A nurse in Middleton-on-sea needed a tyre to get to work, but had lost her locking wheelnut key

We are in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, we at Hometyre are carrying on as normal with new protocols to ensure both our own and our customers safety.

We had a call from a Nurse who had a flat tyre on her alfa Romeo and needed it replacing as soon as possible, so she could get to work. The only problem was that she had lost her locking wheelnut key.

We arranged a tyre from a local supplier and went to her house as soon as possible, a search of the car proved right, that the locking wheelnut removal key was missing. The customer had ordered a new locknut key from the Alfa Romeo dealership which was going to take two weeks to arrive. She needed the car back on the road to get to work, so asked us to remove the locknut and then replace the tyre.

We at Hometyre carry specialist equipment to remove locknuts should the need arise. A check of the locknut showed it was a Macgard type nut, these locknuts have revolving collars, so they are not too easy to remove. Luckily the tool we have, can remove them, it took me around 10 minutes and I had the locknut removed.

I was then able to jack the car up and remove the wheel, it was then taken into my van, the old tyre was removed and a new tyre was fitted, balanced and put back on the car. The wheelnuts were torqued to the correct settings, the car lowered and the jack removed.

We then checked all of the other tyres on the car and inflated them to the correct pressures. A report was written, payment was taken using our onboard card reader. At all times we wear rubber gloves and use sanitisers to clean the cars keys and any part of the car we touch.

For more information on lock nut removals click here.

Photo shows the removed locknut.