Locking Wheel Nut Removal Help!

[JamesStpatrick]

Hi,
I have a BMW 330d 2015 plate, as you can probably guess from the title someone has overtightened my locking wheel nuts. I went to go and change my brakes today and the key snapped off in the flower pattern of the lock nut.
Does anyone know how i can remove them? I went to BMW and they tried their "master set" but that even failed due to them being so tight!
Any advise on how i can remove them would be great!

[trickywoo]

Does it have a floating collar? If so your are kind of fecked and will likely need to weld it.

If not Irwin bolt grip remover will get it off.

[JamesStpatrick]

Hi, thanks for your fast response. Yes it has one of them spinning collars on it, i found this out after i tried to knock a socket over it.
It actually went into a garage who attempted to weld it but the weld just snapped when they tried to remove it. I might try another garage, i just don't want to damage my rims in the process.

[E-bmw]

Go to a decent tyre place instead of a garage, they get it all the time.

[JamesStpatrick]

I never thought of a tyre place, i'll pop down to my local one now!
Thanks for the advice.

[JamesStpatrick]

Hi, so i ended up getting this sorted in the end.
I went to my tyre shop who said they got one of these last week and were unable to remove it and didn't really seem to want to try.
I managed to find this company www.lockingwheelnutremovers.co.uk online. He came out to me this morning and got all four off in about 10-15 minutes and without damage. He seemed to hammer some sort of a tool into it and then used a giant breaker bar to undo them.
Thanks everyone for their help and replies!

[E-bmw]

I have a decent place near me & he was chatting about exactly this issue when I was in getting aligned a few months ago, they get it all the time, have the right tools and don't charge much to do it.

[gun12b]

watch this now...................


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJNz4M3K8qc



thank me later...............

[E-bmw]

Unfortunately that will only work if the wheel nut/bolt has been done up correctly ie. not too tight.

As the OP clearly stated that his had been done up so tight that it broke the tool so the likelihood is this would not have worked although it would have been worth a try.

[trickywoo]

gun12b said:

watch this now...................


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJNz4M3K8qc



thank me later...............

Won't work with a floating collar either, like OP said he had.

[SebringMan]

E-bmw said:

I have a decent place near me & he was chatting about exactly this issue when I was in getting aligned a few months ago, they get it all the time, have the right tools and don't charge much to do it.

Snap.

Such places however are few and far between. He's got me and a few mates out of trouble.

[JamesStpatrick]

Yeah i did originally try hammering a socket over the top, as others have said because it had a spinning collar on it, it just spun around and then was a pain to remove (required a lot of hammering from side to side to release the socket). I wouldn't advise trying it if it has a spinning collar incase it gets stuck on there then i would imagine it would be near impossible to remove. However if it doesn't have one of them spinning collars then i guess it will work as long as it isn't over tightened.

[ian in lancs]

https://www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/tools/sock...

[Pica-Pica]

Are we really talking locking wheel bolts? Which cars still have wheel nuts?

[Monty Python]

It's for precisely this reason that I dumped the locking wheel bolts on my F30 and replaced them with a set from the E90.

[E-bmw]

ian in lancs said:

https://www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/tools/sock...

Still no use to the OP as his wheel nuts have the loose collar, hence why they weren't suggested earlier.

[The Mad Monk]

JamesStpatrick said:

Hi, so i ended up getting this sorted in the end.
I went to my tyre shop who said they got one of these last week and were unable to remove it and didn't really seem to want to try.
I managed to find this company www.lockingwheelnutremovers.co.uk online. He came out to me this morning and got all four off in about 10-15 minutes and without damage. He seemed to hammer some sort of a tool into it and then used a giant breaker bar to undo them.
Thanks everyone for their help and replies!

How much?

[gun12b]

got the daughters removed a while ago, he used this tool to remove.cost £20.

[Julian Nicklin]

I had this problem today when the head was sheared off at the local tyre fitters.
The floating collar was present so I couldn't just force a socket on.

I used a die grinder to remove enough metal to remove the floating collar.
It took about an hour to grind the material away but once remove the collar slid off and I was able to use a socket to undo the nut.

If you have a bit of tin plate or similar make a tube and insert it into the wheel so if you slip you don't damage your wheel.

Good luck to anyone who has ths problem & when you get your tyres changed maybe ask the fitter to use a bit of copper slip and to torque the nut correctly. Or slacken and retighten the nuts yourself when you get home if you have a torque wrench...

[Mr Tidy]

Julian Nicklin said:

Or slacken and retighten the nuts yourself when you get home if you have a torque wrench...

I've only become aware of this issue in the last few years when I have been swapping to winter tyres, but luckily my regular tyre place finish the bolts off with a manual torque wrench.

The other option might be to replace the locking bolts with ordinary ones before going to the tyre fitters!