Citroen C4 Cactus locking wheelnut key missing

Took my C4 (yes, living the dream) in for a service during the week, but the garage couldn’t find the locking wheelnut adaptor thing, and neither can I. It’s 3-years old so it must have had the wheels off at some point. I’ve had it for 12mths.

I have contacted the local main dealer and have ordered 4x normal bolts, but does anyone know how to tell which ‘key’ I need. I’m assuming that there are a few variants but I can’t see anything obvious in the car’s paperwork.

Your garage will drill them off.
Buy a new set and keep the new key in a safe place, in the car.

On Ford’s there used to be a code for the locking wheel nut key in the service manual or little bag with the locking wheel nut key.

May be worth checking the service book and similar or just replace as you’ll probably wait a fortnight for a matched one to arrive

Try a dealer to get them off. I managed to lose a key for my Honda and went to my local dealer, they had a box of various keys in the workshop and found the correct one to get my nuts off.

Try a dealer to get them off. I managed to lose a key for my Honda and went to my local dealer, they had a box of various keys in the workshop and found the correct one to get my nuts off.

I had to do this, Skoda charged me £50 ish for the pleasure (I wasn’t too worried as the dealer I bought it off was paying).

Halfords do/used to stock locking wheel nut removal tools, basically a socket with a tapered hole and a course LH thread in it. They wind on anti clockwise and eventually bite hard enough to undo the nut. Unless it’s the spinny outer type …

Ford colour-code their LWN’s, off the top of my head I can’t remember how Citroen do theirs. If I was at work I could easily check, ‘cos we’ve got several C4’s kicking around, including Cactus. I’ll have a look on Monday if you want.
I think some are generic, Vauxhall’s seem to be, others are definitely coded. We have to check cars for things like the number of keys, the LWN, handbook, service book, inflation kits, etc when they arrive, it’s surprising how many are actually missing those items, some of which then have to be replaced.
PITA!

Thanks Countzero. I’m going to ask a few people at work who have Citroens and Peugeots if I can have a go with their locking nut doofer. The Citroen garage called me earlier and left a message. Sounded like he was saying £40-50 to remove. I’m hoping that’s not per wheel. It’s not desperate but I am going to have to get new tyres soon-ish.

What’s your location?
Sure a few on here have the removal tools and can help for beer tokens.

My local garage removed my buggered LWN by welding a rod onto it and then twisting that. No marks left on my alloys whatsoever.

I have some experience removing locking wheel nuts. Peugeot, Citroen nuts are not an easy to deal with. There is a special tool for removing LWN, however it works 1 of 10 times. In most cases I have to snap center bit, then weld a massive blob onto the nut. Finally I wack a twist socket and get it undone.

There is a risk of damaging wheels paintwork due to heat generated when welding, splatter and scratching with twist sockets.

Peugeot dealera charge 200+ to remove LWNs, many garages can do it much cheaper.

Keep you nuts safe, but not in a kitchens cupboard as one of our clients did

I spent ages looking for the special for my girlfriends wheel nuts. Funny splined things. Had all the torque keys etc out on the floor dug out sow vw splined keys frantically googled. Swearing cursing. Desperation.

Plastic covers you pull off with a little hook they provide…

I used lockingwheelnutkeys.co.uk when we had the same issue with my wife’s car. I provided a photo of the locking wheel nut on the car and they made it from that.

Lol @joshvegas

I have absolutely not looked for the special star shaped tool to remove the VW wheel nut covers ever. No, I’ve definitely not done that not even one time.
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Maybe just the once.

A good backstreet local garage once did some Citroen ones (by welding as someone else says apparently Citroen ones are particularly difficult to remove) for far less than the main dealer wanted to use their master key or whatever it is they do.

If they are the original ones new fitted by Citroen, they should be able to get a replacement key from your chassis number.
Have you looked in all the places it could be. Is there a spare wheel / tool kit etc?
Could it be fitted in a hidey hole in the jack ?

I’ve looked and looked. Even taken all four hub caps off to see if it might still be attached to one of the nuts. As for jack, spanner, spare wheel – none of these came with the car but an inflation device and a can of sealant did. Cheapskates.

Location?

Location?

