Who is still running locking lug nuts .
 

I just had to send out to mcguard to get a replacement for a customer . Lock key stripped out on the first one I tried, and this style is basically impossible to remove with the traditional cave man methods . I will end up either drilling for 4-5 hours, or ruining all the wheels.
Its a freakin' ugly work van. When is the last time you have heard of a set of wheels being stolen? Who could possibly want a set of wheels from a transit van .
We had a local car lot robbed, and they stole a hugely expensive set of Bentley wheels about 5 years ago. My bs meter was pegged, seemed like an inside job to me .
That is the only time I have personally heard of in my last 25 years in the car biz .
Got any stolen wheel stories ?

About a year and a half ago, I remember driving past the Lincoln dealership down the street one night on a weekend. There was a Lincoln MKX (whatever the SUV is), and it was sitting on the ground w/o wheels. Looked brand new.

There was some other Ford model a couple years back that was popular for stealing wheels.

No, but my tire guy took out a lock nut with a air chisel in under 5 min. Destroyed the locknut, but I didn't care. Hate those things.

How do ya think I got the 22" Spinners for my F-150 ;)?

Wheels are still getting stolen. I see facebook posts and other stuff online. Maybe not on a work van, but certainly on trucks and cars that have premium wheels.

I think my car has the OEM Porsche locks. They were on the car when I bought it. I have 2 keys.

I've never had anything stolen myself, but then I haven't had enough nice cars with desirable wheels. I assume it depends on where you live and what you drive.

I used to work with a kid when I was about 21-22, he told me that before he turned 18, he and a bunch of his buddies used to steal mustangs. They all had mustangs and they stole them either for the parts on them or to sell the parts to buy other parts. He almost got caught once when he was 17 and stopped is how his story went.

He's also the guy that told me how to get the lock nuts off of a vehicle that I bought. At the time, the instruction were: "Buy a craftsman 6 point 15/16" socket (not deep-well) and pound it on with a hammer. Remove with a breaker bar, and then repeat on the rest of the lock lugs (you need a new socket for each lock lug)"
His instructions worked. And at the first Sears when I they ran out of short/standard sockets, I tried a deep-well and it broke, so I can confirm that only short/standard sockets work.

Just wait a few years and I bet you'll start seeing rusted-in-place catalytic converter shield plates.

I do on my DD's.......the other vehicles are garage kept

The dealerships get hit regularly.

Individual person in a normal car? No....
I remove them all now. Tow vs changing a tire because the key is lost....


Pounding in a socket didn't work?

My daughter's Mazda 3 has them. I'm sure those wheels are a hot commodity!

immobilizer features in cars, and locking lug nuts, I am sure in aggregate have caused much more trouble for vehicle owners than baddies

Wheel locks on my '09 Mustang Bullitt. Came with the car as pert of a "security package". Kind of a torque thrust copy, so several reports of them being stolen on Mustang boards. Dunno if they're any good for preventing theft, but they've never caused a problem, so I left them on.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1610741334.jpg

These ones are the best. They have an outer ring pressed on ,that spins, so normal twist sockets, air chisels , reverse thread sockets, etc.. , cannot weld something on.
You either start drilling, burning, or ......
If I had to use a set, this is what I would use .
I ran into another situation just like this a few years back. They were both dealer installed locks, but the dealer was no help , I had to call mcguard to source a key ,
I could see where these would be great for dealers with large inventories.
I always took them off my cars first service

I've heard of that type.

I think what I've seen proposed here in the past is a hole saw with an inner diameter just larger than the diameter of the stud.

If I can get a correct lock on Monday ( which I can ) I will just wait it out . I don' really enjoy drilling, and I would have to charge the customer for an hour + of drilling, a few drill bits, then Id have to replace wheel studs, all x4.
$42.00 and having to wait till Monday is the way.

Buddy of mine owns a Ford dealership. They had some wheels stolen off a new PU on the lot. He looked on Craigslist and found someone that was selling some takeoffs so he bought them and installed them on the PU and sold it "new".

THat's funny ,they were probably his wheels .
Our dealership was getting hit regularly when I worked there . Wheels/tires, tailgates, and Radio's.
My boss blamed me , I was an 18 year old longhair, and had access to the keys .
. They later found out it was the lot boy . He had a brand spanking new Mitsubishi Radio installed in his Ford bronco. Duh. I kept telling my boss , "what do you think I am going to do with 20 Mitsubishi wheels ? I have 2 gm vehicles, and a pick up, besides, these wheels are gay . Man I hated that guy . I really wanted to ring his bell .
That was the day my life changed.
I told him to where to go , loaded my top box in the trunk of my 1969 z 28, and left after lunch. I came back for my bottom box at days end, and never came back to work .
That weekend, I hooked up with the hottest girl I ever dated, and spent 5 years with her .
That same boss that accused me of stealing , came into my business 15 years later, trying to put the Amway hustle on me . Sorry for the rant. I like that story
Even in the hood , I rarely see a car up on blocks missing wheels. I've never heard of it happening to a private owner

This is exactly how I have removed many wheel locks...

as there was no key...

