So I've bent the wheel brace attempting to get the wheels off, and I call up today to tell the garage and to get them to agree to sort it out as they were the ones to put the wheels on 6 weeks ago after rear brake calipers/pads/backing plates replacement.

They agreed to sort it eventually, but first tried the line that "the wheels get corroded onto the hub".

"Yes maybe" I said - "but not in that timeframe" i.e. if the car has sat outside for a few years and driven in the salt every day, or parked in the sea or something, but it doesn't get driven in salt and is parked in a garage 95% of the time!

These wheel bolts were off the car 6 weeks ago - not exactly enough time to corrode on there - unless they cleaned all the copperslip off the bolts and dipped them in salt before reinstalling them.

And the wife's Ford Focus that has had a dozen days out of the weather in the last 4 years, and has been driven through the winter still has un-seized bolts (I checked) despite all of that.

So no it is not corrosion at all, it is some muppet tightening them up to 300 ft lb with a rattle gun. I wasn't born yesterday!

It annoys the living daylights out of me - effing Kwik-Fit did it last time (I know, I know, never again) but at least that time I managed to get them off again and didn't end up bending the wheel brace. So 2 out of 2 times the car has been to a garage in the last 12 months, the bolts have been overtightened.

How tight to tighten wheel bolts is pretty basic stuff, even I know that – what do they teach at mechanics’ school? Is it ridiculous health and safety stuff to overtighten them by 250% as a safety margin so they won’t fall off?

Rant over. Ah, that feels a bit better.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

I,m sure your not meant to put copperslip on your wheel bolts.If anything better to slacken and retight the bolts every so often by hand

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DON!T BUY IT---EARN IT

PO did it (car came from salty Scotland) and I never cleaned it off. I did scrape a whole lot of dried out copperslip and other stuff off the hub and wheel mating faces, which largely cured the steering wheel judder.



Do you mean because it might ruin the hub threads and lead to the possibility the bolts might snap off one day, not to mention the effect on the bolt hole tapers in the wheels?

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

Are we talking about copperslipping the base of the bolts,

Surely not copperslipping the threads themselves??

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Team: Moonstone GTI-6™
Team: Working air-con™

My second job is car servicing and over tightened bolts are a nightmare! These are the rules.... Hub to disk = light spray of copper spray. Disk to wheel = light brushing of copper paste and a light dusting of paste on the wheel nut threads. Always set wheel nuts to the right tightness using wrench.

I just switched wheels (winter/summer) on my Skoda Yeti. I'd watched the Kwik fart guy fit them in November and he finished tightening with a torque wrench. All as it should be. I could undo them with a standard extendable wheel wrench but was defeated by the stupid locking nuts. The (VAG) adaptor requires inward pressure to keep it on and torque to undo them-just what an air gun provides.
I'm considering just junking the lockers as at the roadside I doubt I could do anything.

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New Forum same high quality intellectual debate!
Team Zimmer™

Well I didn't know you could copper slip the threads, gonna have to buy some of this stuff now!

More money to spend

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Team: Moonstone GTI-6™
Team: Working air-con™

I've always copper greased the bolts and never had any problems

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supercharged China gti6 - Thu 16th Sep 1999 - sold
2010 megane rs250

i don't bother but never really had much of an issue... everyone surely has a rubber mallet to just whack the wheel off the hub anyway

also i'd ditch the spare wheel brace as it's rubbish

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306 rallye reproduction decals (full sets/individual decals) | 306 b-pillar textured vinyl weatherstrips
306 slam panel esso stickers | 306 yellow / orange / pension fund red side door badges
gti6 inlet manifold badges | 306 rear boot badges (p2/p3)
winner of Extraction of toys from prams with outstanding vigour award 2009 [source: gti6 owners club]

True. The angle is Possitively s**t so when you put power on it it pulls away from the bolts.

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Ex- Phase 3 China GTi-6 T-Reg

Focus and ford issued wheel braces are proper s**t.
We got a puncture the other night. Just up road from where we meet, we broke the oe issue one in the mOndeo boot after 1 stud so other lad walked to his car to get his brace(60 plate focus) and I broke that before it even loosened 1 bolt.
This was 3 in the morning on a housing estate with dogs barking like mad in houses around us, 4 of us trying to take a wheel off, must of looked well dodgy

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andrew315rawson@live.co.uk
Moonstone phase 7 gti6
My Project thread: http://www.306gti6.com/forum/showthread.php?id=119992&page=1

haha you've just had them overtorqued anyway, 90lbft is way too much. 85Nm/63lb ft. Methinks you were thinking of 90Nm.

With copperslip i've done it the one time on each of my wheelbolts and it works a treat. I also copperslip the mating face of the wheel as just after I bought my HDi the tyre had only been changed 2K before and when I got a puncture i had to kick the crap out of the wheel to release it.

I carry a cross brace in the boot of the HDi as the wheel brace bent during the above and i've never trusted it since.

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I'm Si btw

Night Blue VW Golf GTD
Bianca LBSC Rallye - Track/Road Slag Project Thread
Sparkling Silver Mini Cooper D - Super Dooper - (The other half's wheels)

I did have to resort to the good old 5ft length of scaffold tube the other day after i had the wheels balanced

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Darkstar