Locking Wheel Nuts ?
Discussion
Despite being a bit anal about my locking whee nut key, I went to do a job on my car and its not in its usual place, cue much searching and swearing.
Anyway, cant find it, find a place online with a good reputation and order one on Saturday proving a photo of the nut and the code that came with the car, it arrived this morning and is the correct one, so all good, apart from an hour of searching or more and £58 down the drain.
But, do they serve much of a purpose other than inconveniencing the owner more than any would be wheel thief ? I replaced them with normal bolts on my 350Z.
My car is either at home on the path in a fairly decent area and covered by CCTV cameras or in a secure compound, rarely leave it anywhere remotely dodgy.
Do the locking nut actually stop wheel theft ?
Do wheels still routinely go walkies ?
Anyway, cant find it, find a place online with a good reputation and order one on Saturday proving a photo of the nut and the code that came with the car, it arrived this morning and is the correct one, so all good, apart from an hour of searching or more and £58 down the drain.
But, do they serve much of a purpose other than inconveniencing the owner more than any would be wheel thief ? I replaced them with normal bolts on my 350Z.
My car is either at home on the path in a fairly decent area and covered by CCTV cameras or in a secure compound, rarely leave it anywhere remotely dodgy.
Do the locking nut actually stop wheel theft ?
Do wheels still routinely go walkies ?
I suspect if someone was determined enough and your wheels of enough value then it's likely they'd get round a locking wheel nut anyway.
I don't actually have locking wheels nuts on my S Class and even though they're AMG factory wheels, I doubt they're of value enough to bother with. Suspect thieves have moved onto catalytic converters rather than lugging four alloys around!
I don't actually have locking wheels nuts on my S Class and even though they're AMG factory wheels, I doubt they're of value enough to bother with. Suspect thieves have moved onto catalytic converters rather than lugging four alloys around!
The days of seeing cars up in the air on bricks are past imo, it's far more likely that your catalytic converter will be targeted.
When I snapped the key to mine I wacked on a cheap socket that was slightly undersized with a hammer then used an impact driver to spin them off.
They may deter opportunists but it's more likely they will break into the boot of the car to look for the wheelnut key, if it's a targeted theft then the thief will take a photo first of the shape and look online for the corresponding key.
When I snapped the key to mine I wacked on a cheap socket that was slightly undersized with a hammer then used an impact driver to spin them off.
They may deter opportunists but it's more likely they will break into the boot of the car to look for the wheelnut key, if it's a targeted theft then the thief will take a photo first of the shape and look online for the corresponding key.
loggo said:
Thieves moved on from radios to wheels and wheels to catalytic converters. I stopped using locking nuts on my wheels a couple of years ago I just don't see that wheels are a thing any more.
This - there are theft trends, and it's a running battle.Theft of entire cars was rife for a while, so people used those crooklocks. Then manufacturers started fitting transponder based immobilisers and the opportunist hot-wirer moved on to pinching wheels. When keyless thefts were on the rise, crooklocks made a reappearance.
So, wheel locks wouldn't stop a pro wheel-thief, but it would stop your neighbour's smackhead son (for example) from stealing your wheels to get money for drugs.
Sheepshanks said:
You see YouTube home security camera videos of thieves nicking them - mainly seems to be BMWs. Appparantly the factory locking nuts don't hold them up for a moment - I don't know if they have a way around them or they just use a master set.
You can get hard sockets with sharp bits, you whack it onto the nut, it bites in enough to spin it off. Not expensive, available on eBay, Amazon etc and I bet every mechanic or wheel and tyre shop owns a set to help customers who've lost the key. 
Any determined crim, a locking wheel nut isnt going to stop them anyway.
All they do is cause the owner considerable difficulty either with a lost or damaged key, and then having to pay someone to remove the locker without the key.
Any car i buy now the first thing to go are the locking wheel nuts.
All they do is cause the owner considerable difficulty either with a lost or damaged key, and then having to pay someone to remove the locker without the key.
Any car i buy now the first thing to go are the locking wheel nuts.
If you have something wtih wheels scrotes might want to put on their s
theaps - think anything VAG group or BMW with big wheels that can go on a Polo - they still get nicked but the locking wheelnut isn't going to stop that. I think the only people they ever cause trouble for are the owners and garages.
I take them off all my cars as soon as I get them.
theaps - think anything VAG group or BMW with big wheels that can go on a Polo - they still get nicked but the locking wheelnut isn't going to stop that. I think the only people they ever cause trouble for are the owners and garages.I take them off all my cars as soon as I get them.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff