Are locking wheel nuts still a thing?

I have them on my van and have 20″ alloys. (not sure if that was the wisest decision but we are where we are…) I was doing some jobs a little while ago and for some random reason I checked the wheel nut remover was in the glove box. I then decided to try it out (I think I was prepping for a trip) the nut didn’t fit the standard nut removal bar in the van meaning I was never going to get them off if I needed to. 

It’s getting a full service next week so I am either having them removed and replaced with standard bolts or a new set that actually work with the removal bar in the van.

Who still has them and are they likely to cause more trouble than they are worth?

Both the car and van came with them from the OEM. Still there after 4 and 6 years

My first job is to sort a decent extending bar and a socket that fits (I spent too much time on hard shoulders watching people without the right kit and then leaving them to wait for recovery)

Good question..

i looked into this recently, and had always just assumed that “everyone has them”..but it seems most people have them, but apparently no-one nicks alloy wheels any more (as most cars have them..)..

I’ve left mine on the P2, but when I got a new wheel set for the leaf, I didn’t bother with them.

DrP

are they likely to cause more trouble than they are worth

Yes. I have just had my seized locking nuts replaced about three weeks ago with normal ones – expensive as they broke and at least one had to be cut off.

No one has yet stolen my kerb-scratched wheels.

I have a selection of wheel lock nut sockets that have been in cars I have bought but didn’t fit the locking nuts on the cars. I did strike lucky when I needed to take the wheel of the Range Rover and, or course, the lock socket that came with it didn’t fit but one I had from an Izuzu TF did.

Just removed mine as one of them inexplicitely seized without intervention….. Can’t apply any torque they just strip pain In the arse.

Not seen wheels pinched off cars for years…… How ever that said wheels in general seem to have gone through the roof. Used to get part worns from the junk yard for 20ish quid on a rim.

Seems now I’m 80 quid minimum for a shonky looking rim or 120 for a box fresh new one.

I could see it being a returning trend if I’m honest. But see Bradford / birmingham  park your car in the wrong street they will strip it for parts on the spot -loads of aygos and c1s get this. But even they don’t want the wheels.- and those cars don’t have locking wheel nuts from factory

I had them taken off my car as they were made of cheese and bound to leave me stranded one day.

If they were some OZ Racing wheels at £1500 a set I may think differently!

I can’t say I’m a big fan, I’ve had a key shear which was only a mild inconvenience because I was just round the corner from a garage that had the bolt out in about 3 minutes – it’d have been a major pita at the road side somewhere less convenient.

Tbh I don’t think anybody would want the scabby 15 year old alloys of my car but a fresh set of decent tyres could easily be £500 worth, they might want to help themselves to those.

OT but I’ve no idea why my post above appears in 2 typefaces, anyone know?

We have the key and it lives in a bright yellow bag in the glovebox in the car. Who would want a set of 7 year old scabby Fabia alloys I am not sure though….

And the van proudly wears steelies, just to wind up the #DubbedOut crowd….

I’ve got OEM locknuts… 6 yr old Vauxhall.

Lost the key to one of ours so the garage removed it for us and put on a regular nut instead. Can’t really see the point to them myself. When did you last hear of anybody getting their wheels nicked? Also there are plenty of kits online for removing them (it took the garage less than five minutes) so if they want them they’ll nick them anyway.

Not had any issues with Nissan locking nuts, but VW ones are made of cheese. I found a good way of removing stuck locking nuts on the interweb.

Move car near (within a foot) of a wall/immoveable object. Insert locking nut remover and suitable wrench/breaker bar. Get a piece of wood and the scissor jack from the car – place base of jack on wall, and extend until the jack  is near the breaker bar. Put the wood in between the jack and breaker (this allows it to turn) then extend the jack more so it’s putting pressure onto the bar and remover socket – this stops the socket slipping off the locking nut.

Unless you live in the ghetto or have a particularly fancy car the risk of wheel theft is minimal now almost every car has alloys as standard . So after the hassle our daughter-in-law had with a seized locknut I put standard bolts on both our cars.

I’d rather risk wheel theft than a seized nut stranding me.

As roverpig says, folk that nick wheels will be ‘tooled up’ for the occasion, so factory fitted locking nuts are not going to stop them.

They are the devils work. Had a puncture a couple of weeks back and ended with the AA man having to drill the locking nut off! The last time the tyre was changed the idiots used an air line and put the nuts on way too tight. The pattern on the locking nut sheared off when I was trying to remove it because it was on that tight. Absolute farce and wrecked the wheel. **** locking wheel nuts.

Thefts have gone up due to pothole damage.

I trashed one wheel, bought a set of 4 that was a bit of a bargain and sold the rest at a very healthy profit. One person had hit a kerb, the other two were replacing stollen wheels.  And these were generic 20 year old 15″ Ford sub-zetec trim level OEM alloy wheels.  Nothing fancy.

The MG doesn’t but:

a) 43 lb-ft torque because of the silly little 3/8th studs. By wheelnut standards that’s sod all, it’s less than bicycle wheel nuts!  I have to locktite then on.  I really don’t like taking them on and off without a torque wrench.

b) Very niche, 13″ wheels with 101.6 PCD.

I’ve got a 2018 model Kuga.

Has locking (well, ‘combination driver’ not a real actual lock) locking nuts.   Determined pre-planned thieves will still have them away – but it’s a bit of a deterrent.

I went and bought a 20″ long breaker bar (1/2″ drive) + proper 19mm 6-sided wheel nut socket (from Sealey).  Exactly because you’ll be sure to find the crap thing that comes with the car won’t be up to the job when on a lay by at 1am in February. It lives in the boot.

