Buy a car equipped with locking wheels nuts and the one thing you should establish is whether the vehicle also comes with a locking wheel nut key. Unfortunately, many motorists make a mistake when they buy a car equipped with alloy wheels. They love the look of the rims, appreciate the fact they are being protected with locking wheels nuts, but forget to ask the vehicle seller if they have the key to remove the lock nuts if this is required.
Can you imagine how frustrating this if you have a puncture and are stranded on the side of the road with no means of removing the offending wheel? It’ll be more than likely raining, you won’t be in the best of moods, and you’ll be stuck with a flat tyre, wondering which step to take next.
Calling a locking wheel nut removal service will be a sensible option at this point. At The Locking Wheel Removal Service, we regularly attend to stranded motorists that have lost their wheel nut key. It is our aim to remove lugs without causing damage to the wheel.
Losing a wheel nut key can happen to anybody. Some drivers suddenly realise the key wasn’t supplied with the vehicle. Others discover the locknuts have been over-tightened and are therefore damaged and hard to remove.
The misery of missing wheel lock keys
It’s no fun if you can’t find the key to your locking wheel nuts. Learning whether your car has locking wheel lugs is one thing, establishing whether there’s a key to unlock the lugs when you require tyres replacing or wheels refurbishing is something else.
Locking wheels nuts are useful security measures, they can also be a nightmare to remove if you don’t have the right tools and this is normally the moment when professional help is required.
The manufacturers of locking nuts design them to be as durable as possible and this is why it’s essential you have them professionally removed if you don’t have the correct tool. Learn a little about the construction of locking wheel nuts and you begin to realise just how rugged they actually are, and why they are so difficult to take off without the correct hex hey.
Features of locking wheel nut keys
Get to know the features of wheel locks to fully understand what makes them so impenetrable. Premium brand name manufacturers set a unique challenge to criminals. They make locking nuts tough to crack for thieves and this prevents expensive alloy wheels from being stolen.
How do they do this?
By paying close attention to the design and the construction of lug nuts, locking wheel nut manufacturers create security locking nuts equipped with all the following features.
1.) Hardened steel materials
Rugged, robust and designed to provide years of service, locking nuts are manufactured with the finest quality steel materials. By using hardened steel, this ensures the wheel locks have superior structural integrity, they are tough, hardened to cope with demanding applications, and offer the highest level of security once fitted to a wheel.
2.) Unique hex key sizes
Some of the leading wheel lock manufacturers design different hex key sizes which enable you to match the vehicle’s original nut wrench. This is fine in principle, it’s not so good if you have lost the hex key and need to replace it with a like-for-like item and aren’t sure which hex key you require. Faced with this situation, a reliable locking wheel nut removal service could be required.
3.) Specific groove key patterns
Compare the key designs of two different locking wheel nuts and you will notice how unique they are. Key patterns are generated by computers, they create many different types of patterns designed to thwart the efforts of key removal tools. Lose the key and without a replacement, you really need some type of professional assistance.
4.) Perfectly machined threads
Machined to meet exacting standards, premium quality wheel nuts are milled with high strength threads to exceed proof load standards. Try to force them off without knowing what you are doing and you could cause further damage to the wheels.
5.) Superior build-quality
Modern locking wheel nuts are designed to exceed quality standards of original equipment manufacturers (OEM). Factors like the bearing surface are given due consideration and locking wheel nuts are often designed to guarantee a precise and tight fit to the wheel.
It’s no wonder a locked wheel nut is hard to remove!
As you can see, a high degree of technical innovation goes into the construction of a locking wheel nut which goes some way to explaining why they are so difficult to remove without the right wheel lock key.
People wrongly assume there’s a simple method to removing a locked wheel nut without a key but this is simply not the truth. If you are faced with this predicament, can’t find the hex key, and really need the locking nut removed without damaging your alloy wheels, don’t struggle, just ask for professional help.
It’s not difficult to find locking wheel nut removal specialists and their services are more affordable than you might imagine.
Arranging a wheel nut removal is easier than you think
Look online for an experienced locking wheel nut remover and you will find expert solutions like our business here at Locking Wheel Nut Removal in Birmingham. Call for a free quote and you could have your lug nuts removed without fuss and without damaging your expensive alloy wheels.
For all enquiries, simply contact us today and leave a few details, or call 0121 733 1956 for a speedy and reliable service.
10 Questions You Have To Ask a Locking Wheel Nut Remover
Changing alloy wheels on a car should be a straightforward procedure as long as you have the right tools and can remove the wheel lugs with ease. This procedure is made slightly more difficult if the alloys are fitted with locking wheel nuts, it becomes impossible if you have lost the wheel lock key.
