A friend has recently had a puncture on his A Class. On fitting the steel spare, he ommitted to use the special wheel bolts. The result was damage costing £600 to correct, with labour at £95 per hour. The work was done at a MB main dealer, in the north of England. This seems outragous to me.
Be warned to use the correct bolts when changing these wheels.
Pete Mansell
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This sounds like a lot of dough. What damage was done and what was necessary to rectify it. Couldn't the work have been done somewhere other than a main dealer? Mikey
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Be warned to use the correct bolts when changing these wheels.
IIRC, isn't there a warning label stating something along those lines printed on the spare wheel?
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I'm not familiar with the A class. are we saying that the spare wheel has a completely different set of bolt from the four normal road wheels ?
if so why ?
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Probably thick alloys to thin-steel wheel- the wheel nuts/bolts bottom on their threads and you can't tighten them properly-some manufacturers supply a set of nuts for the spare-others design them properly in the first place.However while you can use nuts for alloys on steel wheels for short periods never do it the other way.
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Can be a problem with any car with female threads in the hub rather than studs - when you fit the bolt it projects further behind the hub and causes the damage there. Not a problem with the traditional studs since the excess thread is at the front where it can't do any harm.
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I've seen this happen quite a few times. The A-Class's and other Mercedes-Benz which this scenario affects are supplied with an extra set of wheel bolts specifically for use with the steel spare wheel. Normally there is a warning sticker on the spare wheel and it does mention it in the hand book as well. What actually happens is the wheel bolts from the alloys get wound in too far when used with the steel wheel and it penetrates the hub bearing and makes a right mess of it.
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Now that Simon has explained what happens when you use the wrong bolts, how do explain the 600 quid bit? Could someone perhaps give a hypothetical breakdown of what might appear on a bill for said work? Are rear bearings and ;abour that dear on this car? Mikey
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