Wheel Nut Covers

[hillesleyhenry]

Hi, had new tyres put on yesterday and the guy came in with the wheel nut cover that had been shredded pretty much. He said they usually last 3 years and that it's a terrible design. Anyway anyone know the best thing to do as the nut covers are apparently £8 each from ford! Do people get plastic ones and then get a smaller wrench to take them off with? Or replace with chrome metal ones so it will fit the standard socket wrench in the boot? Just to let you know they are the 17 inch zetec s alloy wheel nuts (which I'm using with my st wheels)

[Big_dom91]

There not £8 i baught 2 the other day for about £5 agreed that they are a terrible design tho because they looj awful when they fall off

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Ford OC mobile app

[Lenny]

Hi, had new tyres put on yesterday and the guy came in with the wheel nut cover that had been shredded pretty much. He said they usually last 3 years and that it's a terrible design. Anyway anyone know the best thing to do as the nut covers are apparently £8 each from ford! Do people get plastic ones and then get a smaller wrench to take them off with? Or replace with chrome metal ones so it will fit the standard socket wrench in the boot? Just to let you know they are the 17 inch zetec s alloy wheel nuts (which I'm using with my st wheels)

There 1 km smaller without the sleeve so using the supplied boot wrench will ruin the shape of the nut resulting it it having to be professionally extracted,

Upgrade all nuts to one piece solid steel nuts,

I chose mcgard nuts all one piece no sleeves and all 19mm so work with the standard wrench

[cartman9090]

Hi, had new tyres put on yesterday and the guy came in with the wheel nut cover that had been shredded pretty much. He said they usually last 3 years and that it's a terrible design. Anyway anyone know the best thing to do as the nut covers are apparently £8 each from ford! Do people get plastic ones and then get a smaller wrench to take them off with? Or replace with chrome metal ones so it will fit the standard socket wrench in the boot? Just to let you know they are the 17 inch zetec s alloy wheel nuts (which I'm using with my st wheels)

Yes, hade same problem! Problem is, you cannot find 18mm whell nut cap anywhere if you remove all alloy caps. At least, they are rare

.

I did eBay and used these

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400590710640?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

They arent quite as chromed like in the picture, but now I can switch wheels without any problem.

I dont know if these nuts can take air Guns(that destroy the original Ford nut cap) so I will do the job myself

[hillesleyhenry]

Cheers for the replies guys think I will look at solid 19mm nuts, however cannot really find any on eBay, I found 4 but they were £30! Thinking about just replacing the caps as they go from ford...

[jeebowhite]

I have some at home, I think they are standard. if you want 4 you can have them for a couple of quid + P+P, they came off my old MK2 Focus

[hillesleyhenry]

Ok thanks a lot do you use paypal? Out of interest how many times have they been used/ how old are they as obviously they only have a 3 year shelf life...

[jeebowhite]

I certainly wasnt aware of a shelf life lol.

They were on my car for around 3 months... this was just over 2 years ago?

They seem in pretty much perfect nick? (to confirm, these are the actual nuts, not the nut covers?) so you can replace the locking wheel nuts with standard nuts as the rest of the car has?

[hillesleyhenry]

lol I thought you meant the covers. I don't really want to replace the locking wheel nuts. I want to just either replace all the capped nuts with 19mm nuts or replace all the caps that are missing so it brings them back to 19mm all round.

[jeebowhite]

aaah apologies, I misunderstood!

Well the offer is there, I have been driving around (as have many I know here) without locknuts and we have had no issues, so if you change your mind and want the nuts, give me a shout :)

[hillesleyhenry]

Ok thanks, not sure if I want to risk it with my st wheels though! priority really atm is to sort out the capped nuts as if I get a puncture now i am stuffed. On a side note I don't see the issue with locking wheel nuts why change them??

[jeebowhite]

I went through 3 sets of lock nuts, all of them were Ford's and all of them were tat! the keys shattered, the nut itself shattered. I just got to the point of giving up, and like you, if I got a puncture I would have been stuffed!

You could always look to buy McGuards as they are the best on the market.