Dry vs Lubricated Lug Nuts

Very helpful information so thanks for posting. I use hollow-barrel titanium lug nuts on my Forgeline billet aluminum wheels with no lube. About 95% of my driving is freeway, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen wheels leave a vehicle, especially big rigs. Whenever I take it to Discount Tire for balance, etc., I instruct them not to use impact tools. If I don’t trust them, I make sure they don’t blow me off. As the saying goes. ‘it sucks being the same age as old people’. 🤷‍♂️
View attachment 149379
Titanium is prone to galling. I'd use an anti-seize on it.
 
I use hi-temp anti-seize on the mating surfaces between the wheel and hub but nothing on the lug nuts. However, some anti-seize always seems to make its way to the lug nut threads. I always do this to ease wheel removal whenever rotating tires or switching tires/wheels between seasons as they tend to stick. Nice weather so task completed yesterday, along with a brake fluid flush and bleed!
The way the wheel/hub interface works is the studs clamp the mating surfaces of the wheel and hub together, the friction between the two surfaces takes the acceleration, braking, and vehicle weight loads so the studs should be loaded in tension but not shear.

You're lubricating the surface that is supposed to provide the friction that should be taking the majority of the forces.
You can use anti-seize on the ring around the center of rim as this is where corrosion causes issues removing wheels but not the flat mating surface.
 
The way the wheel/hub interface works is the studs clamp the mating surfaces of the wheel and hub together, the friction between the two surfaces takes the acceleration, braking, and vehicle weight loads so the studs should be loaded in tension but not shear.

You're lubricating the surface that is supposed to provide the friction that should be taking the majority of the forces.
You can use anti-seize on the ring around the center of rim as this is where corrosion causes issues removing wheels but not the flat mating surface.
I don’t quite understand your explanation in paragraph two, last sentence. If you have a photo or a drawing to show where the paste would ideally be applied, that would be helpful.
 
Like someone else said on the first page, I also worked at a tire shop for several years where it was policy to apply a bit of anti-seize to the studs.

Many many thousands of lubed studs and I never had an issue
 
I don’t quite understand your explanation in paragraph two, last sentence. If you have a photo or a drawing to show where the paste would ideally be applied, that would be helpful.

Look at the pic for the hub centered wheel and note the red arrow and NO GAP. The contact made there is what keeps the wheel centered. The poster Surestick wants anti seize applied to just that circle of contact. That contact area is as wide as the thickness of the rim there which is no more than a quarter inch.

Interesting thesis put forward by Surestick, never come across it before. Not sure how valid the reasoning is, whether the lug studs are designed to take the shear forces or not.
 

Look at the pic for the hub centered wheel and note the red arrow and NO GAP. The contact made there is what keeps the wheel centered. The poster Surestick wants anti seize applied to just that circle of contact. That contact area is as wide as the thickness of the rim there which is no more than a quarter inch.

Interesting thesis put forward by Surestick, never come across it before. Not sure how valid the reasoning is, whether the lug studs are designed to take the shear forces or not.
Thanks for the clarification. 😎
 
I don’t quite understand your explanation in paragraph two, last sentence. If you have a photo or a drawing to show where the paste would ideally be applied, that would be helpful.
It's okay to put a bit of lube around the center of the hub that pokes into the hole in the center of the rim (where the center caps go). That's the area a lot of rims use to center the wheel on the hub (hub-centric designs) so the fit has tight tolerances and corrosion there can make the rim hard to get off (think having to loosen the lug nuts, get the car rolling and slam on the brakes a few of times).
You don't want to lube the vertical, flat surface where the rim interfaces with the hub.
 
Back
Top