When faced with this situation it’s easy to feel alarmed. You wonder what steps to take next and search in vain for the locking wheel nut key. More often than not, this simple but essential item has been lost for good, and there’s no way on this earth you are going to be able to remove the locked lugs from your wheels.
At this stage, fear, panic and a feeling of queasiness might spread over you. Try to remain calm though and remember, no matter how bad the situation might seem there is a simple solution staring you in the face.
Call a professional locking wheel nut removal service!
Instead of trying to remove lugnuts without the correct tool, ask an expert to do this for you. Without professional help you are going to struggle, you might scuff, scrape or damage your alloys, and there’s a really good chance you will shear the thread on the locking nut, or damage the head causing further issues.
Remove this worry by asking an expert in lug nut removal to resolve the issue for you. This is the cheapest, quickest and most sensible option. Just make sure you ask a few preliminary questions first to ensure you receive the best possible service.
Here are 10 questions you definitely need to ask before you let anybody touch the locking wheel nuts on your car
1.) What is involved with the locking wheel nut removal?
It’s a good idea to have some type of insight before you let a total stranger loose on your expensive alloys. Don’t be frightened to ask the company who is providing the lug removal service what it is they plan to do. Ask them to talk you through the process step-by-step so you are fully aware of what’s involved, what is going to happen and how effective they are going to be. Any reliable lugnut service will be happy to provide this information and it’ll be plainly obvious they are passionate about what they do.
2.) Can you remove any type of locking wheel bolts?
This is quite a useful question to ask an expert wheelnut technician. Cars are different, and so are locking wheel nuts, there are many types out there made by different companies, from factory fitted nuts to aftermarket lugs. There’s no point hiring somebody who doesn’t have experience of working on different types of locking wheel nuts, so establish they have removed all kinds of wheelnuts from all makes of cars.
3.) Do you guarantee to remove the bolt without the wheel lock key?
Surely this is a given? Call a company that says they can remove any wheel bolt without the locking key and they should be true to their word. Believe it or not, some so called professional wheel nut removal services struggle to try to remove the very basic types of wheel nut locks. If they can’t promise to remove your wheel lugs and do so without damaging your wheels, don’t even consider hiring them.
4.) Will this cause any damage to my alloys?
You shouldn’t have to ask this really but it’s good for your own peace of mind. The safe removal of wheel nuts has to be without question, otherwise, there’s no point hiring the service in the first place. Don’t be afraid to voice your concerns, it’s up to the wheelnut removal technician to pacify you and provide you with specific guarantees.
5.) How long will the locking wheel nut removal take?
It’s always handy to know just how long it will take to remove a locking nut. This can depend on how tight the existing nut is, the style fitted, and if the nut has any damage to it. Although each customer is different it should be realistic to expect four wheel nuts to be removed in less than an hour.
6.) My lug nut key is lost and my wheel bolts are torqued really tight, can you help?
Locking wheel nuts are easy to over-tighten, especially if they have been fitted to the wheel and the hub using a workshop air gun. It’s understandable to feel concerned if you know your lugnuts are fixed tightly into place, so check if the removal service has experience of releasing the tightest locking nuts.
7.) What if you don’t have my type of wheel nut key combination?
Ask this question by all means, any proven wheelnut unlocking service should be able to remove a variety of nut key combinations. They’ll have the tight tool for the job and be able to remove your wheel nuts quickly, efficiently, and leave your wheels in exactly the same condition afterward.
8.) Should I bring the car to you to have the locked nut removed?
It might not be convenient to take your car to a garage to have the wheel nuts removed so find out if the company provides a mobile service for the convenience of their customers. This would allow you to have the wheels removed at a time to suit you, at your choice of location. Mobile wheelnut removal services are more flexible and they’re handy if you can’t get to them.
9.) What areas do you cover for locking wheel nut removals?
Establish the service area for the locking nut removal service. If they provide a mobile service do you fall within their catchment area, or will you have to take your car to them? Any doubts about this can easily be rectified with a quick question, just call them up and ask them which areas they cover as part of their lugnut removal service.
10.) How much will it cost?
The golden question! Never agree to have your locking wheelnuts removed without first establishing how much this is going to cost. If the company is anything like ours here at Locking Wheel Nut Removal Service in Birmingham, they should aim to provide a genuine, honest service at a very reasonable cost. Get a quote and see how affordable it can be to have your locking wheel nuts removed.
We’re here to answer any questions for you!
Of course, if you have any questions about locking wheel nuts, can’t find your wheel lock key, or want a FREE no obligation quote to have your lugnuts removed, we can help.
Call us here at Locking Wheel Nut Removal and we promise to provide you with a superior level of service, the number to call is 0121 733 1956.
