Trouble with Lug Nuts

[BroncoBilly24]

I picked up my Bronco in April 2024. So excited to start adding fun stuff. In only made it to early May before I ordered new Fuel Wheels - matte black. 17x10. I had new tires put on by a local tire shop.

I get my regular oil changes & tire rotations at my local dealer (don't hate). They did the work at 5K, 10K and again at 15K miles. After I got home after the 15K service, I noticed the invoice said they did NOT rotate the wheels and said "they had incorrect lugs nuts that don't allow proper interface to the wheels, allowing for proper torque spec". They never said anything when i picked it up.

That was concerning, so i took the rig to the tire shop where I bought the tires, for a rotation. I told them what I was told by the dealer and they basically said they were wrong and the smaller lugs were fine. They said they are the most common lugs used for after market wheels needing smaller lugs. I wasn't happy with the dealer since they had rotated them twice before, but now a tech says they can't.

I called the service desk and talked to the guy what checked me in. He would only say that the dealership had two other recent vehicles where those lugs back out and came off. They couldn't explain why they rotated them twice before buy now wouldn't do it.

I left a pretty ugly review on Google about the dealership and big surprise, the Service Manager from the dealership called me back. I had a good conversation with him, and I took of one of the lugs from the spare in for him to look at. He couldn't figure out why the tech wouldn't do it. He would only confirm that they did have two other customers using that lug that had them back out.

They offered to swap out the lugs they next time I came in for service at no charge to me. If I hadn't paid for a Ford service plan (again, no hate) I would get the work done some where else.

Super frustrating!

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[kodiakisland]

So are the lug nuts correct for the wheels or not? What is recommended by the wheel manufacturer?

 

[Brian_B]

There are different types of lug nuts. Most rims that I've seen today use conical (acorn) nuts.

Aluminum wheels are prone to backing out no matter what type of lug nut used though, and have to be re-torqued after a few miles of travel.

Glad your dealers is taking care of you - they should have brought it up rather than just not done the service, but sounds like there's a happy ending here.

 

[F-Spot]

Are you using acorn style or flange lugnuts? . More than likely, those Fuels require acorn style lugnuts. If those are the ones you are using, you should be good.

 

[F-Spot]

Snap

So are the lug nuts correct for the wheels or not? What is recommended by the wheel manufacturer?

As far as i know, the wheels didn't come with lugs. The tire shop where I bough the tires and had them mounted, also sells Fuel Wheels, and they put what they claim are the correct lugs.

The dealer wants to put on a separate lug and have me come back after 500 miles to see if they move.

snap a pic of one of your lugs and someone will chime in.

 

[BroncoBilly24]

I took this off the spare to show the group.

 

[F-Spot]

I took this off the spare to show the group.

Looks right to me. I would just go to Fuel's website or contact them to ensure you should be using 60 degree conical tuner lug nuts. My RTR's use the same and the only ones that have come loose are for my spare. There are varying torque specs for the spare depending on the Bronco trim. My guess is the tire place that first installed my RTR's torqued them to 41 lb-ft, when it should have been 66 lb-ft. I double check after every service now. Note, the driven wheels are torqued to 100 lb-ft.

 

[F-Spot]

One thought that might have caused the lugs to come loose in the other cases the dealer mentioned, could be they didn't use hub centric rings for the aftermarket wheels that have center bores that don't match the wheel hub.

You might want to find out if the tire shop added hub-centric rings with your wheels.

 

[DALOLA]

Maybe the concern is that it's a spline drive, not a hex? I personally don't like those either. But the taper seat appears to be correct, for 60 degree taper seat wheels.

 

[indio22]

I've seen some lug nuts (sometimes OEM styles) that appear to have more conical surface mating area than those slim styles. Maybe that was the dealer concern?

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