see my next post at the bottom of this page for the update

This is a double-topic post...

My car arrived last night on the transporter that shipped it coast to coast. Today, my first day having it, on the way out to the parking lot after work my friend who parked next to me pointed down to my wheel. My front passenger side tire was flat. First thought was that I had run over a nail, which would have sucked, because I replaced that tire not even a month ago (still on the ADVAN A046's). Dissapointed, I put on the donut and inspected the tire. I looked it over for a solid 10min, and couldn't find anything.

I'ved read the countless posts of vandalism on these boards and thought maybe someone deflated it. Fortunately, I decided that I wouldn't wash my car the week before transporting, so there was still a massive amount of brake dust on my MR BBS's. I noticed on the valve and on the wheel right at the valve some of the brake dust was wiped off, as if...someone loosened my valve and deflated my tire.

I didn't want to jump to conclusions, and was briefly satisfied with the possibility of not having to buý another $300 tire 1 month later. So I took it to a tire shop and they checked it for free, even though I offered money. He over-inflated it and put it in his tub...nothing. We checked and triple checked...so someone deflated my tire.

All is well, or so I thought...when the tire dude went toi put on the old BBS wheel, one of the studs started spinning when he torqued it. Then he tried to take the wheel off. 3 studs were spinning and he can't get the wheel off.

So I had no choice but to leave the car overnight. He said he has seen it once on one car but not 3 times on 1 wheel. He's talking about having to try to cut the studs to replace them, but I have no idea how he's going to get back in there to do it.

Has this (the spinning studs, not the vandalism) happened to anyone before???

 

that really blows. sorry to hear man. good luck with your car.

 

i never heard of it happening. the studs have splines that should prevent that from happening so my guess is that it was over torqued and stripped out. who does your wheels? do they use impact wrenches or air tools? i do my own by hand and torque each nut down to spec. to avoid anything like this.

 

Guy could have over torqued and stripped them out. Something doesn't sound right.

 

That's what happens if you have any shop work on your wheels. I've had my lugs overtightened about 5 times by now, most of the times, I tell them exactly what to torque it to and what the consequences of not doing so are. On several occasions, they had to cut the stud and put a new one in. Now I bring a torque stick with me if I need wheel work to make sure and if it's not, they gotta fix it.

So word of caution...if you bring it anywhere where there's high school kids working, keep an eye out on if they use the impact wrench on your lugs.

 

You should hand tighten the lugnuts as far as you can then use a wrench or something to tighten it down. I never use the impact wrench to butlug nuts on, only to take them off.

Replace hub bolts are a "pita" on the Evo.

I replaced them myself, not too hard, to put in, but to get the rotor at different angle to get it in is the "pita".

Shouldn't cost you more than 5 bucks per hub bolt if you just get the parts and do it yourself.

 

Those things could stand way over 200 ft.lb of TQ so something else must be wrong.

 

People have no respect. I wish you luck with figuring this out.

 

Never had the lug issue but when i lived in cali stuff like that was somewhat normal if you dont park in a nice area...ive had key marks and some times they put a rock in your valve stem so they can walk away and it slowly leaks out..keep an eye for that stuff and keep a blunt object when you find the person or a tire iron what ever works.

 

I hate to say this but, I'd drop your comprehensive rates down to $200 or less. Thats what I like living in a "smaller" town. People don't mess with your car.

 

oh man...i hate hearing things like that. I hope it all gets settled. People have no respect anymore..its really sad.
Best of luck

 

The stud problem happened to me on my 300zx. After messing around for 7 hours trying to take one of the lug nuts off, (only 1 was spinning) I decided to drill out that hole.

Stock wheels, I didn't give a crap.... After that I replaced the studs

 

Things just went from bad to worse:

Tire guy:"Hey listen I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is we will have your car for you today and it will be mobile. The bad news is that in fixing it we damaged some more things unfortunately. We removed the wheel/rotor/caliper/hub. It was the only way to fix it. In removing the hub we chipped some paint on the caliper. The wheel we damaged removing it. We had to take it to a weld shop and weld the studs to the back of the rotor, it was the only way of fixing it. Also, all the original lugnuts are damaged beyond reuse. They're dealer-only lugnuts and we will need to order them from Mitsubishi. We took one lugnut from each wheel to replace them for the time being, so each wheel has 4 lugnuts, which is perfectly safe. If you want, today, when you come in and pick up the car, we can discuss what you want to do about the caliper paint chipping, if you want the paint touched up, and what you want to do about the wheel, ordering a new one or having it refinished."

Note that I have not seen any of the damage, but I'm wondering what the shop is going to expect as far as on my end for payment. I know for a fact I don’t want to pay them for anything: the welding done, the paint for the caliper, the new wheel, the new lugnuts, and on top of all that the labor. When all I went in there for was to check for a flat tire. So now I guess I need to figure out how to handle the solution.

Also, how am I to know it's restored to original condition? This is really really frustrating, I've gone from pissed to infuriated

 

Let me make sure I've got this ...

He pulled off the wheel fine and checked it for leaks. When he re-installed it the lugs spun. That led to all of this extra work.

Was he using an impact gun? It seems to me that the lugs were fine before he tried to put the wheel back on ... that would mean he should cover all of the labor and parts needed to repair it ...

Also, I don't think welding the studs to the hud is the correct way to fix the issue ... that will cause balance issues.

 

Just a quick question here.

What tire shop is this?

I'll have to give this guy props for even telling you what they did. Some jerks just say they fixed it and slam you a bill. I wager they used a nut splitter to get the lugs off since they are listed as "damaged beyond repair".