Losing a Locking Wheel Nut Key – What to do next
Locking wheels nuts help to prevent the theft of your alloy wheels. Not only are they a visual deterrent, they are extremely difficult to remove, and more often than not, people damage their alloys when they attempt to remove the nut without the proper key.
This course of action is totally avoidable of course, with some expert assistance from a professional locking wheel nut removal service, nuts are removed with hardly any effort and alloys are left pristine afterwards. Some people are stubborn, they try to save money by doing a ‘DIY’ wheel nut removal, with disastrous consequences.
Without doubt, unless you know what you are doing you can and will damage your alloy wheels if you attempt to remove a locking wheel nut without using the right tools. Plenty of horror stories can be found on the internet, through online motoring forums, where people have tried and failed to remove their vehicle’s wheel nuts with little success.
Classic examples include:
• Using wrenches to force the nut
• Trying ‘specialist’ lubricants to loosen the nut
• Heating the nuts up using a blowtorch
• Attempting to remove the nut using the wrong wheel nut key
Any of the above methods will invariably lead to a failed wheel nut removal. Try them and you will only cause more damage which will, in turn, lead to a greater expense.
It makes you wonder if it’s worth fitting locking wheel nuts to your car’s alloys if it’s going to cause such a problem, what reasons could you possibly want to fit them in the first place.
Why fit locking wheels nuts?
Actually, if you think about it, you can understand why people fit locking wheel nuts to alloys. Not only is it inconvenient to have your wheels stolen, the rims are expensive to replace, depending on the type fitted, this could equate to thousands of pounds, especially when you consider the cost of each alloy and the tyres fitted to it, which themselves are expensive to buy.
Preventative measures will help to solve this problem. Fit a set of locking wheel nuts to alloy wheels and they’re not going anywhere without the right key, they’ll be well protected at all times.
This is fine as long as you keep your locking wheel nut key in a safe place, and have easy access to it in the event of a puncture or whenever you need to remove the alloy wheels for a spot of maintenance. Brake servicing, for example, will necessitate the need to remove a wheel, and this can quickly turn into a problem if you don’t have the locking wheel nut key, what happens next in this instance?
Putting it simply you are stuck, and could be persuaded to attempt a locking wheel nut removal without the right tool or the knowledge you require to complete the job in a safe, non-damaging way.
Avoiding the risks
So how do you avoid the problem of not having a wheel nut key which enables you to remove alloy wheels at will? There are a number of scenarios which could place you in the position of not having immediate access to a wheel nut locking key including all of these instances:
• Damaged Bolt Key
• Lost Key
• No Key With Car
These examples are more common than you might think and no matter how careful you are, you could easily find yourself in any of these tricky situations.
Damage to the wheel nut key
Wheel nut keys are tough but they’re not impervious to damage. Be a little rough when using the key, or fit it to a nut that has been over-tightened and you could easily damage the metal rendering the key useless and leaving you with an alloy that’s still locked and secured to the car.
Lost Key
This is very likely to happen if you fail to keep the locking wheel nut key in a safe place. The chances are you’ll only look for the key in the event of an emergency, such as a flat tyre, and this is often when panic sets it as you realise you have no idea where the item in question is.
To avoid this, establish where the key is and keep it somewhere safe in your car. Popular locations to store wheel nut keys include:
• Glove boxes
• Ashtrays
• Door pockets
• Coin holder compartments
• Secret storage sections in foot wells
• Hidden compartments in boot
• Spare wheel housing
• Cup holders
No Key with car
If you buy a car fitted with a set of locking wheel nuts always make sure the unlocking tool is included in the sale. This is especially important if you buy a pre-used car from a private buyer. Always check the alloys, see if they are fitted with locking wheel nuts and if they are, ask the seller where the key is before you drive away, and establish the unlocking tool fits the nut to prevent any future problems.
What happens if the locking wheel nut is missing, damaged or not fit for purpose?
Okay, worst case scenario, you haven’t got the locking wheel nut, what do you do next? Before you panic, have you thoroughly checked through the car? Look in the popular locations we mentioned earlier to see if the wheel nut has been stored there. If you have purchased the car from a private seller or a dealer, they might have stowed it away in a safe spot, fail to find it and you could always contact them again to see if they know where the locking wheel nut tool is.
Should there be no sign of the locking wheel nut key, don’t panic, you can still have the nuts safely and swiftly removed with the assistance of a professional locking wheel nut removal service.
The same applies if the locking wheel nuts have become damaged after somebody has unsuccessfully tried to remove them. It might look serious but this problem is easily overcome by an expert locking wheel nut removal technician.
Find a fast, affordable solution for locking wheel nuts
The moment you realise you have damaged locking wheel nuts or misplaced keys, contact us here at the Locking Wheelnut Removal Service in Birmingham. We provide mobile services throughout the Midlands and offer a quick and hassle-free removal for locking wheel nuts on all makes and models of cars.
