Wheel Lug Nuts vs Bolts.

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Originally Posted By: Silver_civic
I do like the little plastic nut covers VW uses myself, just hate the locking screw that most people throw away. We have a ton of VW's in our fleet.


Do you work for a rental car company?
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Yes, the ARP fasteners are fantastic; studs OR bolts. But studs are preferred in the high HP builds. Why? And doesn't this same train of logic apply to wheels? Do transport trucks use studs or bolts?


Transport trucks use wheel studs, not bolts.

I don't doubt the posts about breaking studs and not bolts but that is not because of any inherent superiority of bolts over studs. Perhaps the Germans overspecify the wheel bolts. Same overspecification could be done with wheel studs but that will drive costs up.
 
Originally Posted By: George7941
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Yes, the ARP fasteners are fantastic; studs OR bolts. But studs are preferred in the high HP builds. Why? And doesn't this same train of logic apply to wheels? Do transport trucks use studs or bolts?


Transport trucks use wheel studs, not bolts.

I don't doubt the posts about breaking studs and not bolts but that is not because of any inherent superiority of bolts over studs. Perhaps the Germans overspecify the wheel bolts. Same overspecification could be done with wheel studs but that will drive costs up.


Sort of the point I was making, thank you. A good friend of mine works on transport trucks for a living. I've never seen one with bolts holding the wheels on.
 
my first car was a 1949 plymouth. i finaly got over it. it not only had bolts it had a pin on the drum to fit a hole between two holes for the bolts. corrosion? anti-seize compound takes care of that. having been a machinist for 25 years the thing is to get the pitch diameter right. allso the way the threads are made is important, rolled threads are the best.
 
Originally Posted By: Vikas
When somebody says they never had a problem with the bolts but snapped lots of studs, do they take in to account the relative ratio of bolts vs studs they have operated upon? Is it like 5:95?

That ratio of experience would be more like 50:50, in my case. It still puts my failure ratio at 0:100 for bolts vs studs.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: Silver_civic
You are now talking about "high performance engine builds" or whatever; not wheels and wheel studs or screws. Heck; any dumb person making like over 470hp like my brother is with his 05' and 04 GTO'd surely be smart enough to use studs in that application and oh yeah; those studs are very carefully and specially rolled and treated. I saw some videos about ARP FASTENERS. Interesting.


Yes, the ARP fasteners are fantastic; studs OR bolts. But studs are preferred in the high HP builds. Why? And doesn't this same train of logic apply to wheels? Do transport trucks use studs or bolts?

I have always read that high performance egines get head studs because the stud can be torqued to an exact number, and then the nut can be tighented without changing that torque.

With a bolt, torque changes based on the friction between the bolt head and cylinder head.

I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes.
 
Even with a stud and nut, doesn't the nut have a friction interface with the threads and the bottom of the nut, just like a conventional bolt and bolt head?

Not saying you're wrong, just thinking out loud here.

I always understood that the use of studs in "performance" engines was because the likelihood of the heads being removed and installed multiple times was greater, and a stud's hardened threads wouldn't be as prone to damage as the aluminum threads in the cylinder block, if a conventional bolt were to be used.
 
I really think its just a Euro/German thing.I hate the bolts with a passion.I cant see any advantage to them just something else to struggle with as if there wasn't enough already.
The thing is large German trucks use studs and nuts so it doesn't appear to be a strength issue.
 
Originally Posted By: George7941

So, why do the German manufacturers persist with the use of wheel bolts?


5/8/1945
grin.gif
 
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One would think that after all these decades and how many millions of cars have been produced with studs that it shouldn't be such a major issue to fit studs properly with modern manufacturing techniques.

I have no idea as i am not in that business but i never had any wheel stud problems,on the other hand i have cursed more than one or two cars with those horrible bolts trying to balance a delicate aluminum rim while keeping a distance from painted calipers while putting bolts in without alignment tools.
 
I was just going to ask that question. How do you install a wheel on the side of the road without having extra pair or two of hands to hold the wheel while inserting the bolts?
 
Originally Posted By: Trav
One would think that after all these decades and how many millions of cars have been produced with studs that it shouldn't be such a major issue to fit studs properly with modern manufacturing techniques.

Come to my world and see why it's a problem. Your head would spin if you saw how much time is spent to properly engineer serrations on wheel studs. In fact, everything that you take for granted on a vehicle is some engineer's headache... trying to make it more reliable and cheaper. The auto manufacturers are beating the suppliers over their heads with the cost stick over the most mundane things, then hold their feet to the fire when a few parts come back through warranty.

If a manufacturer can make a fastener for wheels without dealing with serrations that wheel stud bolts have, they have one less headache to deal with. They don't care that it's more difficult for the owner to change a wheel.
 
Originally Posted By: Vikas
I was just going to ask that question. How do you install a wheel on the side of the road without having extra pair or two of hands to hold the wheel while inserting the bolts?


The hub has about 1/4" lip where you can put the wheel and it will stay up. Then you rotate the wheel to align.

It's not a big deal.
 
That sounds like a nightmare,it just goes to prove what kind of problems are associated with stuff we take for granted and use every day.

Originally Posted By: CivicFan
The hub has about 1/4" lip where you can put the wheel and it will stay up


This is true of some but there are also a lot that don't have much of a lip never mind one that you could balance the wheel on.
Old bugs used a pin but many times the pin was rusted off,many Euro cars had/have nothing at all to "hang" the wheel on.
Some Citroen's didn't even have a centre hole so you could see the hub centre you had to fiddle with bolts in the middle of the night with a bic lighter looking for bolt holes to get the spare on.

I guess you need to deal with them on a daily basis to truly hate them.
 
Originally Posted By: CivicFan
Originally Posted By: Vikas
I was just going to ask that question. How do you install a wheel on the side of the road without having extra pair or two of hands to hold the wheel while inserting the bolts?


The hub has about 1/4" lip where you can put the wheel and it will stay up. Then you rotate the wheel to align.

It's not a big deal.


I've never seen a hub with a 1/4" lip. They're more shallow than that. And since the car is jacked up (not level), the wheel will not balance on it. I have to use my knee to hold the wheel in place while putting in the bolt. And this is in a garage with ample lighting. If this were at night where you can't see the holes, you'd need a 2nd person holding a flashlight. It's not that trivial
 
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