Also bought the 18.5mm + 19.5mm socket (yep 18.5 / 19.5mm) as the crap Ford wheel nuts have a thin monkey-metal sleeve on them to look pretty but round off or ‘bulge’ after a few applications of air guns by garages – which leave you screwed at the roadside – too big for a 19mm when the bulge, too small and round off if the thin cap detaches.   Another Ford masterpiece of shit engineering

Citroen C3 Picasso so nothing desirable. Took the locking nuts off and binned them

Not got them on any of our cars. Took the awful Landrover ones off the Freelander when we bought it. Seen them swell and round off too many times.
I did however ponder putting them on the Defender after I spent over a grand on a set of 5 tyres but decided against it as I’m sure that’s a fairly niche theft.

One person had hit a kerb, the other two were replacing stollen wheels

My favorite type of wheel, best secured with locking nuts and raisins

My first job is to sort a decent extending bar and a socket that fits

I can recommend this one from Halfords. The one I’ve got must be 15+ years old and it’s been used on multiple cars/vans as I do my own basic maintenance. I’m assuming they’ve not lowered the quality to increase the profit here, but of course I won’t know as I’ve never had to replace.

https://www.halfords.com/tools/hand-tools/spanners-and-wrenches/halfords-extending-wheel-nut-wrench-635236.htm

Huh, dunno why that link doesn’t work. Anyway, it’s Halfords own brand extending wheel brace. About 12 quid, easy to find on their website or Google.

dunno why that link doesn’t work

That’s odd.  Does this?

https://www.halfords.com/tools/hand-tools/spanners-and-wrenches/halfords-extending-wheel-nut-wrench-635236.html

Ah.  It’s .html not .htm

Timely thread. My 10 yo Toyota avensis I’m doing new discs and pads all round this weekend. I may not bother putting the locking nuts back on, I have the 4 original bolts in the same box as the as the key.

First thing I always do with a new car is get rid of em. who steals alloys any more? But even back when that was a thing I guarantee these things have caused more hassle for owners than they ever did for thieves.

I had a locking wheel nut removed a couple of weeks back (thanks kwick fit for the over tight nuts).

The place that removes them just put standard nuts on saying no one steels wheels anymore .

One week in still got my wheels

Imagine the joy of discovering the spare under the van was attached with a locking nut. And you don’t have the key.

Locking wheel nuts are pretty unnecessary these days unless you have a very fancy set of wheels worth at least a couple of grand on the second hand market and even then if they want them, they will take them.

Looks like the results are in. Bin them next week. 🙂

If they were some OZ Racing wheels at £1500 a set I may think differently!

Christ, the stock alloys on my car are about £400 each, retail. And the not the most expensive ones you can get. Plus near enough £200 quid a tyre. The winters aren’t that much cheaper.

Someone tried to get the alloys off the last one, took out all the stock nuts on one side and gave up on the locking nuts.

I remove them on our cars, we dont have wheels worth stealing, and I never had any issues when I had BBS, OZ etc wheels on my “nice” cars.

The key always goes missing at the worst time, and some are very easy to strip/crack.

I have had to remove a few on ours and familys cars, normally quick with a removal socket, or even a normal socket smashed on, some you need to break the floating collar first, or I just weld something on and wind them off.

I have a selection of wheel lock nut sockets that have been in cars I have bought but didn’t fit the locking nuts on the cars.

Garages can be devlls for getting the them mixed up between customers cars. My gf’s car came back from a service with the wrong socket, contacted them about it but they couldn’t give hers back because it had obviously gone away in one of the other cars they’d had in that day.

Funnily enough just bought an aftermarket set of four today (but was considering getting some plain oem bolts).

The socket for my wife’s car had lost half the pegs and a replacement was a crazy £120 and three weeks lead time. I’ve made a temporary repair by drilling the socket holes deeper and silver soldering in some replacement pins – but they aren’t very hard so chew up a bit more with every use. This weekend I’ll be swapping them before total failure makes the job rather harder…….

Odd, over the last twenty-odd years of having cars with locking wheel nuts, I’ve never, ever had an issue with them, and that includes having to take a wheel off myself and put a spare on.

With my Ford, it’s not so much someone nicking the wheels for the alloys, it’s someone nicking the Continental and Michelin all-climate tyres, somewhere north of £700 worth of rubber. It’s not difficult to have £1000 worth of tyres on a mid-range car, once you get to higher spec or an EV, £2000 becomes an expensive reality, so being blasé about a set of average alloys might need a reality check. Proper performance cars are around £1000/corner, just for starters.

I’ve heard (but have no evidence to back this up) that alloy wheel thefts fell as they became standard on all cars, but then started to rise again as leasing became popular – Apparently, there’s a market for fairly mundane alloys if they’re cheaper than the fees incurred when handing back a lease car with kerbed wheels…

Odd, over the last twenty-odd years of having cars with locking wheel nuts, I’ve never, ever had an issue with them, and that includes having to take a wheel off myself and put a spare on.

? I take 5 or 6 sets of wheels off and on twice a year (it’s the law). All but one have locking nuts. Only issue I’ve had in the last two decades is the locking nuts on my exes current car wearing out. Because they were 8-9 years old and had got to the end of their life!

(There are actually limits for how many times a wheel nut/bolt should be re-used based on torque and thread size.)

the other two were replacing stollen wheels

Sounds like a piece of cake to steal.

Yes very much still a thing, never had a single issue in 20+ years my cars have had them.

I bought an old a Mini that came with refurbed 17″ split rim alloys on it, secured with 4 locking wheel nuts… per wheel… Why??!!

The key snapped 3 bolts in when I was trying to swap the wheels round. Had to get the local garage to swap them all out for me for standard ones.