Nuts

[Guest Chris.A.]

take my advice......yes, I know I`m a pillock, but listen,

My eldest lad boght some FOX wheels from Halfords ( I can`t afford such things.....I haven`t got a student card!). He didn`t want anyone to nick-em,so he invested in a set of security nuts. :angry: DO NOT< UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BUY AND FIT SUCH AN INSTRUMENT OF THE DEVIL!!!!!!!!!!! :angry:

after he had taken his car to the garage for a service and MOT he decided to rotate his wheels (front - t- back - back - to front....know wot I mean?)

the gimp at the garage had cracked up his security nuts with a pnumatic hammer!!! TWONK! the wheel nuts are supposed to be tightened up to 85 gruntmeters , according to Haynes, these were 120 !!!!!

and YES the little dimples on the key sheared on the first wheel!!

I warned my lad that his posh allies might have to be burnt off. ( I am sure he would rather have lost his testicals).But he stopped crying when I fettled a new key with a book of common prayer(as opposed to posh)and amazing technical ability,( I can enlarge if you want....as the bishop said).

a near do!

DO NOT FIT SECURITY NUTS!!!!

let em have your wheels if they`re that despirate.

[Guest Peter n the better half]

Two options to the above.

Get 4 normal nuts to fit if your taking it to a garage

 

Tell them not to grunt them up with the air hammer . Tell them to do it by hand or a torque wrench. or not at all and youll do it yourself after service is completed.

 

Check the insurance small print also.

 

Words to the effect that reasonable precautions to prevent theft must be taken.

i.e locking wheel nuts.

[Guest Ant]

I'm absolutely sick and tired of having people at garages over tighten wheel nuts and bolts. Why the hell can't they use a torque wrench instead of cutting corners and using the "tighter the better" principle?

 

My wife got a puncture repaired on her car a couple of months back. I came to take the wheel off last week to replace the brake shoes and it took sufficient force to bend my wheel brace to undo them.

 

My dad had this trouble a few months back too, but his solution was to take the car back to the place he had the tyres fitted and get them to undo the wheels, and then he tightened them up again with a torque wrench while they stood and watched.

 

Common practice for me is to TELL the garage (not ask) to use a torque wrench. I also tell them what the specified torque is. If they won't do it then I use mine. Trouble is that they still over tighten the buggers if I'm not there - ie the Wife is there instead.

 

Surely there's a risk with all alloys doing this that they will crack?

 

Sorry for the rant - it's one of my bug bears. Kind of refreshing to know that I'm not on a one man mission over this!

 

Ant

[Guest Andy Sparrow]

no doubt the garages & fast fit places are shi__ing themselves that someones wheel will fall off and then the driver will end up suing them for massive damages or are they too lazy to do it properly?

Last time I took my tin top in for tyres they did use a wrench and torqued them up proper - the wife still cant move em though - the RAC man was very 'nice' when he came to put her spare on....

[Guest boggie]

I have a set of these on all three cars but I always insist on tightening them with a standard wheel wrench. To make sure I put the unlocking socket in my pocket so the ham fisted mechanics can't find it!

Boggie