to be honest, as a driver you should perform a cehck before every drive.
so everytime you you drive your car you should check your nuts.
to be honest, as a driver you should perform a cehck before every drive.
so everytime you you drive your car you should check your nuts.
1 more point....
A steel nut on a steel stud wont corrode and get stuck.
Due to simple physics, an Aluminium one will. Urgo, steel > aluminium for wheel nuts.
I complain about alloy nuts because here at work we have to try and get the damned things off people's carsAnd because I care about the safety of customers.
Are you talking about wheel nuts here?Originally Posted by byebyegti
Sigh. I give up. I am not going to sit and try and prove to people that either is better when I have said that I feel neither is.
Aluminium won't corrode onto Steel without water. And while I freely admit that it's unfair and unrealistic to expect someone to dry their wheel nuts each time they use them, it is simply another byproduct of the type of nut.
It's like tuning a car. Tune it, but expect to have to do more maintenance.
Run Aluminium nuts, but don't treat them as fit and forget.
They dont need actual water, just humidity is enough
I was of the same opinion as piman, I put it all down to operator error, until the I came to remove the 20 correctly torque aluminium nuts i'd fitted to my high speed racing honda, and snapped 5 of them due to them being corroded onto the studs.
I think Piman hasnt experienced the 'joys' off ally nuts, simply because they havnt been left on long enough :P
Imho, the disimilar metals corroding, and making them a nightmare to remove, is reason enough not to buy the bloody things, without even thinking about the fact that you cant torque them up as tightly as a steel nuts, which IMHO is ridiculous.
We've had soo many nightmares with customers having to have their wheel nuts drilled, hammered, and cut off, and every time the culpit is an ally nut.
I'm genuinely surprised that you're going to such great lengths to defend something you run on your track car purely for the aesthetic qualities. If you ever plan to have a couple of sets of wheels for the track, all that triple-checking, torqueing up, carrying a torque wrench around with you is going to become a massive pain in the dick for something that looks marginally better, when all you want to do is quickly change wheels around, or take a wheel off to check something or whatever and get back out on track.
It just seems to me that it creates a whole lot of extra hassle and uncertainty for minimal return.
This is like the stretched tyre thread in a parallel universe
Exactly, show car, yer ok you can expect people to be a bit whorey about this sort of thing but a fooking track slagI'm genuinely surprised that you're going to such great lengths to defend something you run on your track car purely for the aesthetic qualities. If you ever plan to have a couple of sets of wheels for the track, all that triple-checking, torqueing up, carrying a torque wrench around with you is going to become a massive pain in the dick for something that looks marginally better, when all you want to do is quickly change wheels around, or take a wheel off to check something or whatever and get back out on track.
It just seems to me that it creates a whole lot of extra hassle and uncertainty for minimal return.
This is like the stretched tyre thread in a parallel universe
Are you going to do a lap then come in and check them again
My car isn't a track slag. It's a track car yes but the finish is a very high quality and I wanted that finishing touch.
I intend to run the nuts because I like how they look, in the same way I run my bodykit: because I like the way it looks. And when I do pop it into a show, they'll look ace.
Yes I could swap them round, but I like them and I have no reason to doubt them guys.
Last edited by piman2k; 06-06-2011 at 17:27.
Piman you lifestyler
How? Because I built a car, focused on it's objective, but refused to fake that I didn't care what it looked like as long as it went fast?
Errrr, no
Hook, line and sinker.
Garyfullstop, circa 18:26
Yer those steel nuts are sooooooo ugly
Lets face it, no fooker will notice
I hope you never have a wheel come off as its fooking scary and i can only imagine how much worse it is at speeds reached on a race track but if the worst does happen this thread is going to rip off your arm and beat you to death with it Ryan
Huh Hum...
Thankyou please, covered that base much earlier than you! But thanks for the sentiment
Last edited by piman2k; 06-06-2011 at 18:03.
Without fueling the fire for either side, user error is a major factor in wheel nuts failing to hold. Too many people over-tighten the nuts (either steel or ally) and are suprised when the stretched thread fails. I took my van to a fast-fit tyre place a couple of weeks ago and they fitted a pair of tyres, the fitter did the nuts up (probably to 200NM) and then got the foreman to check the tightness with a torque wrench set to 110. Pure comedy.
Unless you are used to weilding a spanner and can fairly accurately judge the correct torque, then yes, you should always use a torque wrench.
Damn, is this argument still going?
The way I see it:
Alloy
Pros = Arguably look nicer, a minuscule amount lighter.
Cons = Need constant checking to see they are not working loose, may corrode to the stud, Banned in most motorsports, may fall off leading to your wheel falling off...NOT GOOD! (but your three wheeled wagon will look the tits upside down in a ditch with its bling wheel nuts)
Steel
Pros = Virtually maintenance free, won't corrode on, much more resistant to abuse, cheaper, ok for use in motorsport, much less likely to fall off.
Cons = Minuscule amount heavier, arguably not as good looking.
So we can conclude, steel has less cons than alloy, so for something a safety critical as your wheels staying on, I'd suggest sticking to Sheffield's finest
We're not trying to conclude anything Jem
I'm merely pointing out that they're not universally shit because of what they are, that there are different types and they can't be tarred with a broad brush.
Feel bad for selling my alloy ones now. Do i get them back before the new owners dies
Alloy ones would be safer if people had wheels that sit on the hub.
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