Hello All,


Looking for a little input/advice.


I have never taken the wheels off my mini before, and I wanted to inspect the brakes this weekend and figured I would take one of the wheels off.

I could not even get a single lug nut (from ANY of the 4 wheels) loose. I tried a tire iron and 2 people putting their weight into it, an air wrench, a 1/2inch drive socket wrench with a 3 foot pipe on the end...couldn't get a single one loose.

Now, clearly they are not supposed to be on this tight. I bought the car about 6 months ago, and the only time it has been in the shop is to have the aux water pump recall done a few months ago.

My question is, does the aux water pump recall procedure require taking off the wheels? If so, then I can say for sure that the dealership over-tightened them. If not, then WTF?!?!

 

Just go to any tire store and have them rotate your tires.
They will get the lugs freed up for you and you can get a rotation at the same time.

 

+1! And no, im sure the dealer didn't overtighten those lugs.

 

I just figured they wouldnt be able to get it off if I can't...

But maybe they have something more powerful than my compressor (80gal Two Stage, commercial grade) ? Idk

 

The compressor will have nothing to do with it. It's the tool connected to it that makes the difference. You mentioned air wrench, so I'm assuming you didn't mean an impact wrench. The tire shop will have some fairly beefy impacts that will be able to bust them loose. If/when you do get that done, have them inspect the wheel to make sure that there isn't any long term damage from having them that tight.

 

The MINI dealers use impact wrenches to tighten lugs. Any time I had to take my wheels after a service date they've always been usually tight. Now that I'm out of warranty I don't have to worry about stepping through the doors of the stealer too much.

If the dealer put the front bumper into "service mode" they would have taken off both front wheels during the aux. water pump campaign. Some tech torqued them down till even Zeus couldn't budge them. Make them fix it!!

 

No it was an impact wrench, rated at 400 ft/lbs.

 

My mechanic's impact does 900ft lbs, so industrial ones certainly have more power. I would have sat there for an hour trying to get the axle nut off when I replaced my axle... yet one quick burst of his gun opened the flange and undid the bolt in .3 seconds. Amazing.

But, you couldn't get this loose with a 3foot pipe? I'm assuming you are using an impact socket, as with a 3ft pipe the torque would have quickly broken a hand wrench socket if enough force was applied. If it didn't, then more force could be applied to loosen it. I'd be amazed if a 3ft pipe didn't have enough leverage to loosen a lug. Say a 200lb person stood at the end of the 3ft pipe... thats 600 ftlbs of force on the lug bolt.

edit.. btw, I see you're in CT... where abouts? If you're close maybe I could help out.

 

Funny you say that, we twisted two 1/4inch adapters before went and bought the proper 1/2 inch (in which case it held the torque but still wouldn't budge). I'm no expert, but I've worked with a good deal of cars and this is unlike anything I've seen. I guess I'll take it to the shop, maybe they have one of those 900ft/lb guns that you're talking about.

Still, knowing my wheels are torqued down higher than 400 ft/lbs scares the **** outta me!

 

Especially when they should be at ~80 ft lbs.

Where in ct are ya? I work in rocky hill which is pretty close to central

 

Geez, King Kong with a lug wrench. Nice, I hate that, and oil filters installed that way as well.

I had my wheels off pretty early on my 2/12-build MCS to clean and rotate; the factory install seemed on-spec, I had no trouble removing.

They did have +10lbs of air pressure, though, reading mid-forties as delivered. Harsh run-flats indeed!

 

PM sent

 

Torque spec is not 80 ft lbs it is 103-104 if my memory serves me correctly but it is definitely a lot more than 80. Even my BMW 5 lug is 89 ft lbs

On a gen 2 at least maybe a gen 1 is lower

 

I used to work in a tire shop in college and we had a special impact gun for German cars. The lugs always seem to tighten up on cars that have lug bolts rather that standard studs and lug nuts.