Locking wheel nut removal on a VW Transporter in Bognor Regis

It was almost the end of the working day when I got a call asking if I would go to a locking wheel nut removal in Bognor Regis on my way home.

The vehicle was a VW transporter and it was in the Halfords car park at Shripney.

I turned up to find the customer waiting with his van, he had been into Halfords to see if he could buy one of their cheap removers, he had checked the diameter of their tool and found it would not fit in the recess of his alloys, and after checking on the internet he found us at Hometyre Sussex and gave us a call.

The original problem came about when the customer decided to fit his winter wheels & tyres, when he pulled out the lock nut removal tool, he found that one of the pins had been broken off and the others were rounded off. (It was a 3 pin type lock nut with a revolving collar). The garage that had fitted new brake pads earlier in the year, had obviously gunned the lock nuts on, and damaged the tool, then put it back without mentioning the problem.

Luckily the customer had not bought the reverse thread tool from Halford as if it had fit within the recess, it would have just turned round and round on the revolving collar and could have been stuck on their making it very difficult to remove.

I took the removal tools out of my van and got to work on the first of the lock nuts, these had also been driven on very tightly as I was hammering away for around 20 minutes before it started to move and could be taken out. I then moved onto the other locknuts and continued to work on them until they were all out. It was tiring work and my arms certainly ached when I was finished, but at the same time I was very satisfied as it meant that I retained my 100% successful removal rate since 2013.

I then checked my box of nuts and found that I had 4 that would replace the removed locknuts. I then went round all the nuts loosening them off and torquing them back up to the correct settings for the vehicle. I finally checked all the tyres and filled in the Hometyre report, before taking a debit card payment from the customer and letting him get off home.

If you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position to have a missing or damaged lock nut tool, then do not try the cheap reverse thread removers, as they can cause more damage and make normal removal very difficult, call us at Hometyre first, we know what we are doing and will do the job correctly.