I don't mean to be rude but wheels that only cost $180 each aren't worth getting worried too about. That's just about the bottom of the barrel.
Gordon Shumway
Is it good if a vacuum really sucks?
Exactly. And if someone really wants the wheel/s easy enough to chop- off the locking nut; usually installed, if at all, one on each wheel. And a 'professional wheel thief' will probably have the appropriate unlocking tool anyway! Some places in the world they just take the whole car; take the wheels and anything else and then dump it!
Don't really see the point of these alloy wheels. Lighter maybe? But expensive and harder to fix or replace if damaged! So for winter we acquire an extra set of four steel ones and equip them with steel studded (legal here until May 1st) snow tyres.
Oddly enough the only time I ever had wheels stolen it was plain old steel wheels off an old ex-Hertz/Avis 76 Chev. I had bought to tow a trailer! Also, ironically I was in court as a witness giving evidence against a contractor concerning the installation of water in our community at the time and could almost see the car in a parking space from the courtroom window!
Time to go shopping for winter tyres shortly. First snow storm often in November. Certainly by Dec15th. Although the weather during the last 50 years or so has been more variable and uncertain; seems to be changing! Despite slight increase in cost of hydro generated electricity, heating costs during recent winters, have, if anything have been lower! But it mainly a function of how windy it gets here, near the North Atlantic.
If worried about wheels being stolen get some plain old steel ones; even new often available for $50 or less. apiece. And if used (watch out though for those that came off a crashed vehicle) sometimes get a couple at time for $20 each. So for around $100 one saves the cost and potential damage to fancy rims by twice a year mounting and dismounting, balancing and installing two or four winter tyres. And cost of same. Also if one has the four snow tyre wheels stored in garage or shed it takes less than an hour to change them over oneself in the driveway etc. and put the unused ones back into the shed. Although must admit now am in mid/late 70s I have once or twice taken them to a service station. It also gives one a chance to inspect and clean up the set of wheels that are off the vehicle.
As they say cut the cloth to fit the situation. My father once knew a very affluent/influential, person (Lord ....Sir Somebody Hunt?) IIRC, who used to take an older smaller car and wear an old raincoat to his business meetings; rather than take his family's Roll Royce. He said it attracted less attention away from the business at hand, and nothing was ever stolen form the smaller/cheaper car. Maybe there's a lesson there?
Gordon Shumway wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
if somebody likes them and would rather steal than buy,it doesn't matter how much they cost. (and then there's the value of the TIRES on the wheels...)
FWIW,factory wheels are not high theft items.
Gordon,
I found out that I do have lug nuts They are underneath a round cap on the wheel. The lug wrench is in with the spare tire.
I should have done more homework before posting this question.
Thanks.
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:10:27 +0000 (UTC), against all advice, something compelled Tegger , to say:
My car has bolts instead of nuts. Am I breaking the law?
No worries, an easy misteak to make.
Blonde: I want to report a fire. Dispatcher: How do we get there? Blonde: In a big red truck, d'uh!
In case it's not obvious, Because the wheel moving on the hub had let the wheel hit the studs and damage the threads on at least two studs. The same reason at least two of the bolt holes in the wheel were oblong.
Close to letting my wheel fall off. Also I think there are a lot more threads per inch on the those little studs than on what a knockoff uses. At least for a race car, they just start it on, then hit it and it spins two or three revolutions and it's tight, right?
No, 1972 or 3, and yeah, it was amazingly cheap. Even more so when you hear all he did. I thought I was going to have to pay 50, 100, 150 or more, trying to remember prices then, but he only charged 7 dollars and change.
