Norman, OK
The worst part is that I was just asking for it. The best part is that she verified that I paid for them, handed them over, and I left the store with them.
You might be asking why I was looking for new nuts. I did this because not all nuts are created equal.
The automotive industry has started using “Jacketed Lug Nuts”. Jacketed lug nuts have a strong steel core lug nut with a non-standard socket size. The core then has a piece of metal stamped over it for rust protection. This differs from solid lug nuts that are dipped, plated, etc. where the lug nut and rust protection are bonded together.
A conspiracy theorist might think that the automotive industry is being paid by the towing industry to install these. In reality, jacketed lug nuts are probably fractionally cheaper than solid lug nuts. Jacketed lug nuts can corrode and swell due to the lug nut rusting under the jacket. If this happens, you (or the roadside service company) may not be able to get your tire off. As a result, you might be paying for a tow instead of tire change. If you tow or drive a large RV, this can be quite expensive. The jacket can also become loose where the jacket will spin independent of the internal lug nut.
Due to the problems with jacketed lug nuts, I bought 24 solid lug nuts. I replaced them last week. 20 of them came off with minimal effort, but one per tire were stuck. I got three more off by hammering on a 12 point socket. The jacket of the last one was partly stripped. I thought that I was going to have stuck lug nut with a socket stuck on it.
Here are some examples of the lug nuts that I replaced that are looking worse as you move to the right.
You can see that the left hand one looks perfectly fine. That one came off fine. The second one in was a little snug. The last three required the socket to be hammered off or both off and on with increasing force. The severity of the denting in the top relates to how hard it was to hammer back out of the socket, after unscrewing it. The one of the right had a loose enough jacket that it spun freely around the socket. If you look at the lower edge of the middle socket, you can see the rust just above the cone at the bottom.
In the video, you can see the jacket twisting separately from the lug nut. This seems to be the beginning of the end. Continuing to take the lug nut on and off seems to result in it deforming or the jacket slipping.
The two things that I learned from this experience were:
- Replace jacketed lug nuts with solid lug nuts as soon as possible
- Use a 6-point socket on jacketed lug nuts instead of a 12-point socket
The problem seems to be that the 12 point socket allows the jacket to deform into the spare points. One of the lug nuts had a jacket that spun freely; I finally removed this lugnut by hammering a 6 point socket onto it. Hammering on a 12 point socket did not work, the torque wrench just spun the jacket.
My nuts are guaranteed to not chip or peel.
Please do not test this guarantee.
3 responses to “A Lady At AutoZone Grabbed My Nuts!”
I had them on Buick Lacrosse I rotated tires all the time and had replace the jacketed nuts the 3rd time. impact wrench really deformed them. Pretty while they lasted.
Learned something new!
Did you learn that ladies at AutoZone might grab your nuts or that jacketed lugnuts are bad?