Find Out Which Locking Wheel nuts Your Car Uses and How Best to Remove Them
Locking wheel nut bolts are designed to increase the security of your Alloy tyres and wheels. They’re notoriously difficult to successfully remove, potentially damaging the wheel and tyres permanently. The wheels of your car are attached with a bolt or a nut. Bolts have a threaded shaft which fits into your wheel hub, and nut have an internal thread, allowing it to fit onto a stud that comes out of the wheel hub.
There are various types of locking wheel nut bolts, and they all have the potential to have problems. The type of locking wheel nut bolt you need is dependent on your make of car, as different manufacturers will use different types. It’s extremely important that the correct type of locking wheel nut bolt is used for your car in order to keep your wheels safe and secure.
What is a locking wheel nut?
Locking wheel nuts (or bolts) are fitted to vehicles to protect expensive alloy wheels from theft. The wheel nut key should allow you to safely and efficiently release the bolt when necessary, but there are a number of occasions when you won’t have the key, such as:
- Buying a second hand car with no bolt key
- You lose the key
- The key can become damaged through being used incorrectly
- Over-tightened wheel nuts can break the key
Standard locking wheel nuts
Standard locking wheel nuts are the most common type, and have no spinning or rotating collar. The majority of cars use this type of locking wheel nut with its simple keyed face.
Spinning or rotating locking wheel nuts
Some car manufacturers produce cars with a spinning or rotating collar in order to prevent traditional removal procedures from working. Standard locking wheel nut removal tools don’t work due to a rotating or spinning collar around the wheel nut.
Designed as a security measure against thieves after high end wheels, there are now plenty of tools on the market that can remove these locking wheel nuts easily and within seconds.
Spinning or rotating locking wheel nuts quickly become troublesome and expensive when you lose the key, and in such cases the only safe option is to visit a professional.
Shear head locking wheel nuts
Commonly found on Peugeot and Citroen cars, shear head wheel nuts can be the most annoying and difficult locking wheel nuts to remove. They’ve been designed to shear off at the head of the nut, leaving the body of the bolt behind if you attempt to remove it without the proper key. This in itself isn’t necessarily problematic, but the bolts and their keys can be prone to fail, even when they’re used as intended. Once more, the best thing to do is have them removed by a professional and replaced with a more standard type of locking wheel nut.
What to do if you need to remove your locking wheel nut
As soon as you know you need to remove your locking wheel nut, make sure you have your key. This is by far the simplest and quickest way to remove your locking wheel nuts. If you’ve lost your key, there are various methods with which some people have occasionally achieved success, but a professional locking wheel nut removal technician is the only way to ensure success.
Common methods people try at home
At Locking Wheelnut Removal Service, we often end up helping motorists who have unsuccessfully tried to remove their wheel nuts. There are a variety of tricks, hacks and tutorials in the internet that have supposedly worked for the people who’ve posted them, but not our clients. Here are some of the most common failed methods we hear about when we successfully remove locking wheel nuts.
Using lubricant for wheel nut removal
We have a lot of clients telling us they’ve been told to apply lubricant to the wheel nut before attempting to remove it. It’s true that there are special lubricants on the market for specifically removing wheel nuts, but these often don’t work. The idea of this lubricant is to simply turn the nut after the liquid sinks into the areas between the thread and nut.
Often, people find that this simply doesn’t work as the nuts just don’t come lose.
Using the (incorrect) wrench
All too many people will use an incorrect lug wrench in an attempt to remove their wheel nuts. The condition of the wrench and the size are important factors in whether you’ll succeed with this method. The proper wrench, such as a drive impact wrench, will increase your chances of removing the wheel nut.
The problem with this home method is that too many people will use a wrench to try and force the wheel nut loose. This often damages the threads, causing a separate but serious problem that can only be fixed by an experienced mechanic.
Locking wheel nut removal with a torch
All too often, in a last desperate attempt to remove a wheel nut, people will try and use a torch to heat up the lug nut. It’s claimed that the heat will eliminate an underlying problem responsible for holing the wheel nut in place, but we often have people telling us they’ve tried this with no success.
Locking wheel nut removal is not a simple task, and trying to remove them yourself will at best do nothing, and at worst, seriously damage your wheels and tyres. This damage is far more expensive and difficult to repair than having a professional locking wheel nut removal mechanic simply remove the locking wheelnut.
Why you should get your locking wheel nuts removed by a professional
Having your locking wheel nuts removed by a professional is the best route to take, for a number of reasons:
If you need your locking wheel nuts removed in Birmingham or the surrounding areas, contact us or call 0121 733 1956 today.
