Wow todd!
After hearing alot of worried comments from other nam members, you come up saying 'i'd not lose sleep over it' lol!
there will be 3 people in my car, not many lugages, if at all,
of course I won't push it. Hah.

I will have to see how much the shop will charge me and if it is Not reasonable, I guess I will just go for it..!

 

^^ this is what i have been saying. if it was a lug that i installed and
known to be good, then i would risk going on 3, but a lug that might
break at any minute... no way. i rather not risk my car and safety.

 

The question not yet completely addressed is the root cause of why the lug bolt broke. Things that come to mind:
- Overtightened
- Crap aftermarket lug bolt
- Undertightened (yes - that can easily cause breakage by loading the bolt in shear rather than tension)
- Wheel not seating properly on hub or hubcentric ring issue. Wasn't this a newly installed aftermarket wheel set? If the wheel doesn't seat easily, or maybe settles a little on the hub after driving, this affects bolt fastening torque. It's not a bad idea to drive around the block and then recheck bolt torque. (I have a set of winter rims for my M3 that have a slight problem this way.)

As for driving with just three lug bolts: maybe at low speed for short distances and paying a lot of attention. At highway speed? NFW!

And be sure to replace the remaining bolts on that wheel, since they likely have been overstressed.

Neil
05 MCS
96 M3

 

Just buy some bolts, and go to town with a lug wrench (torque wrench is best for Al wheels, pretty much manditory). Shouldn't take more than 15-20 min, other than the bolt that broke. You can even change them one at a time with the car still on the ground, if you're short on time.

I'm with Todd on this one. Unless, of course, the sky IS falling!

Matt

 

This happened to me today on the front left while removing my winter wheels. After it would not budge with the chisel and vise grips, I drilled it. Now I can't get the remaining shell of the bolt out. Thinking that I could get a better bite on the bolt if I removed the rotor, I stuck the T45 bit in the torx bolt and instantly stripped the bolt head.

It will be a 1 hour tow to MINI, then they either won't have time to work on it on Monday because they're booked up or they won't have a replacement hub in stock because MINI dealers don't stock MINI parts. I can't wait to waste all that money and spend a day at the dealer accomplishing nothing.

All bolts had been torqued to 88 ft-lbs. The lug bolts are the pig-metal ones that came with my ASA-LS5s. At least it was easy to drill through.

 

this has happened to me with 4 bolts. 2 instances with 2 bolts each time.

on the first instance. it was edgeracing lugbolts. broke off reletively easily. With these bolts, i drilled out the bolts almost completely, leaving about 1/16'' left of the bolt + the threads. i then gripped onto the remaining shell of the bolt and it pulled away from the inside of the shaft.(what a relief) I thought the problem would require a tow as you CANNOT drive on 2 lug bolts) I was SO thankfull and thought this was the end of it since i was able to remove all the other edgeracing lugbolts and replace them with stock(much harder metal)

on my next instance, I snapped off 2 STOCK bolts. the reason is still not sure, but Im pretty sure it can be linked to the streatching out of the threads due to a very heavy duty impact used by the tire shop that i frequent. this was a HUGE pain! first of all, these were adjacent bolts on the drive tire. I attempted to drill these out as I did the first broken ones months earlier. these were nearly impossible to drill. Again, these are STOCK lugs and very strong. I must have burned out 6-7 bits trying to get one of the bolts drilled(all bits under 3/16), like i said...very hard. my solution was to replace the hub. Here's where it REALLY gets fun...

Replacing the hub basically requires the removal/reinstall of 6 bolts
1 - CV bolt(that big guy in the middle)
1 - rotor bolt(T-45 torx)
4 - 13mm bolts holding the hub on the strut(facing outward)

the CV bolt came right off with an impact once the punch was bent out.
the rotor bolt would NOT remove with an impact. attempting to remove it with a ratchet stripped out the bolt; it had to be DRILLED! this is where my hopes were shot becauase i knew that, even if the rest of the install went well, i would not be able to move the car until i got to the dealer for a new rotor bolt.

