Garage have broken locking wheel nut key……..

…… when swapping wheels/tyres.

They claimed previous garage must have overtightened the nut causing the key to snap when they tried to loosen it. They’ve charged me £20 for the privilege of drilling out the old bolts and I also have to buy new security bolts.

I feel they were probably cack handed and broke it trying to be too quick and hadn’t inserted the ‘key’ properly – it has three internal pins which they had manged to shear one off and bend the other two. Hard to prove but obviously I’m not happy.

Your thoughts appreciated as to whether garage is liable or whether it’s just one more motoring cost to be swallowed?

Probably used a torque gun to remove the nut causing the damage

Are you sure it was ok before taking it to them. If so refuse to pay and demand replacement

did they ask you first before they went ahead with this?

Yes probably but does that make them at fault?

BTW I don’t trust them to do any mechanical jobs after a couple of instances last year but didn’t have much choice as I’m at work and they are close by. Didn’t occur to me that they could screw up a simple tyre swap 🙁

Yes they did ask but the garage owner had gone home and they were closing at 1200 so I didn’t have a lot of choice other than to get it done as I’m working today and tomorrow 10-10 and need the car.

I will be taking it up with him on Monday.

” it has three internal pins” Is it a french car by chance ?

Those lockers are even worse than a french car.

Speaking from a vast amount of experience it’s actually pretty hard to break a locker when taking it off, they only fit one way so if it isn’t in the corrent way it just slips off.

Very easy however to overtighten them ie with an airgun and break them.

Those 3 pin ones are the worst lockers ever. Only a a french man would come up with such a stupid design. You have all the torque needed to tighten/loosen the wheel nut being sent through three little pins !? If the wheels haven’t been off in a while and the studs are corroded in you have no chance of getting them off.

FWIW £20 to drill out all the lockers is a bargain.

I charge £30 per nut.

Only a a french man would come up with such a stupid design

I don’t suppose Saab or their suppliers operated an anti-French employee policy, so it’s a possibility 8)

A Saab should come with a Vauxhall style locker, as it basically is a Vauxhall.

They look like this:

Thats why I always remove mine before entering the c
garage even if they look a bit insulted. That way they snap, I know its my fault. But then I also use a torque wrench, and ask the tyre fitters to do the tyres to my specified psi and the bolts to my preffered torque settings. I used a BalckCircles premier fitters and watched them double run round with an impact gun doing them up on previous car which made me resort to be a picky middle aged man.

My garage did that to one of mine, but they welded it back together and said I better order a new one before it snaps again. So that’s what I did and I then had two of them.

^^^^^^^^^ 😯

I removed my locking wheel bolts years ago and bined them and replace with normal bolts mainly due to seeing how many break when the wheels are being removed. The 3 pins ones are total rubish and the Saab/ Ford ones in the picture are as bad. To many people in the garage trade use nut guns to remove them which soon mucks them up. Funny how many time when you fail a mot on a missing wheel bolt or nuts from wheels it is the locking ones when may have gone. Mind you a lot of people do not seem to carry the key in the car as well and keep it at home.
I for one have not seen or heard of wheels being stolen very often these day but that may be down to where you live , mind you Cats/DPFs seem to go from exhausts more now.

I’ve removed mine and replaced them with normal ones the minute that I bought the car. Seen far to many nightmares with them. They are poorley manufactured which isnt helped by the monkeys in teh garage over tightening them.

Ok. Standard bolts will be bought to replace them.

Can’t see there being much of a market for 12 year old Saab alloys anyway.

Cheers all

I had all my wheels nicked a few years back but I had security bolts on anyhow (apparently there had been a spate of them as a BMW main dealer had been broken into recently and all the sockets taken). Didn’t realise the normal curvy/clover type were fragile though, makes sense to go back to normal bolts if your wheels aren’t worth much – I’d probably run it past the insurance company first though.

Woody, you got off lightly, it can take hours to remove locking bolts, certain wheels don’t help & I have charged out removal at over £250!
TBF it’s normally tyre fitters that do the damage & not the garages that service the cars. We ally slip & torque all wheel nuts/bolts, it takes time but best to get the job done right.
Cheers.

Was quite happy to replace the locking ones on mine with standard ones I had spare- as yet nobody has stolen my horrible alloys.

Nobody steals alloy wheels anymore !
I have removed every locking wheel nut on every car I’ve owned for years. Never had any stolen.
Have had some tasty wheels too, not factory fitted stuff.
(BBS RS, OZ Racing, SSR etc)

Seriously, when was the last time anyone you know had their car left on bricks ?

Air tools + ford style locking nuts never ends well. Garages tend not to clean and regrease them either which leads to them seizing and taking more torque to loosen- compound that with mechanics in a rush and you’ve got damaged nuts (oo-er!)