I decided to take my winter tires and wheels off yesterday in hoping there is no more bad weather here in April. I had no problems putting the October "tire rack" purchase on myself. it actually took only about an hour to replace all 4 wheels and drive away. However, yesterday it did not go that way at all. I made sure I did not over tighten the lugs for fear they would not come off come spring. Well much to my dismay not only could I not loosen the aftermarket lugs, but the cheap lugwrench adaptor that came with the tires is made out of a soft metal alloy and stripped within minutes of loostening. All in all I am very dissapointed with tirerack for such a cheap peice sent and ended up taking them to my local gas station where they had to change the wheels for me. Thank god my neighbor has a pick up... This was the whole situation I was trying to avoid when buying the tires already on the wheels, so i could do it myself. Now I have 8 months to think about what Im gonna do come winter again.
Anyone else run into a similiar problem????

 

Maybe go to Auto Zone and pick up a pack of new lugs for $10 a piece?

 

yeah that and use anti-seize, in the silver can that has a brush inside like rubber cement...two very different things though, get the right one... i just used some on my lugs on my Evo when i rotated the tires. just a dap in each lug and you dont have to worry about them sticking so bad. my 9,074 cents.

 

I got mine from Tire Rack last Dec. The removal went smooth for mine. I got a winter package that included tires and wheels. Sorry to hear you had issues.

 

That's why you drop the extra $25 and buy the Torque Wrench and Deep Socket set that TireRack recommends -- heavy duty high quality stuff. If you don't get the right tools -- don't blame the seller.

 

Ditto a very light application of anti-seize, and use a torque wrench so you don't overtighten.

Never have had a prob getting nuts off (I just couldn't rephrase that....) nor have I ever had one come loose using anti-seize.

I know someone's gonna take exception, but you'll find about a 50/50 mix of people advising you for and against using it.

 

I've read some concern that using anti-sieze on the lug nuts is not advisible because you would over-stretch the lugs (which could lead to failure) if you tighten down to the specified torque. I don't know how much of a risk this is, but it sounds logical to me. I do know that using anti-sieze (or any lubricant) on a nut can drastically affect how much the a bolt is stretched at a pre-determined torque setting.

 

I swapped my snows back to the OEMs last weekend without any problems. I do have a cross lug wrench that makes it much easier to take the lugs on and off. The snows and wheels (with lugs) came from TireRack.

mm

 

I swapped by stock wheels back on a couple of weeks ago. Had a wrench adapter to fit the slotted winter nuts and had no problem. Note these nuts did not come from tirerack. I was actually pleasantly surprised that the nuts were properly torqued from the tire place.