Originally Posted by HangFire
Originally Posted by RayCJ
Someone decided to be cute and call it swollen nuts when in-fact, they end-up smaller. This is not a new problem and has been going on for 40 years based on personal experience. The cheap chrome plated domes deform and fall off. The solution is to take a hardened impact socket one size smaller and beat it onto the existing nut. This takes every bit of 30-45 extra seconds.
In a way, I guess it's justifiable that a shop charge a little extra money but, I think they should absorb the cost as penalty for all the times mechanic shops have over-torqued lug nuts to levels worthy of ridicule.
All correct, but the Chrysler ones in particular can swell too... corrosion under the chrome caps... before they fall off, then they are smaller.
Usually they are easy to replace and don't require the special socket. Just go up or down a size, sometimes switching between SAE and Metric.
Finally I had enough when I replaced them multiple times with OEM on my Dakota, got a mess of Gorilla Nuts and had done with it.
If that $45 included the cost of the new nuts, I would call that a good deal.
That's a good point... If the $45 included new nuts, that's a fair price.
I just went thru this with my son's 2007 Matrix. He called one dark rainy night from about 2 miles from the house asking me to bring the small floor jack, hammer, long nose pliers and sets of metric and SAE impact sockets. I immediately knew what was up... We got that one off in less than 30 seconds I think. Cold rain running down your neck is a strong motivator!
Ray