I purchased my 2009 JCW in January. Last night with about 4k miles I rotated tires. Lug bolts were way over torqued, my pneumatic air gun struggled to remove bolts. I went to re-install wheels and one bolts would not tighten, stripped threads.

Any suggestions what to do? Obviously a new bolt, maybe run a tap through hub threads. You think I will end up buying. New hub?

 

I just searched the forums, I was surprised this is such a common thing to happen. Sounds like best thing to do is replace hub. What a deal.

 

http://www.timesert.com/

 

after i got my 2012 cms all4, my dad was so impressed with the car, he bought a used 2012 cms all4 (a dealer loaner/demo)

it had 2,500 miles, black top/white body/silver wheels

he wanted black wheels, so the dealer swapped the silver wheels/tires from another cms all4 loaner/demo

at 5,000 miles (2.500 miles later) i rotated the tires in conjuction with an oil/filter change

i had to use a 1/2 inch drive, 30 inch long breaker bar and pull as hard as i could on all 20 wheel bolts

with the help of a buddy, i tried standing on the end of the breaker bar while he hit the bar with a softface deadblow hammer ... this is like appling over 300 ft/lb of torque to the bolts and they would not budge

we guesstimate it took over 400 ft/lb to break the bolts loose

i went to the sevice dept at the dealer and they admitted they use an pneumatic air gun to tighten the lug bolts!

i used a calibrated torque wrench to tighten to 140 nt/m, checked at 100 miles and then a week later, was able to loosen all five bolts on 1 wheel with a standard 3/8 inch breaker bar using one hand

when i rotated my tires at 5000 miles, i was able to loosen the lug bolts with a 3/8 inch breaker bar and 1 hand, so i suspect they were properly torqued at the factory and those seeing the over-tight lug bolts are a result of some idiot using a pneumatic air gun to tighten them

scott

 

I'm not so sure I would be trusting heli-coils or thread inserts on a critical fastening point like the wheel bolts. That's just my two cents. It might be worth a try to see if you can get the repaired section up to torque specs and if it doesn't just move on to Plan B - wheel hub. Then never let anybody who doesn't know the MINI touch you car. It's amazing what happens to cars when you give an impact wrench to a monkey at Acme tire & auto

 

The previous work was done at the Mini dealer. I purchased the car used and new brakes and tires were installed before I purchased it. I plan to find a tap and new lug bolt see what happens.

 

dealer should warranty it

 

as i stated, the mini dealer admitted to using a pneumatic air gun to tighten the lug bolts when they did the wheel swap on my dad's cms all4

needless to say, the mini dealer will not be doing any tire rotations for me, and if the car needs brake pads while under the maintenance plan, i will insist on watching and bring my own certified torque wrench

scott

 

Still, on a '12, get it back to the dealer unless it is a pain to drive it there....let them deal with it....the perks of having a new car.
You MIGHT get lucky and tap ir...get a few rotations out of it, but have the tapkob go bad, and need to buy a new hub. Even if tge dealer taps it, and this happens, it was documented, so free hub...and the person who signed off on you tires last time WILL learn not to overtourqe them...rather than just a admmission that we do use a air wrench to mount tires......paper trail.....and help the dealer prevent this from happening again.
Places cannot do better if buddies just sweap mistakes under the rug....when it is documented, the dealer will ensure it does not happen to others....and if it does...they will know why/who.....

 

When an internal thread strips,mat'l is removed from the thread/hole so basically the thread is oversize.Retapping the thread will not replace the mat'l.,you will still have an oversize thread.
All internal/external threads have close tolerance requirements.In the mfg. of threaded parts,thread gauges are used to check threads.

This is a critical fastener,therefore the hub should be replaced.

 

There,s nothing wrong with that as long as the lug bolt is started correctly,the air pressure is set below the final torque value and then a torque wrench is used last.

 

guess i should have been clearer ... the dealer ONLY uses a pneumatic air gun, they do not use the air gun to run the bolts in and then torque with a torque wrench, they just hammer away with the pneumatic air gun until the lug bolts stop turning

scott

 

Well that's pretty stupid!