I wanted to go back to Chicago for a visit so I put a notice up at NYU, it probably was, looking for riders. I got two, a girl and a guy who used to work in a political job for Mayor Daley (which was a bad thing). We're on Interstate 80, a new road then, that goes east-west across northern, entirely rural, and partly wilderness Pa. and we're almost to Ohio. She's driving and she tells me that when she goes even to the left or right a bit, it's quiet, but when she points straight ahead, there's a noise. I drive for a bit and she is right! I pull over and for the wheel I had fiddled with 2 days earlier, the hub is too hot to touch. I just held my hand near it and I could feel the warmth. But, aha, there is a ramp only 200 yards ahead of me and a gas station at the top of the ramp. So I go there. But he tells me, I can't do it. You'll have to go to the dealer. Well the dealer is only 3 miles north in a tiny town. Looking at the map, I see it is Mercer, Pa, just as I recalled from 37 years ago!
I drive in, tell the guy the problem, and the first thing he does is look at the clock. It's 10 to 5, closing time. Immediately I think he's going to tell me to come back tomorrow, which means I'll have to pay for a motel for all 3 of us, probably one room for me and the guy and another room for the girl, plus I'll have to buy them dinner. If it were just me, I could have slept in a corn field. The whole reason I got riders was to save money.
But he doesn't say anything and he starts in on it. After taking off the tire and the hub/brakedrum iirc, he tells me that the inner race of the bearing is fused to the spindle (it was so hot). For those who don't know, the spindle is like the axle, but just the outer 6 inches of it, and it turns left and right because it's a front wheel. He doesn't think he can get the bearing off without ruining the spindle, and he doesn't stock the spindle. Darn, I think, the junk yards are closing in 5 minutes, I'll have to come back tomorrow after all.
I'll get my boss, he says. The boss comes and lights the acetylene torch, and goes at it. In less than a minute, iirc, he turns off the torch and says, "You were lucky. I got it off without ruining the spindle. I have a bearing in stock and I think you ruined the brake drum too. Oh, I say, I have my original brake drum in the trunk." I"m vague here, because I thought he didn't provide any parts, but if he cut off the original inner race, he must have replaced the bearing. And he must have pushed out the orificial outer race from the brake drum, because he's not going to do what I did, use halves of two different bearings (either both used or one used and one new, either way they don't match). So he sold me a new wheel bearing. Maybe that is what made it cost 7.60. I don't remember watching him push the bearing out or in, but any how, he had me ready to leave by about
5:15, 25 minutes total, and the bill was 7.60. I gave them 10 dollars and said the rest was for the coffee they made for themselves. I wanted to yell about how cheap they were. Maybe because it wasn't NYC or Chicago. But I didn't want to make them feel they weren't charging enough.One of them may have left already but I apologize to whoever is there for keeping them after 5:00 and he says, "It doesnt' matter. I live 5 minutes from here anyhow." And no rush hour traffic in NW Pa.
Later it occurred to me, or maybe he told me, that if I had driven much farther and it had gotten much hotter, the bearing might have melted, and then cooled when I parked, and fused into one piece, and I couldn't even have driven the car. That would have meant a tow truck, maybe many miles, and more parts and much more money yet.
And yet here I am last year, 36 years later, letting a moderate medical problem lead to emergency, probably life-at-risk surgery. It's like I haven't learned a thing.
I must have been misled, because the whole thing only took 45 minutes and I spent 10 dollars.
Steve Daniels wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Yes. And as punishment you must drive a 1986 Yugo with worn balljoints and a grabby clutch.
That me because they are driving so much and they have video cameras at the Dunkin' Donuts.
Darn right. On your knees, now face down, scum, and spread your legs.
Sounds like one of the rare good people left in the world. Thanks for sharing.
This is really very funny, because for 50 years or more, no one could see the lugnuts on cars. They all had hubcaps or the larger wheel covers, precisely to cover the less attractive lug nuts.
Then they started chrome plating lug nuts and letting them show, and now Kate didn't even realize what was under the hubcap!!!!
I think hubcaps might be a good idea. I once parked my car with one wheel cover off, and it snowed and the snow didn't melt for weeks, during which I had shoulder surgery and recuperation, so I didn't move the car, and when I finally had a flat tire 6 months later, 4 of the 5 studs on that wheel broke when tried to take off the nuts.
