are these alloy wheel bolts or steelie bolts?

londonTiger

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140857870158?euid=19fdb46ec1d84bd0bf8e7deb5bad7ee9&cp=1&exe=12742&ext=32470&sojTags=exe=exe,ext=ext

I was under the impression that these rounded countersunk bolts were for steelies. I had 1 of them in my wheels and when I took the car for a tyre change the fitter told me that I needed to change it over for a tapered one (regular countrsunk) because these rounded ones are not meant for alloys.

To be honest, Im not entirely sure if they were unsuitable for the alloys I had or all alloys.

Anyway, I mistakenly ordered one bolt and I just searched alloy wheel bolt and my dimensions and just bought it. Then looked at the picture and realised they're round so I asked the seller to cancel the order. Seller cancelled by said they were fine for alloys and they were not just for steelies.

Who is right?

enfield_freddy

steel wheels , as the thread comes to the top , they should be shouldered for the thickness of the alloy

molerat

Very few have the shouldered shank these days but the shape does need to be correct. Some alloys do use a radius seat rather than a taper.

gilbert_and_sullivan

They look identical, though shorter, than the standard wheelbolts used for OE Ronal alloys as fitted to my Mercedes.
I have seen shorter bolts, same seat on different alloys.
The same curved seat is used on Merc steel wheels too and the bolt is roughly the length in the pic.
Good point from Enfield Freddy though about the thread going all the way to the seat.

Alloys can have a myriad of wheelbolt seats, including flat seats with large washers.
You'll have to pull a few of your other wheelbolts out to check for seat type and taper, always assuming you have the correct wheels for the type of wheelbolt, no guarantees there if someone's fitted a set of used aftermarket alloys they bought without correct bolts.

If on any doubt if you wiped a little coppaslip onto the bolt seat, or even marked one with a felt tipped pen and tightened the bolt then removed it, you would be able to tell from the seat what sort of contact area was in use, if you did that with the odd bolt and one of the taper bolts you'd see the difference clearly when you removed them.
Putting your finger in the wheelbolt hole and feeling the seat isnt an exact enough science, the curve of the wheel seat is so gentle that its difficult to tell sometimes especially if the bolt holes are deep sunk, hence using a crude form of engineers blue to confirm.


Coincidentally, i serviced my daughters car couple of days ago, one weelbolt larger than the rest (she would not have been able to change the wheel on the road) on one wheel, when i took it out it was a flat washered bolt where all the rest are tapered.
Turns out she'd had a puncture and the kwik fix fitter had left the bolts loose and one had been lost, some half wit had stuck this odd bolt on in its stead...had they looked in the spare wheel they would have found the four unused standard bolts removed when teh wheel lockers were fitted at PDI.