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My Wheel Nuts Are Too Tight, Help! | Hometyre Wheel Nut Removal Service

Although we say that the tyres are the most important safety aspect to your vehicle, the thing that holds the wheels onto the car is probably more important; the wheel nuts.

For those who have ever had the misfortune of encountering a blow out or puncture whilst driving, you probably know the wave of dread that swells over you when you find that the bar included with the car is short and can’t remove the nuts as they are too tight. Many other tyre changers or garages will use and rely on pneumatic/ power tools to tighten the wheel bolts/ nuts. After many attempts to remove the wheel nuts people have used removal kits and WD40 through to drilling and welding. The most stubborn of nuts often have to be left with the wheel and hub being cut off. We’ve heard from numerous clients of this happening to them, it seems to be more common than we care to admit as all garages, or any person working on a vehicle for that matter, should torque the nuts to the correct setting.

Volvo locknut 2_1

But what is the correct procedure to tightening the nuts?

Once the wheel is sat on the hub, hand tighten the nut (or bolt) using a star pattern. From here, you can lower the car back to the floor and tighten the nuts to the correct torque setting, again using a star pattern. Instead of tightening clock wise or anti clock wise, by tightening in a star pattern you are evenly pressing the wheel down onto the hub ensuring it's flat to the surface. If you want to be extra helpful to the next person, a thin layer of copper grease across the mating surface is always greatly appreciated.  

When using a torque wrench to tighten the nuts, once the torque wrench clicks, STOP. You may see people go back, click again and a third click just to be double sure. That second or third well-meant click can result in the nut being 15% over torqued.

And for goodness’s sake, don’t use an impact or power tool to tighten the nuts unless you never want to be able to remove the nuts again.

Once a car hits the road after the nuts are tightened, the break off force of the nut is typically increased by 50% due to the heat cycles, moisture and general dust and dirt. For example, if a car has its nuts tightened to 135nm, after a few weeks of driving you will typically need 225nm of torque to remove the nuts – unless you’re hitting the gym on a daily basis, you probably won’t get enough leverage on the tiny wheel brace that is supplied with the car, if that’s even there!

We were recently called out to this customer in central Sheffield as a previous garage had installed these nuts using an impact wrench and the customer was unable to remove them during their annual winter to summer wheel change (they had purchased a set of winter wheels with winter tyres so they could easily be swapped over).

Using our specialist tools, we were able to remove these nuts but took longer than expected.

Each and every vehicle we attend for a wheel nut removal service is different so it’s not something we can easily quote on. If you’ve lost your key or need help removing your wheel nuts, give us a call on 0333 444 5454 or 01743 861183.

Remember, one click from a torque wrench is enough and say no to using power tools when installing the wheel nuts.

 


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