The 4x13mm bolts were VERY tough to remove. The CV joint makes very little room to get a stright impact in there. I ended up using a breaker bar with a 3-way swivel to crack em all. they all came out, but were very hard to do. You will need to turn the wheel(both ways) to get at these with max leverage.

after this, the install went well; as it should since, at this point...EVERYTHING going on is brand new.


Throughout these 2 ordeals, i have learned to better maintain these lug bolts. first of all, they do NOT need much tork to keep the tires on the car. 85lbs is all you need to keep the tires on. impacts can put on WAY more then this, thus stretching out threads and causing these problems.

Try this. I have noticed that the hubs accumulate some rust and start causing a BUNCH of friction on the bolts, this makes the problem worse and worse. Someone told me to put a drop of oil on the bolts before you put em in. THIS WORKS LIKE A CHARM. i was able to hand tighten these bolts(that wouldnt hand tighten more then 2 or 3 threads before) almost entirely. I only use the angle iron that came with the MINI or a ratchet. I do not use an impact to put on the lugs.

I guess the only advise i have to the community is to use a drop of oil(motor oil works fine) on the lug bolts when you put em in. it does WONDERS. and dont over tighten the bolts. dont worry about your tires coming off. you will KNOW if your tire is coming off. with the tight suspension on the MINI, you will KNOW if the tire starts coming SLIGHTLY loose, at which point, you pull over, exit the car, do a little tighten job.

 

This kind of problem is why I remove the wheels from my car and take them
to the shop when I get new tires put on or when I want to have them
balanced. Slap-happy grease monkeys with a torque wrench are a dangerous
and potentially expensive (to you, the customer) combination.

 

What he said. It also gives you the rest of the day to do things besides read very old newpapers & last years R&T.

edit. This is a little late in coming. If you do not like the idea of a parts store the MINI bolt is common to other BMWs. A BMW shop may be closer than a MINI dealership. I hope all worked out for you.

 

Never even thought about a lug bolt breaking before this. Felt a new slight shimmy when braking on the highway, but it didn't seem to happen each time. Weird. So when I got home I looked at my right front wheel and found one of the lug bolts had sheared off. So I checked the other three for tightness. Then with only just a bit of tightening by hand rachet a SECOND bolt breaks off!

WTF? I could have easily been driving on two bolts, and who knows the shape the remaining two are in stress-wise. This should be fun trying to get those broken bolts out of the hub. Not eneven sure it's worth trying....maybe I should get it towed to a shop.

Anyone have any ideas -- short of replacing the hub, which I'm hoping to avoid?

 

and there are bolts and there are bolts. Someone around here (Sidhartha?) posted a site to buy hardened hardwar. Unfortunantly, not all the lug nuts that come with aftermarket wheels are created equal...... We all kind of take it for granted until this happens....

Also, if you do go to one of these sites, make sure you get the correct mating surface. The BMW one is round and a lot of aftermarket are a vee.

Matt

 

I've been forced to do this - which is why I run studs...

Anyhoo, you can drive it - cautiously. When driving the 110 miles from our AX site to home, I stopped twice to check the torque on the other 3 bolts and found they had loosened a bit.

Personally, my lug bolt galled the inside of the threads on a rear hub, so I swapped in a new one - and fixed the old one off the car for a spare (hurrah for tap sets!).

I would also not be so worried about getting the old bolt piece out... A drill and EZ out should do it - you need to be patient, though, and be prepared for a long drill job. The bolts ain't soft (assuming they're good stuff, anyway).

Worst case, if you mung it up you can replace a hub, drill the old one out and save it as a spare...

 

And will stay optimistic.

I'll also try to find the posting about hardened bolts that I can swap in.

You're right though, it's something I never thought about until the darn thing snapped off. Fortunately I didn't lose a THIRD bolt driving on Devil's Slide !

 

Hey, at least they all didn't come off. Someone I know just had this happen to his Audi. All lug bolts (or studs?) sheared and he ended up riding on the brake disk. That VAG crowd likes their "tuck" but it's gets pretty ugly when the tire has disappeared up into the fender