Do wheel bolts/lug nuts go bad over time?

Joined
Oct 17, 2019
Messages
291
Location
Close to arctic circle
Ok so here is the thing, i live in cold climate and i have two sets of wheels for my car, they are summer and winter wheels. Two times a year i swap wheels and use the same wheel bolts on both sets. Today i was swapping wheels and when i started to torque wheel bolts i felt like some of them was overstretching/stripping even though i set torque wrench to factory spec. Thinking about it my wheel bolts are old, i think they are from 2003 (same age as my car). That means they have been torqued at least 36 times. Is that a sign to replace them due to stretching/fatigue?
 
When in doubt, get new ones. It is the only thing holding the wheels on your car. I found the ones on my S60R starting to show signs of rust, but traded the car in before having to get new ones.
 
Yes , lug nuts / bolts will stretch out after so many "torques." How many times will affect them? Don't know. Rotating tires does the same thing. I rotated the tires so many times on a 2003 Dakota, the lug nuts got ate up, put on McGard lug nuts.
 
Threads on any bolt can suffer from galling- roughness that forms when microwelds are made and broken.

Less likely to be stretch and more likely to be galling as a result of being spun at high speed with an impact.

Take a close look at them.

When rotating tires on one of my Volvos I noticed a bit of galling.

I cleaned the threads in the wheel hubs and bought a complete set of 20 new bolts. OEM Volvo from FCP Euro. About $100.

If they’re not going in smooth by hand or with the wrench, I would just replace them, but check the threads on the hub, too.
 
They have a lot of stress on them each time they are tightened down. I don’t think it would hurt to replace them if they are showing signs of stripping or galling. Especially if they are like the people at Sam’s who use a boat load of anti seize and then drive them down with an impact and no torque stick. When I can’t turn one by hand is when I stop and look at the threads. Nothing worse than that feeling you get when it’s getting ready to snap then it does.
 
Reading comments confirms my suspicion, those bolt might be overstressed by this point. Next wheel swap i will need new bolts too as well, before old ones ruin my hubs which at the rear only one year old.
 
Just a basic note about bolt stress. A properly engineered and configured bolt assembly is torqued to a specification that places it in tension. The tension placed on the bolt (or stud in this case) far exceeds the load it will carry. So, the bolt or stud is not subject to the wild cyclic stress of say, a connecting rod bolt/stud, a bolted down cylinder head, or a rotating wheel. It is also why head bolts are long, as they can stretch and hold the clamping force without change.

Besides the above mentioned thread related problems, cyclic stress is a great way to get a bolt to fail. This is why it's critical to properly torque a head bolt, or wheel stud/nut.

An aircraft cylinder is held down with 4 main studs, that collectively must withstand 20,000 pounds of force, 20-22 times per second. We stretch those long studs by 35 thousandths of an inch. The clamping force is more than double the cyclic force. The result is long trouble free operation.

But remember, during most torquing procedures, a good part of the torque applied is simply overcoming the friction of the threads and the mating surface. When parts get old, torque related friction increases and tension on the part decreases, leading to higher cyclic stress and potential eventual failure. We do see wheel studs fail this way, that is, due to being under-torqued and thereby subject to cycles.
 
I don't live in a rust area. The only time I had one gone bad is after an accident somehow bent my stud and cross threaded something after I took it off. I replaced the hub and studs afterward (wheel bearing) with parts store cheap lugs ($21 for 4), and it works fine again.

Over 270k on 2 car each, they don't go bad (at least on Toyota and Honda). I never use a torque wrench on it, just eyeball the torque based on my body weight (150lb, step on the tire iron that comes with the car to about 1/2 my body weight, so that's about 75lb-ft).
 
I find the lug nuts can get distorted and when that happens they end up getting jammed into the socket.

I bought a second set for the caravan from Costco, so i used the originals on the snow tires and use the newer ones on the alloy wheels during the spring and summer.
 
I have a set of bolts for each set of wheels. Different lengths of course but the result is they all only see half use. I used a bit of anti-seize on them the first time and this ensures no galling. I don't expect I will ever need new bolts again before my wheels are done. My cordless impact is not super fast either, and I torque them by hand anyway.
 
I have a set of bolts for each set of wheels. Different lengths of course but the result is they all only see half use. I used a bit of anti-seize on them the first time and this ensures no galling. I don't expect I will ever need new bolts again before my wheels are done. My cordless impact is not super fast either, and I torque them by hand anyway.
Do you really swap bolts each season, or are you using nuts and bolts interchangeably?

But more generally...why does everyone worry about the nuts getting worn, but virtually no mention of the studs (bolts) possibly wearing with age/use?
 
When I swap the wheels for winter/summer, I also swap the bolts I have to, as the original bolts are too short with the aftermarket wheels. No nuts/studs here...
 
Back
Top