrench to tighten.

When I have to buy tires (snows or summer), I just bring them the tire-wheels (off the car) and let them demount the old tires and put on (and balance) the new ones. BTW, I like the Hunter Road-Force balancing machines: not only do they balance the tires, but they also tell the tech where to reposition/rotate the tire on the wheel in order to take into consideration irregularities on the tire and/or wheel -- as it's balanced, a pressure roller presses on the rotating tread to check for these imperfections -- and the resulting ride is like on glass.

It might seem like a lot of work for you, but it's worth the headaches from under- and over-torqueing the lug nuts.

Your wife was extremely fortunate.

I HATE going in for new tires, or any place where there is a chance a wheel will be removed. I have even been a victim of lug nut misfortunes when having my vehicles inspected. I always demand they hand torque my lug nuts, and I watch to make sure it is done that way. Don't let them sham you with torque sticks either. They are no better than the person using the air wrench. There is no excuse for screwing up tire/wheel service. This is one example of why I will continue to do my own service work until I can either no longer pick up a wrench, or get back up from the floor.

At least your wife had the smarts to be in touch with the feedback the car was sending and then making the decision to pull over and inspect.

"I thought if I just kept on driving it would go away".

Is there ever a bad time to compliment the DW on her good deed?

Ur a lucky man.

Either the tire shops forget to torque down the bolts or they speed drive them on at 100lbs so they can never come off again and 'warp' the rotors.

You should not have raised a little hell. You should have raised a lot of hell! Especially if there were other customers in the listening area. The manager should have a set procedure to mounting a wheel on the car, one is to have a manual listing every make and year torque requirements, the other is to HAND torque the bolts with the car on the ground.

When are you going to get a floor jack and do your own swaps? The next time down to MT, look for a set of reasonable wheels so you can keep the snow tires mounted.

After I picked up my rescue 854, I went to all 4 wheels and loosened the lug bolts and retorqued them to 81lbs. The brake shimmy went away. One of the lug bolts on the RF wheel needed me to jump on the lug wrench to break it loose, and I weigh 220lbs!