Stuck on alloy wheels

I have a 2005 Fiesta with alloy wheels and wanted to take them off to check the brake pads for wear. Yes, I know you can check with the wheels on but you can have a better check with them off

Jacked up one front wheel but it wouldn't come off, presumably as it was corroded on to the axle. I only had the wheel changing jack and I didn't want to pull things around too much, so I just replaced the nuts and booked the car into the garage

I did manage to have a look at the pads and they were fairly worn down, so I asked the garage to do an annual service anyway

Talking to the mechanic and Surfing the Net & YouTube it seems this problem of corroded - on alloy wheels is very common. Well it's obvious when you think about it, but all my previous cars had steel wheels, and it never occurred to me
Good job I didn't find out the hard way, trying to change a wheel by the side of the road

So be warned. I suggest you try each wheel to see that it comes off easily, and grease the mating surfaces
Surfing the Net will give you advice on removing a stuck wheel

Re: Stuck on alloy wheels

Must admit, I have never heard of that before.

Thanks for the info.

Re: Stuck on alloy wheels

Yes not uncommon, it would pay to take off your alloys from time to time and wire brush the hub ( not the alloy wheel, obviously) then apply some copperslip grease to the hub

Re: Stuck on alloy wheels

you need one of these

Re: Stuck on alloy wheels

A few months ago I asked on here about greasing the threads on wheel nuts/studs/bolts, and the response was roughly split 50:50, yes or no

So while I was chatting to the mechanic I asked his opinion
He said he'd been a mechanic for nearly 40 years and had always greased them. that must be thousands of cars & vans, and he'd never heard of any coming loose

Also spark plug threads, and never had problems with those either

It took me a few minutes to find the adapter for the tamper proof wheel nuts as I'd put it somewhere safe!
Now I've fixed it to the floor of the spare wheel well with some duck tape

Re: Stuck on alloy wheels

I always grease them too.

One thing I always check when my car returns after a service or tyre change is that I can undo the wheel nuts with my wheel brace. I think 100% of the time I can't (bloody rattle guns).

I immediately use a socket and a very long bar to loosen them and do up again using my wheel brace. All the tools in the world are no good if you have a puncture and can't get the wheel off especially if you are 100s of kms from anywhere. (The wheel brace, a branch, if you can find one, and a lot of cable ties would do but why put yourself through the stress?)

Re: Stuck on alloy wheels

I ask myself how many wheel nuts have been tighten to the correct torque? Very few I suspect


My torque wrench showing scales of torque applied



How it is used is to set the scale (turn blue bit on end) to the tightness of the nuts as in the handbook. With the socket attached the nut is tightened until the wrench gives a firm "click". Then the nut is tightened to the correct amount.