Locking Wheel Nut Removals in Sheffield

Car manufactures are starting to move away from installing locking nuts onto vehicles in favour of plastic covers to improve the aesthetics. Back in the late 80s and 90s, car culture had evolved so that installing fancy wheels was a must. With this came theft. The easiest way to deter this was by installing a special nut that only one type of key could remove. This sprouted into the general automotive industry so almost all cars had these installed.

Nowadays, if someone wanted to steal wheels, they probably have the equipment to steal the whole car. This just reinforces the fact that car manufactures are focusing their spending on improved security systems!

These small nuts are often lost or even heavily over tightened after people work on these cars. Always torque these to the correct specifications! Under spec and the wheel may fall off. Over spec and you'll not be able to remove the nuts!

There are many different styles of nuts that vary from vehicle to vehicle so not one is the same.

You’ve probably seen the classic nut that looks like a normal bolt but has a different head requiring the special key (often located in the boot of glovebox). Evolving from this, there are nuts with spinning collars on to prevent people from clamping onto the stem and twisting to remove. There is also a peculiar style of nut used on Jaguar Land Rover – domed.

These style of nuts are the hardest to remove as you can’t get leverage with a non-invasive method. They have to be broken off using the invasive tooling.

There are two types of nut removal methods, invasive and non-invasive.

Non-invasive - By hitting the puck onto the head of the nut, it will mould to the shape of the head and from there can be unscrewed and removed.

Invasive - A ‘last resort’ situation as this causes the most damage. The tool used needs to be hit hard in order to dig into the head of the nut. The tool also twists when hit creating torque – hopefully loosening the nut enough for it to screw loose.

This client in central Sheffied recently had their tyres changed by another company - of which they lost the locking wheel nut. Suffering a puncture on the way back from home, the client was unable to install the spare as no key was present! Not a great experience!

Luckily we were able to head out to the customer on the same day and get them back on the road within a few hours. 

Have you lost your locking nut key or has the face of the nut been damaged? Call us to book an appointment on 0333 444 5454!