Alloy wheels

Bill · 2011-08-28T14:49:12+00:00

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.

Aug 28, 2011 21 Replies

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Andy Dingley 14 years ago

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the greatest video at the start, but it's a friend of mine watching for five minutes as tyre weld continues to ooze out of the nail hole is a toally ineffectual manner.

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Dave Plowman (News) 14 years ago

Slacken the bolts slightly and drive the car back and forwards a few times. Perhaps with a bit of hard braking. Obviously, in a safe place to do so. I'd rather that than use a hammer.

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