Have the wrong wheel nuts been supplied with my Ford Fiesta's spare wheel?

My Ford Fiesta recently got a flat tyre, and as the puncture was in the side wall, my uncle decided to put on the spare. However, he was unhappy with me driving the 80 miles back home on it on my own as he thought there was a problem with the wheel nuts. He said that he thought there was not enough contact between the nuts and the wheel. The original wheel is an alloy wheel and the spare was steel.

I drove about 1/4 mile to a spares shop, which turned out to be shut, but there appeared to be flecks of metal wearing off where there was contact from the wheel nuts. I was wondering if this was a common problem, or it was dangerous for me to drive home on it?

Asked on 5 September 2010 by Fiesta Zetec

Answered by Honest John

Alloy wheel bolts have square shoulders. Steel wheel bolts have tapered shoulders. The car should originally have been supplied with a separate set of tapered shoulder wheel bolts for when the steel space-saver or steel spare is used. You must not use square shouldered alloy wheel bolts on steel wheels, or tapered shoulder steel wheel bolts on alloys.

Tags: changing tyres wheels and tyres spare wheel

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Ford Fiesta (2008 - 2013)

Well built with an upmarket interior. Enjoyable and involving to drive. Cheap to run 1.6TDCI ECOnetic. Exceptional reliability record. Very few problems reported despite more than 500,000 sold.