I've never seen any wheels stolen. However all the wheel locks were on heavy ass cast 22" wheels with spinners, yo

Never have. Kids stole the valve stem caps off the Minilites on the Cobra one night though.

I always order and keep a spare in my rollaway, the code # sticker is attached to the inside of my glovebox. I use these.

Who knows how well they work but I like the idea. Metal collars on mine.

https://www.gorilla-auto.com/graphic...16_Page_36.jpg

I still have them on my 72 2002 and only because I'm not sure where I stashed the normal nuts. They're all on one wheel now. The guy who put new tires on the car last is a real brainiac

I have locks on my car and my wife's car but if I have to take one in for something (rarely) for a recall or something, I always remove the locks and put regular lug nuts back on. Don't want to get them boogered up or lose the key.

That is a great story!

I went for a job interview at a hospital once. I called to check on the status of the interview a couple of weeks later and the guy told me something like "they are restructuring to save money, so I probably won't be able to hire you. But I have a job that's sort of IT related that I'd like to talk to you about." I met him half way between where I lived and the hospital at a diner. It was an Amway sales pitch. I was shocked, I hadn't heard of Amway in many, many years since I was a kid and some friends pitched it to my parents. I should have told him to eff off and left when I realized, but I was trying to break into what has been my career for the last 20+ years and didn't want to burn any bridges.

Hahah, that's hilarious.

I have them on our Tahoe and F150. They’re parked outside so....

Way back when, I used to see a C3 corvette with really nice wheels at a house all the time. Drove past one day and it was on cinder blocks.

I have them on both my vehicles.
There's a guy on the Corvette Forum that has 2 locks on each wheel of his C7. I've seen pics, the owner likes to post pics of his car.

A few years back, in Slidell LA some '"dudes" hit the Chevy dealership and jacked something like 400 wheels off new cars. Took a while but our local caught them.

OMG, my mechanic overtightened my front wheels with all locking lugs, I broke the socket trying to get them off, it was a huge saga, 2 months and 4 sets of lug removers from Amazon until I got them all off. I will never use them again....

This is off topic but... my amway story:

Almost 20 years ago I was buying a Porsche magazine and a garage construction book at a B&N when a nice older guy struck up conversation. I naively gave him my name and workplace. A week later I got a call from the guy at work saying he had a way for me to make extra money so I could build my garage. I told him time was my problem not money. Then he had a way for me to have more time. One of life’s lessons. Of course I made the same mistake when I started dating after my first marriage. Never give your full name to a stranger.

Hahah, good story, and moral.

First thing I do is get rid of the locks. I have a set of Vette locks and a set of Cayman locks in the garage. Nobody steals wheels around here.

Syncroid swapped mine to 993 style nuts as the stock ones that require keys were well past their sell dates...

Got the old style ones on my `87 Carrera mostly for the factory original look.

From Reddit - Just Rolled Into the Shop

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1610941534.jpg

We bought the wife's used Chevy from a Chevy dealer about 60 miles away. I was looking it over but not too close, and noticed one lug on each wheel was different from the rest. So I started looking through the car for a key, didn't find one. I asked the salesman and he said there weren't locks on the wheels. I looked closer, and he was right. Each wheel had 4 stock lug nuts, and one from a car or truck that had hubcaps, actually the same lugs my truck uses. Of course they wouldn't switch them out, and I ended up buying a set off eBay.

The car also had 235/50's in the front, but 235/55's in the rear. Even after buying lugs and 4 tires the car was quite a bit less than a similar one in La Crosse. I'm scared to run a Carfax on it. We've had it 2 1/2 years and only changed the oil and had to fix a cracked flex joint on the exhaust, so I'm happy with it. The hood needs a repaint, it looks like it followed someone too close down a gravel road, but it's aluminum and it's not rusting.

Out for a walk in the upscale neighbourhood the other week and saw a Honda Civic type R on the verge with all 4 wheels off.

Same here. I have the factory Porsche locks on my wheels. After 26 years of ownership they have never been a problem, but I do the majority of the work on my car myself.

I have thought many times about going to all standard lug nuts just to avoid having to swap the lock adapter out as I remove a wheel. If I ever order some more lug nuts I likely will get enough to replace the locks.

My daughter has a 08 Mazda 3 that we bought for $500.

That thing had wheel locks. Maybe it was the 17 inch wheels?

The locks have been off a while now.

Our Land Rover LR4 had them with the squiggly line in the center type. I sacrificed 4 sockets to get the wheels off once. The key just fell out of the factory socket

So after nearly 40 years of driving in many different cars I got my first flat tire today.

My 1992 S420 W140 still has the original Mercedes lug locks from new and I had no issues changing the tire on the side of the road. I keep a bottle of Green Slime and a small compressor in the trunk but I chose to change the tire instead.. (A bottle of Green Slime is close to $30 in Aus.)

After 19 years on the road they're not pretty but I'm impressed at how good these still are.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1612086074.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1612086092.jpg

Got a set of 4 Porsche lug bolts off of ebay for $20 and trashed the locking ones off the Boxster yesterday.