Alloy wheels

[Bill]

So last night in torrential rain while taking someone home who was ill we had a flat tyre in the Octavia. We were only a few hundred yards into the journey, so drove back very slowly on the flat, I unloaded a huge amount of boat trailer metalwork from the back seats of the Disco and we continued the trip in that.

This morning I tried to get the wheel off. A huge lever on the end of the wheel brace eventually got the nuts off and it then only took about another hour levering against brake parts to finally free the wheel and get the spare on.

I like the Octavia because it has a full sized spare on a matching alloy wheel. Comparing the shiny spare to the wheel that came off shows corrosion on the fitted wheel - it looks like bi-metallic corrosion. The mating faces are mostly ok, but their edges have pitting and the centre, where it sits on the hub has turned white. The wheel nuts also look a bit gritty on the threads.

My question is this - should I coat all these mating surfaces with something, and if so, what? Just grease, or is there something better?

I will try to clean off the dirt and surface corrosion, but should I really be planning to take all the wheels off regularly for a clean and grease? It would be a real pain, but we came very close to being stuck on a remote country lane with invalid on board last night and it feels as though I should take some action.

[Chris Bartram]

Copperease/Copaslip. Wire brush the corrosion off first.

The easy way to get a stuck wheel off is to put the bolts back, leaving them slightly loose. Drive back and forward a foot or so, and perhaps give the top of the wheel a kick or shove. Never failed for me- the weight of the car helps you out.

[D.M.Chapman]

Tiny smear of coppergrease is what we used to use at the garage - always seemed to cure the problem.

Loosen nuts/bolts slightly, rock car forward and backwards a little (inches I mean). This will usually break the corrosion if you are stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Darren

[Mr Pounder]

40 years ago I bought a wheel brace from a long gone shop in Cleveleys - Lancashire. I still have it. It has never bent or twisted and has taken off every wheel in the past 40 years. It cost me £1. That was a lot of money in those days. >

[Bolted]

On Aug 28, 6:42=A0pm, "Mr Pounder" wrote: middle of nowhere.

That's a lot of wheels. Are you sure?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Every once in a while, Lidl have a telescopic wheelbrace. Extends to about

2ft and will shift any wheel nut by just using your weight. Comes with a sort of reversible socket with two common sizes - or you can use a standard 1/2 drive one of your choice. Very good VFM.

[Dave Baker]

Sometimes alloy wheels corrode to the hub and stick like the very devil. Put a pair of sturdy leather boots on, remove all the bolts and kick the tyre on alternate sides as hard as you can from the front. Levering from the back is not the best way to go.

[Scott M]

Other than greasing (as said), whenever you take your car to the garage and they've likely taken the wheels off, go round and re-tighten the bolts properly. Most places airgun then on way too tight rather than the proper figure (say about 110Nm for an average car, Disco's are higher IIRC.) which is only really a decent heave on a proper length breaker bar/torque wrench. Damned garages don't think in terms of people being able to do them away from home.

Don't grease the studs/bolts.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Well, even KwikFit check the nuts with a torque wrench. I'd hope a proper garage would too. Most wheel braces as supplied with the car simply ain't up to the job - even with the nuts correctly torqued.

[Bill]

In message , Scott M writes

Thanks to everyone for the input.

Oddly the thing I am not sure about is this quote above. I've cleaned off the wheel that came off, and looked at all the mating and "close" surfaces, and at the edges I am sure bi-metallic corrosion has affected the wheels. This also seems to have occurred where the wheel bolts go through the holes. It doesn't look too serious, but it is happening. I was actually thinking of applying grease to the wheel bolts, as the corrosion seems to have happened at the edges where the air and salt get at things, and I can see what looks like corrosion where the bolts go through the alloy wheels..

Maybe I'm a bit paranoid. I like steel wheels better because they are more elastic, but we once had a wheel of an industrial trailer come off on the motorway and the investigation showed that it had been tightened onto rust, which had powdered and fallen away on the road.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Wheel bolts are vastly over engineered and greasing them is always a good idea.

[Scott M]

For many a year I used a good outfit that /did/ do it properly and been faced with friends' cars that Jeff Capes had had a go at so I may be out of date as to 'standard' practise!

Apparently they make them short on purpose to avoid the owner over-tightening the nuts knowing that they like to leap up and down on them.

(Hon. mention Jaguar: the wheel braces they supply are made of cheese and the hex deforms to a circle after about one use. This is especially astounding as their nuts have a thin ally outside coat[1])

[1] Which also deforms.

[Scott M]

I admit to merely regurgitating that one tho I don't like the idea of buggering up the torquing of wheel bolts (tho I take Dave's point that they can take a lot of abuse.)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

But you need to know if the torque setting is for a greased or dry bolt. Assuming it is dry can be equally as bad as assuming it should be greased. But in the case of wheel fixings, they're generally extremely tolerant, because they must be.

[Jules Richardson]

It's one of the very few things I use a quick splash of wd40 for.

cheers

Jules

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I use copper grease - same as for stopping the wheel seizing on its spigot. To prevent corrosion, rather than as a lubricant.

[The Other Mike]

I initially tighten mine with a small (9 inch) 3/8" breaker bar. This more or less gets them to about 60lbft / 80Nm specified in the workshop manual with a high degree of accuracy. I always check with a torque wrench though.

[Chris Bartram]

I have to say I always put a slight smear of copperease on the threads (but only the threads), and do them up as tight as they will go by hand with the manufacturers wheelbrace, then check with a torque wrench if one is handy. Generally, I find it pretty accurate, and I can generally get them off by hand or a slight kick on the wheelbrace, and the only time I've had a wheel come loose was when a garage left them loose...

[The Other Mike]

Doing that on a lot of modern vehicles is a good way to have it fall off the jack. If this is before the wheel falls off its not too bad, if its a simultaneous event then you could f*ck your discs... or even worse.

[fred]

On 29 Aug, 14:15, Scott M wrote: snip

That's up there with Maserati. I was astonished at the wheel nuts rusting, yes rusting, after only one removal. A real education on the build quality of these 'Fine' Italian automobiles.

I've had BMW alloys seize on the hubs. I once invested in two tins of that puncture repair aerosol to allow me drive it to the nearest garage. (Two tins of this expensive guck hardly registered on the low profile tyre.) Bloody garage couldn't remove it either so he fixed the puncture in situ. My local tyre retailer finally got it off with a small sledge hammer.

Drive flat tyres seemed to be the answer on the next car and then I discovered they can't be repaired if they suffer a puncture. That'll be a new tyre sir. Arggghhhh.

Paul Mc Cann