Hi. Wheel nut damaged. Any ideas how to get off? The wrench wont fit on properly now.

The swollen wheel nut problem is very well known.

The quickest and easiest way is to use an old screwdriver and a hammer. Punch a hole in the centre of the wheel nut cap and the leaver the cover off. You will then need a smaller socket (possibly 18mm) to undo the nut.

Replacement nuts are now a 'one piece' design

On 10/18/2021 at 10:35 PM, unofix said:

 it is British Standard Whitworth. Hence 7/16 BSW which is 18.03mm

 

 

When I started to hear the horror stories of such nuts rattling or spinning, that was it for me, replaced the entire lot with all chrome steel nuts, best to be safe than sorry.

46 minutes ago, Ian Lanc said:

replaced the entire lot with all chrome steel nuts,

Yes I had to do that last year on my daughters 2010 Kuga. Same problem as usual, nuts had swollen and the standard wheel brace no longer fitted. 

The damage is the edges have become rounded. Is this what you mean by swollen? 

Late advice I know, but only use a decent 6 sided socket on wheel nuts, not a 12, and always use a torque wrench to do them up.

The cap is little more than tin foil, but on my old (proper!) Puma, I would Araldite the caps back on......

What kills these wheel nuts is when you go to a tyre garage and they use the air impact gun on the nuts, think I read somewhere ages ago that Ford advises NOT to use such guns as damage will incur.

Yeah had threading issue before when they used a gun previously. The issue here was using a manual wrench, it kept slipping off when trying to untighten and has rounded the edges so won't fit to grip.

Got it sussed though I think. The cap came off when I had another go with the wrench so should be ok if I need to take off.

Thanks for all the info people 🙂