In the boot. But the boot is in the Scottish Borders.

Even taken all four hub caps off to see if it might still be attached to one of the nuts.

Ah. A salient point. Did you actually take plastic wheel trims off the wheels! If that’s the case, then the car will not have needed a locking wheel nut, they’re only provided with alloy wheels.
One other point, not everyone puts locking wheel nuts on the car, some leave the original nuts in place, on the principle of why would anyone nick the wheels off a fairly mundane car anyway.

As for jack, spanner, spare wheel – none of these came with the car but an inflation device and a can of sealant did. Cheapskates.

Common practice these days, a great many people are reluctant to start jacking cars up, removing wheels and replacing them by the side of busy roads; if I had a flat by the side of a busy dual carriageway or a motorway, the last thing I’d be doing is trying to change a wheel, and I know exactly how to do it, but the proximity to very fast moving traffic, especially large trucks, makes it very risky!

You know when you’re at the airport, and some else checks they know where their passport is. I feel irrationally compelled to check my own, even when I *know* where it is.

Guess how I feel about my LWN key now…

🙄

Common practice these days, a great many people are reluctant to start jacking cars up, removing wheels and replacing them by the side of busy roads;

It’s lighter meaning better better economy test a s potentially a better emissions classification

An inflator and sealant is cheaper than a spare wheel

It gives them a chance to upsell a space wheel.

It’s nothing at all to do with the end user.

Photo of the nut.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/7p8qJTB31noU65us9

Try main dealer to see if the wheel nut code is recorded with details they have on the car?
I did this when I misplaced mine and a new key (although £24) was much cheaper than having the nuts removed.
Took a few days to come but worked out well in the end and no faff or damage getting them removed.

Ok, just had a look in one of the Cacti we have here, I now see what you mean by ‘hubcap’, the square plastic cover in the wheel centre – I’d never looked that closely at the wheels and hadn’t noticed it! There’s nothing marked on the nut itself, but the removal tool has a code number engraved on the end.
I had a good look through the cars handbook and service documents, but there’s nothing I can see stamped there with a reference to the code.
There is an online resource, MyCitroen, which allows you to download the handbook, and I wonder if there’s some way of getting the number if you have the VIN handy, which would allow you to order one online.
The tool has four pins inside which are spaced to fit the nut, it’s not generic, like some tools seem to be, like Vauxhall – theirs are a six-lobed shape which doesn’t appear to alter from car to car.
Sorry I can’t help any more than that.
Good luck! 😁

Thanks for looking Countzero. I borrowed a locking wheelnut key from someone at work this morning. Drove down to the local garage………and it was shut. The socket feels like if kind of fits, but I’ll ask them to try at the garage tomorrow. Failing that, I’ll give the Citroen dealer another call and check whether £40-£50 was to remove all four nuts. If so, I’ll probably just get that done.

Plastic covers you pull off with a little hook they provide…

Been there, done that.

Brand new car, had a puncture after two weeks of ownership. It was dark, raining, and I had somewhere to be. Got the tools out of the boot and… WTF, the wheelbrace doesn’t fit the damn bolts! Back into the house for a socket set, nothing I own fits. Eventually worked out that yes, all the non-locking wheel bolts have bolt-head shaped covers that just pull off with a little hook. For the love of dog, WHY?!

@Cougar – yes lots of cars have those, it’s a cosmetic thing, to keep crap off the nuts and avoiding the threads corroding, I think. The Cactus actually has a square plastic panel in the centre of the wheel that has to be prised out, the nuts are in a recess underneath it.
Whoever sold the OP’s car to him, if it was a dealer, should have made certain that the LWN tool was in the car, and usually they put them into a little drawstring nylon bag, often hi-viz, so they’re easy to see. Mine’s in a dayglo orange Volvo one I found in the back of a car.
I’ve just done a bit of a search, and came across this bit of info, which may help:
http://www.jamesandtracy.co.uk/howto/identifying_replacing_lost_locking_wheel_nut_keys.htm

Got my nuts off for £45!!

Which is cheaper than I feared. Main Citroen dealer. Took about an hour. No idea if they had a special tool, a spare key or drilled them out. Just glad to be rid of them.