Whenever I buy a car that has alloy wheels, one of the first things I do is to remove the wheels and apply copper grease to both the face that mates with the brake disc/drum and to the spigot diameter, so that corrosion of the wheels at a later date does not cause the wheels to become seized on.
So, shortly after I acquired my latest 16 months old Focus, I got out the grease, jacked up one corner of the car and proceeded to remove the wheelnuts. Unfortunately, that was as far as I got. You guessed it ~ the wheel was seized on already! (In fact, 3 of the 4 wheels were seized on.) My guess is that the wheels had never been removed before. I tried gently belabouring the inside face of the tyre with a rubber mallet but got nowhere. I then rang the local Ford dealer and they said "No problem, bring the car in". It was obvious that they were used to encountering this problem, and I assumed that they had a special tool for removing recalcitrant wheels. Not so, they merely used a bigger mallet than mine! I shudder to think what it has done to the tyres.
The moral of this story is that if ever you buy a car with allow wheels, remove the wheels at the first opportunity and daub on some copper grease. As Delboy Trotter would have said "You know it makes sense!".
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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I have a little story to add to this...
During the summer I was asked to look at a 2-year-old BMW 5-series on which a front tyre kept going down over a period of a couple of days. I asked when it had started to become troublesome and was told that it was shortly after the front brake pads had been changed by the dealer.
A quick look at the inside edge of the wheelrim revealed hammer marks in the alloy. Obviously someone at the dealer had lost patience at not being able to get the alloys off and had been bashing at the wheels with a hammer! I pointed this out to the owner and he went steaming off to make some phone calls - never actually heard the outcome though. I think the wheel must have had a hairline crack put in it by all the hammering.
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Good advice, L'escargot, and I have long (sparingly) done the same. Two bits of extra advice though to help prevent the problem told by Aprilia. If a wheel is already found to be corroded on:
1) Only ever hit it if the car is stable on axle stands. A friend of mine knocked his car off the jack doing exactly this routine some years back. He was lucky to roll out of the way in time, though he broke the brake disk on the side where he'd already got the wheel off.
2) Don't hit the wheel directly with the mallet if anything more than mild whacking is required, and never, ever, with a metal hammer. (I have seen it done at a motoring club I belonged to...) Instead get a piece of stout timber and either poke it inside the hub on to the reverse face of a wide spoke, or if not possible or appropriate, get a flat piece of dense wood and tape it (masking tape is fine) to the inner rim. In both cases the wood becomes sacrificial in making sure that mallet impact is spread over a larger area.
I have once seen heat (achieved by the somewhat dubious practice of dragging the brakes on a rolling road!) being used to help remove a seriously corroded alloy wheel (the alloy expanded faster than the cast hub it was corroded to), but thankfully such measures are rare!
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Having been caught out by this, i keep a rubber mallet in the car. I would be nervous about hammering away under a jacked up car though!
Could manufacturers not put a really thin rubber or neoprene "washer" to put a barrier in between hub and wheel? Or am i missing something (apart from cost)?
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I seem to remember HJ (or some other fine person) suggesting that another way to help to remove a seized alloy wheel is to loosen the wheel nuts (but don't take them off completely), and then lower the car back to the ground.
The weight of the car should help to convince the wheel to let go of the hub, but as the nuts are still there, will not cause the wheel to come off completely.
Then you jack the car back up again, and Roberta's your Aunty.
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I seem to remember HJ (or some other fine person)
No, not a fine person. It was me
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=16...4
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I seem to remember HJ (or some other fine person) suggesting that another way to help to remove a seized alloy wheel is to loosen the wheel nuts (but don't take them off completely), and then lower the car back to the ground. The weight of the car should help to convince the wheel to let go of the hub, but as the nuts are still there, will not cause the wheel to come off completely. Then you jack the car back up again, and Roberta's your Aunty.
Except that you'll probably find more flex in the tyre walls that the wheel/hub assy.
A few applications of WD40, the a piece of wood, and a big knocking stick (lump hammer) is what sorted it for me. I could have left them off, but the wheel nuts were undone one turn
hth
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I've encountered the same problem with the boss's car (BMW) before - "welded" on! The local tyre place sent a chap, with trolley jack, mallet and axle stands!
I've also heard of people 'breaking' the seal by loosening the nuts halfway, and lowering the wheel back onto the deck... works with tapered hubs, apparently.
However, I'd be VERY wary of the latter technique.
I think the regular copperslip treatment is the best advise... especially given some of the ham-handed peasants who seem to inhabit tyre-dealers in all parts of the world.
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For stubborn ones where they are a tight fit on the hub axle as well as the hub face I've resorted to 1/2 turn undo the nuts, lower to the ground and in one case move backwards and forwards stamping on the brake pedal - waggling the steering wheel is also supposed to help.
Martin
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For stubborn ones where they are a tight fit on the hub axle as well as the hub face I've resorted to 1/2 turn undo the nuts, lower to the ground and in one case move backwards and forwards stamping on the brake pedal - waggling the steering wheel is also supposed to help. Martin
I wish I'd thought of doing that. I could see that the holes in the wheel were significantly larger* than the stud diameter, and that there was scope for rotating the wheel relative to the hub to break the seizure, but I couldn't see how to generate sufficient torque to do it.
(*The wheels on a Focus are located on a central spigot, and are prevented from turning relative to the hub by the conical end of the nuts locating in corresponding chamfers on the outer end of the holes in the wheel.)
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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....... I have long (sparingly) done the same.
Thanks for the tips, SjB. Regarding your word "sparingly" I agree. I used the word "daub" jocularly ~ honest! I realise that brake pads and grease are intended to achieve opposite effects.
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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On the subject of damage to tyres/suspension by mallet attack, I used to be wary about using (what I considered) excessive force on suspension parts. After a bit of thought, I considered that the effect of hitting even a modest pothole at 50mph or so to be considerably more forceful than my efforts with a rubber mallet!
Maybe our skilled garage mechanics share this view.....
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One of the workshops that I worked in, often came across the problem of servicing customers cars that invariably had alloy wheels that had seized on. They had a huge rubber mallet, stood about 4 foot tall, and I would guess around 6lb in weight. When the car was on the wheel free lift it took two people to remove each wheel. One to swing the mallet at the backside of each wheel/tyre and the other to catch the wheel when it came loose and jumped off the hub.
On the other hand the it is also a common problem to get steel truck wheels off hubs because they have a tendancy to seize on as well. Probably to do with the weight that they are carrying. But anyway it often takes a good amount of force with a decent sledge hammer to remove these and a lot of patience. One of the common tricks if they are really being stubborn is to loosen the wheels nuts a bit and then take the truck down the road and screw it round in some tight circles. This is normally enough to force the wheel away from the hub and then you will be able to get the wheel off relatively easily.
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It was the first thing I did with all the family cars
I had the same problem with a S/H 3 year old Focus.
I think the wheels had never been off.
The mallet approach failed.
My method used to get wheels released is
Undo the nuts a little and then take a slow drive along a quiet road.
A few waggles of the steering wheel frees the road wheels.
Obviously care has been taken doing this.
The big hammer approach did not work on a friends car and the evidence was clear to see so a lot of filing was required to remove the burrs. My method worked immediately.
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Henry K, the only thing you have to watch about your method is that once the wheel comes free you risk damaging the wheel stud threads and elongating the stud holes in the wheel. But as long as you are careful it won't kill it.
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Well, that's only six times so far that the same 'loosen, lower, and waggle' advice has been given in one thread... ;-)
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