A son dropped off the family runabout on Tuesday, he had made the arrangement last week. 3+mm on tyres but winter is coming. Coming up for 8 year old but a great 2nd hand buy - paint still fresh and starts & goes well.
Lunchtime phone call - Your car failed it's MoT - bulge on inside of nearside front tyre, otherwise car is OK. The tyres have not been delivered but they are on a van due later today.
Phone call 4pm - We have not managed to get the off-side front wheel off - we have rounded the locking nut! We have also marked the wheel.
The good news is we have the damaged tyre replaced and your car now has now passed the MoT.
You can pick the car up. We will get the car back in and a "specialist" will get the locking nut off tomorrow - re-arranged to Friday.
Son picks up car pays the bill & leaves. Dark when he gets home but car runs fine.
Daylight - the front wheel with the locking nut problems look like it had been attacked with an axe - paint off, scars everywhere. The tyre outlet says they will arrange the 2 front wheels to be refurbished locally.
At this point my son had noticed and extra line on the Invoice - MoT retest £27! Refunded no argument.
The saga continues - car to be dropped off today. Locking nut to be taken off, New tyre and new set of locknuts to be fitted.
Refurbishing the wheels will be sometime soon, hopefully.
My son & I have used the tyre outlet for years - tyres, exhausts etc etc.
At least 2 changes of ownership but generally they have been very good - not the cheapest but a good level of service over say 15-20 years.
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I wouldn’t bother with the locking wheel nuts . All they do is create grief to the legitimate owner of the vehicle.
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>> I wouldn’t bother with the locking wheel nuts . All they do is create grief
>> to the legitimate owner of the vehicle.
That.
Exactly.
One on our Berlingo got mangled along with the key. Headache to sort and eventually resolved by purchase of four standard wheel nuts.
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The massacred front wheels problem now solved.
The car was taken in on Monday to a body shop to have the wheels attended to.
The invoice for the wheel damage was £240 - that was more than the 2 Avon tyres & the MoT for the Aygo.
The money was to be paid, in advance of the work being done, into my son's account by the Tyre Company. Underpaid (£219) for some reason. They agreed to pay the difference - this took the total paid into his account of £247.
He has used that outlet for a few years for tyres and exhausts etc - the staff, who had been doing a good job in the past had completely changed in the last 12 months.
Needless to say he will not be going back there!
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Why is lockiing wheel nuts still a thing? Is alloy wheel theft still a thing now most cars have them? It seemed to me they were never really a deterrent anyway. Surely the best way was the humph way, kerb & scuff them up as soon as you get the car, and bingo - no issue
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My 3 sons and I all look after our cars - seldom ever kerbing a wheel or needing Mr Chips Away.
I last kerbed an alloy some 14/15 years ago on what was my 12 year old Mazda Xedos
I wish I could say the same for the the daughters-in-law
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Funnily enough 4 new wheel bolts arrived in the post on Wednesday so that I can swap out the locking wheel bolts on my (new to me) van. I can't imagine anyone willl ever want to steal the standard alloys? But I can imagine rounding the head/shearing the little lugs on the locking bolts in the event of a puncture.
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>> Why is lockiing wheel nuts still a thing? Is alloy wheel theft still a thing
>> now most cars have them? It seemed to me they were never really a deterrent
>> anyway.
It's odd have you see CCTV of thieves removing wheels with locking nuts and they don't seem to cause them any issues, yet a garage struggles?
I did see an article just the other day suggesting wheel theft is on the increase.
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One of the locking nuts on our Berlingo got mangled and jammed in its key.
Replaced with a plain one as were the other three.
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Of course the worst place to find out the flaws in locking wheel bolts / nuts is at the side of a busy road in the dark and pouring rain.
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I understood the problem with locking wheel nuts/bolts was the guys with spurs on their boots using windy guns to undo them and then doing them up with no concern to the torque setting?
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I have a nut splitter. Would that remove a locking nut or are they specially hardened to resist that?
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>> I have a nut splitter. Would that remove a locking nut or are they specially
>> hardened to resist that?
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Shouldn't think you'd get a splitter on them?
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If you are worried about locking wheel nut being damaged..
Just do what I do. I use the key with a normal kever wrench and undo them every 6 months and then retighten myself.
Touch wood zero problems so far,,
But yes my tyre man tells everyone to get rid of.
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Don't know if it's common but the swift came with 4 spare wheel nuts, after reading this thread think todays job is to replace the locking wheel nuts with the plain ones.
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With the right tools it isn't that difficult. I'd bought an MR2 that had been standing outdoors for 11 years. It had five stud wheels, of which one of each was a locking bolt. Obviously no key. Our garage had tried all the nearest likely combinations but ended calling out a specialist. Young lady turned up in a white Ford Connect, picked up a long breaker bar, a rubber mallet, and a bunch of deformable sockets, sashayed her way over with her long pony tail swinging from shoulder to shoulder, tapped away and within 20 mins was gone again. Best £100 we spent on that car. Impressive beyond words. All the mechanics stood back in awe. Genuinely a pleasure to watch this young lady at work.
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>> With the right tools it isn't that difficult.
Oh yes it is! Peugeot locking bolts are renowned for their bad design. It took an email to Carlos Tavares (emeritus Stellantis CEO) to get our Peugeot 2008 sorted. If anyone's interested in our battle for its removal under warranty, I described it a few years ago on the Honest John forum.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=164229
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‘ Don't know if it's common but the swift came with 4 spare wheel nuts, after reading this thread think todays job is to replace the locking wheel nuts with the plain ones.’
They’re the ones that will have been removed at the import centre (usually Bristol/Portishead for Suzuki) and replaced by the locking ones.
Last edited by: mcb100 on Sat 1 Nov 25 at 12:14
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Toyota Aygo - 2 new Avon tyres on the front and an MoT please - carmalade