It was Sunday at 6 PM so I had to drive home from Newark airport with only one bolt holding the wheel on.
This is really very funny, because for 50 years or more, no one could see the lugnuts on cars. They all had hubcaps or the larger wheel covers, precisely to cover the less attractive lug nuts.
Then they started chrome plating lug nuts and letting them show, and now Kate didn't even realize what was under the hubcap!!!!
I think hubcaps might be a good idea. I once parked my car with one wheel cover off, and it snowed and the snow didn't melt for weeks, during which I had shoulder surgery and recuperation, so I didn't move the car, and when I finally had a flat tire 6 months later, 4 of the 5 studs on that wheel broke when tried to take off the nuts.
It was Sunday at 6 PM so I had to drive home from Newark airport with only one bolt holding the wheel on.
I"m impressed that they don't just use an air wrench to put them on tigher than I can get them off. One time I had to drive a half mile to a tire store, on a flat, because even standing on the lug wrench, the bolts wouldn't ocme off. And girls have even more trouble, when I think a normal girl more than 5'5" ought to be able to remove a tire when the lug nuts are tightened by hand, but not if done by an air wrench.
Does any other chain use a manual torque wrench?
You can slim jim most cars, but I think it's a lot harder to get wheel locks off.
And the point is to stop the average lunkhead, not to stop the most well equipped, who won't go after 180 dollar wheels, but will want to take apart a 100G car they have stolen, and sell all the parts.
I was washing my car at a do-it-yourself car wash in Indiana several years ago, on Xmas, and I locked my keys in the car. I found a convenience store only 30 yars away and was asking her for a wire hanger, and a guy in the store offered to open the door for me. Tunred out he was a pro locksmith. Not only did he have the slim jim but an assorment of tools to pry the rubber away from the window a little bit to make it easier to use the slim jim. It took him from 5 to 10 minutes and he woudln't accept money, because it was Xmas.
Anyhow, if you need to break into your car this way, use the passenger door or the rear door. A friend locked himslef out and the small-town police came and did it for free, but the mechanism got diconnected in the process and he had to climb over the console for the rest of the day until we got to my house and I took apart the door and reconnected things.
they install the lug nets with air tools, but torque them to spec with a manual wrench. or they should. a bunch of lawsuits about not putting them on properly forced most large chains to do so.
The air wrench guys are supposed to use calibrated 'torque sticks' between the wrench and the socket. Discount Tire does- they have a row on the wall, all color coded. Like the clutch on a cordless drill, they only let the nut tighten so far.
-- aem sends...
aemeijers wrote in news:cJWdnTgrg7YBtC3XnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
And those sticks are calibrated for a particular output by the air ratchet. If the rattle gun is out of spec or set too high, or the wrong gun is used, the torque stick will happily allow (sometimes severe) overtorque on the lug nuts.
This is why you can end up with four or five wheel nuts all requiring vastly different levels of removal effort by you the next time you have to tackle them.
A manual torque wrench, properly operated, is the only way to go for final tightening.
It's been a long time since I've had a tire put on by anyone, hmmm, except the guys I buy used tires, who do use air wrenches. I don't know if they are decently calibrated, because I think they are also the only ones who have taken off my wheels. Wait, once I took off a wheel to replace a left tie-rod end. It came off okay, after the tire guys had put it on.
That's for the past 7 years. It's hard to remember the previous car. Maybe the last few years were like these years.
That would be good.
Hi, Not the normal wrench. Lug nut has key for that particular set. Mechanics use a tool(wrench) to remove it say when the key is lost. When you have a set installed it comes with a key for the set and it has a number. When key is lost you can order a replacement key using that no. But most often people don't safe keep the number. It happened to my son's car. He misplaced the key and being unable to find it, I went to tool shop and found a counter threaded socket which will bite into lug not. I use air tool with compressor in my garage. Nothing to it removing it. Lincoln? the dealer has to charge a set of it? I always make them give me a free set. BTW, been a long time since we ever bought domestic car. I still like Ford trucks tho.
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