Can you solve this?

Loose wheel.

Or something sticking in the tyre.

looking at the spelling I would say you were drunk

Correct, well done. The gentle acceleraton or braking takes up the slack, hence no noise. I had one missing bolt and three loose bolts including the locking bolt. How it happened is beyound me, the wheel had new tyre a couple a months ago and I often check the tyre pressures. The morale is: check the wheel bolts.

My first thought from inside the car, but I was wrong. Also something sticking, the noise would not go away when braking or acceleration, and then come back again when coasting along.

I assume that you fitted the wheel? Responsible tyre sellers torque up and double check the wheel nuts when a new tyre is fitted, they also make you sign that you will re-check the tightness of the nuts after 25 miles.

Depending on how far and hard you drove, the wheel or hub or mounting bolts may be damaged or weakened.

I did not! ATS fitted the wheel.

No I didn't recheck, but everything seemed OK since April when the tyre was fitted. I put air in tyres several times, but hard to see any slack unless you raise the wheel from ground. Its a mystery, but lesson learned.

I have known cases of wheel nuts being deliberately slackened by other people either as part of a theft attempt or in 'revenge'

Merely trying to move a wheel when it is in the air will not show undertightened wheel nuts (unless they are actually loose) The cycling of temperature and loading can make an undertightened wheel very loose over a period of weeks or months or years, checking wheel nut tightness is part of a service.

We are progammed to yes/no-thinking: A wheel is either on or off; nothing in between. That worked for me over 50 years...

I once came across a large 4x4 jeep type on the motorway which had lost a rear wheel, the weel had rolled and parked at the central reservation. The 4x4 looked quite funny as the rear dipped, the car was pointing sky high.

Correct, well done. The gentle acceleraton or braking takes up the slack, hence no noise. I had one missing bolt and three loose bolts including the locking bolt. How it happened is beyound me, the wheel had new tyre a couple a months ago and I often check the tyre pressures. The morale is: check the wheel bolts.

I remember our band's Transit van would sometimes loosen a front wheel nut. You could tell because it would start "creaking" at very low speeds. On a couple of occasions at petrol stations, I was even able to spot and warn other Transit drivers they had a loose nut.

(I seem to recall one side having left hand threads and the other was right hand, supposedly to help prevent them coming loose?!)

Gareth.

Also had this, the wheel bolts were the wrong type for the wheels and bottomed out on the threads before fully clamping the wheel. Looked and felt tight but there was still movement. Weird part is that there had been no problem until changing the tyres...

One was wrong, and they got switched when being put back on, so two were now wrong.

or did they leave out a wheel spacer?

BTW why is it called a "wheel nut", it's a bolt innit?

Depends upon the vehicle, which type it uses may vary.

No spacers, was a few years ago on a Sierra, think it was simply whoever had the car before us had changed the wheels from steel to Ford alloys and not fitted the right bolts.

As the other guy said, the problem showed up when the tyre place swapped the rear wheels from one side to the other. Swapping them back and fitting the correct bolts sorted it.

I've never found one of mine loose in 35 years, although I did once get out to investigate a friend's car to find that this was the source of the noise.

History? ISTR that studs with nuts were used in the distant past, but bolts have been the norm for, what, 40 years or more?

Not really, fords have gone back and forth, most use nuts again these days. Bolts can give severe problems when the exposed thread rusts beyond the hub flange, and are harder to re-fit the wheel after removal, especially with deep alloy wheels.