Car/Van/SUV etc. drivers

Rocker

Wheel nuts, if replaced by a mechanic/tyre fitter using an impact gun, are impossible to open using the car manufacturers supplied wheel nut wrench. Check your nuts today with the car wrench. If you cannot loosen them all, ask your local garage to loosen them and then you re-tighten them with the car wrench. Become familiar too with the car jack and know where is and where it goes. The roadside is no place to start reading up your car manual. Even if it is not raining.....

bazxkr

Good advice. Like any auto fixings these nuts have a specific torque they are supposed to be tightened too. Most shops just air gun up to the max making it very tough to undo & you can ruin/bend the wheel nut wrench as they are not that great quality.

VimFuego

you saying you want my mechanic to check my nuts? I mean, we get on great and all that, but I don't like him that much.

ahem, seriously I learnt this years ago, now always carry a proper multi sized wrench.

Richardj

I am guessing that there might have been a situation that has vexed the OP somewhat.  We have what is technically an SUV and I assure you that, should the worst happen, we are capable of sorting out wheels etc.  If that helps.

Rocker

Today my multi sized wrench would not move any of the nuts on a friends flat wheel. It needed a metre long gun barrel tube extension to open the nuts. They were that tight.

Danny1969

Poxy garage put new tyres on my wifes car and used the impact gun on the security bolts which effectively shagged em and rendered the adapter useless. Took me a couple of hours with a chisel to beat them off before I replaced them with normal bolts

On my van I use a 1 metre sleeve which fits over the wheel brace and allows me to stand on it. 

jd0272

I Vaseline my nuts. In all seriousness, I do. I've always been able to get them off, even if put on by one of those said mechanicy chappies with the gun thing (eg; after one has had one's tyres changed, brakes sorted etc).

Alnico

Undo each nut on a wheel one at a time and grease with Copper Grease (Copperslip).

Retighten until 'Nipped up' equally and then use a proper torque wrench set to 90 - 100 lb/ft, tightening opposite nuts until all done.

Do all of this with most of the weight of the car off the wheel using a jack, just leave a little weight on the wheel to stop it from turning when you tighten them back up.

Repeat x 4

When at roadside, use your foot to apply downward pressure to the manufacturer supplied wrench, NOT your arms (That will hurt your shoulder badly). The nut should undo with your body weight on the wrench.

In the absence of a Torque wrench to re tighten at the roadside, use body weight on the wrench to re tighten and re check after 50 miles. At your earliest opportunity, loosen and re tighten with a torque wrench.

Doing wheel nuts up with an airgun is stupid and lazy. Taking off with an airgun is fine but they should always be re greased with copper and re torqued, for safety sake.

An overtightened wheel nut can snap and i have seen a wheel with 3 snapped bolts after it hit a pothole. They were done up with an airgun. If you don't realise it's happened and go onto the motorway it might not end well.

Any reasonable garage will do this for you on all 20 wheel bolts for a small charge, presuming you don't have the torque wrench yourself to do it.

If you do, copper grease costs around £4.

Phil_aka_Pip

I've always suspected that when they do the wheel nuts up with an air gun they'll be too tight to undo using normal methods

Emp_Fab

If your garage does your wheel nuts up with a zip gun they are cowboys.  They need to use a torque wrench.

chillidoggy

I thought this kind of thing had all but disappeared. For many years now, every I've had new tyres put on, the fitters use a 'nut-runner' air-gun to whizz them up, then a torque wrench for final tightening. That said, I do check them with a torque wrench when I get home, but it's many years since I've had a problem with being unable to remove a wheel nut.

Danny1969

I've never seen a tyre place use a torque wrench, they only ever have a trolly jack and the air impact wrench. They count the bangs when the nut has spun on all the way and that's how they judge it. 

@Alnico

The previous owners of my twin wheeled Transit Jumbo didn't use copper seal between the 2 wheels on the back. One wheel over time basically welded it's self to the other I ended up having to remove the half shaft in order to separate them ..... not something you wanna do on the side of the road especially as you need a 28mm socket

lloyd

I'm possibly the strongest man in the Universe so have never had any problems, I generally take them off with my fingers and thumb.

Alnico

@Danny1969

I have had this argument with mechanics who tell me it's fine to count the bangs on a 'Windy Gun' and i've even had Technicians back me up against them to say no, you need a Torque Wrench.....................It is just lazy.

It tends to be 'Wheel and Tyre' garages that are lazy with it whereas if you go to a main dealer, MOSTLY they will use a torque wrench.

For anyone who is unsure, doing it yourself or paying a a garage to specifically do it for you is piece of mind.

Do you remember the Water Cooled VW Transporter ? The model after the Type 2 ( I can't remember the model name but it's the wedge shaped front).

I was a passenger in it, this one got a flat and we couldn't get the wheel off at the roadside and neither could the recovery driver we called out so needed recovery to a local garage - Thank you RAC. He took us to an tyre garage who came along with a 1/2" Square drive windy gun which failed. He scratched his head and went and got a 1 " Square drive, twin handled thing, which failed because the compressor wasn't putting out enough CFM (Cubic feet per minute) to drive it hard enough. He had to go and borrow a torque wrench from a truck garage down the road. It took 3 men hanging off the end of a 2 metre long wrench with a 1 metre scaffold pole extension to crack every one, He then checked all 4 wheels and the were all the same and dry of any copper grease at all. He said they had been put on with an HGV air gun wearing a smaller socket via an adapter and it was pure stupidity and luck the wheels hadn't fallen off.

We had to go and buy new wheel nuts the next day and actually the bloke who owned it went and got new hubs fitted because he couldn't sleep after seeing that !

There really should be some kind of safety law against it like there is with HGV's, however sadly because it's 'Just a car', there isn't !

Col_Decker

^^ I think its a T3 or T25.

 

 

 

 

I think

mike_l

Danny1969 said:

Poxy garage put new tyres on my wifes car and used the impact gun on the security bolts which effectively shagged em and rendered the adapter useless. Took me a couple of hours with a chisel to beat them off before I replaced them with normal bolts

On my van I use a 1 metre sleeve which fits over the wheel brace and allows me to stand on it. 

Sadly that's common. It's usually the Kwikshit type places that do this.

I sell multiple (at least 5) set of lockers each, and every, week due to this.

I will say all our techs use the gun to do the bulk, but check each with a torque wrench.

 

When I do my own, I know my 1/2" ratchet and socket gets as close to the correct torque as necessary.

ESBlonde

With the 'modern' car you get no spare or jack or brace. Just a bottle of gunk that ruins the tyre and might (just might) let you limp to a garage whereupon the lad with the tools hates you because he has to clean the gunk off the rim before charging you full retail for another tyre because you can't say "no I'll go someplace else on the three remaining wheels thank you".
Still it saves you having to worry about where to stick the jack and if you can undo the wheel nuts or not.

For the record I've had 4 (yes four) punctures in just 19 months and all in newish branded tyres. You can't ring the AA/RAC with the same fault repeatedly and being stuck with no spare waiting when a simple tool kit that would get me moving is very frustration. I bought a wheel and make do with the inconvenience of reduced boot space. At least I have a better chance of getting somewhere reliably in the middle of the night when I set off.

Sambostar

I usually keep my tyres and wheels but change the Transit.  It is quite heavy but I find a 230mm cutting disc works wonders.

boogieman

I remember being told when I was a young'un doing my own car maintenance that you shouldn't use grease on wheel studs. I can't remember why though!

mudslide73

Torque is your friend in this situation.... my nuts have never been too tight to undo.

Sambostar

I put copper grease on my studs