Locking wheel nut key stripped

angrycrow

Most decent tyre places will have a tool like a dynomec which uses a soft metal blade and an impact socket to remove the nuts. The blades are only good for 1 or 2 nuts so they will charge a fee for removing them but each one takes about a minute. I paid £25 to have a full set removed 5 years ago and put the standard bolts which were in the boot back on. Lesson learned that you need to check you have taken the wheel key off before driving off. 

Once out you can replace with a new set of locking bolts £20 to £40 or just put standard bolts in. If the wheels have a deep hole for the bolts put plastic covers over the bolt heads and no one will ever know you don't have locking wheel bolts. 

fred246

Garages over tighten wheel nuts which can lead to all sorts of problems like this. The only way to avoid it is to do it yourself and use your own torque wrench. Letting mechanics mess with your car will always lead to trouble.

John_

AdrianC said:

Pay buttons for four non-locking bolts. Do wheels and tyres ever get nicked around you? Would yours be high demand?

Whether they were using the key at the time it stripped or not is a bit irrelevant. If your bolts were so tight that they wouldn't undo without stripping the key, that's not the garage's fault. It may well be the fault of whoever put them in too tight last time, or they may have stripped the key while over-tightening them on refitting... As you say, you can't prove anything.

I’d agree with this; I don’t think that having wheels stolen is really a thing any more, whereas having a nightmare over a lost or damaged locking nut seems very likely.

I’m thinking of replacing all of mine with normal nuts.

AdrianC

John_ said:

AdrianC said:

Pay buttons for four non-locking bolts. Do wheels and tyres ever get nicked around you? Would yours be high demand?

I’d agree with this; I don’t think that having wheels stolen is really a thing any more, whereas having a nightmare over a lost or damaged locking nut seems very likely.

I’m thinking of replacing all of mine with normal nuts.

First time I took the wheels off to check the pads on a recent acquisition, I realised they were locking bolts. No sign of a key in amongst the spare and jack etc. After a few minutes stomping about grumbling, I found the O-branded accessory box, with key and the original non-lockers...

born_again

fred246 said:

Garages over tighten wheel nuts which can lead to all sorts of problems like this. The only way to avoid it is to do it yourself and use your own torque wrench. Letting mechanics mess with your car will always lead to trouble.

But are they even worse than people that have no concept of car maintenance other than u-tube videos?

Joe Average will have no concept on what a torque gauge is... Or the facility to change tyre's.

fred246

Joe Average can buy a torque wrench and use a YouTube video to learn how to use it. If I need a new tyre I just take the wheel to the garage and they give me the wheel back. So they can only damage your wheel and not wreck the rest of the car.