Any Car Mechanics amongst us?

Last night whilst driving I felt the passenger side front wheel was loose, I went to tighten it when I got home, took a cap off one of the bolts and they both came out, one had snapped, meaning I now only had 3/5 in the wheel. Took it to Kwik Fit at four lane ends and they are replacing the hub. Is this necessary or can they not just fix the sockets? They said it was damaged so we just went ahead with it. It's a Vauxhaul Insignia and they reckon it is popular on those cars.

I am dumb when it comes to cars so have no idea what else they could do.

 

Not great with cars, but I'd imagine if it's sheered the bolt then it's an issue with the hub rather than the bolt, so sounds about right...

On a side note, but a similar story, I was driving down to Nottingham to get new alloys for my car...I was on the motorway a minute past Scotch Corner when my back right tire exploded...Ended up being 90 degrees to the road before pulling the car back round...Never been so scared in my life, and had another car been anywhere near me I would've been ****ed!

 

I'll ask my sister's fiance about it as he's a mechanic.
I think Chappaz at least knows loads about cars as I remember him posting about different things when I broke down a few weeks ago, so if he's around maybe he could help?

 

Deja vu?

 

I just forked out £150 to have a new battery fitted to the Espace.

Trust me to forget about starting it up for 4 months

 

lol craic is clearly more tedious than i thought!

 

Haha sorry I was looking through my old thread as I was trying to remember who was knowledgeable on there and after posting saw your reply and thought I'm sure I've just read that!

 

A garage has previously used one of those airline rattle guns to wirr on the wheel bolts at too high a level.
Basically, it sounds as if the sheared bolts are broken flush with the face of the hub where the wheel
meets it so there's nothing left for anyone to grip and remove the remaining stud.

You could get a decent garage (NOT KwikFit*!!) to remove thew hub and use an extraction bit to take
the remains of the broken studs - there are proper old school machine shops that will remove broken
studs etc for modest money - I'd expect to pay fractions of osT's £150 too.

Whatever you do, NEVER leave yourself at the mercy of ATS/KrapFit etc though...

 

It's impossible to say really. It all depends on whether it IS damaged, but no one on this forum could know without looking at it. The mechanic seems to think it is, so you would either have to look at the hub to see if it's damaged, or just believe what he says.

Where did the bolt snap? Also, did all of the bolt come out of the hub, or were there still pieces left inside where it had snapped off? If there was anything left inside, there's no way in hell you'd get them out, so the hub would have to be replaced.

PS: Andmcit did mention an extraction bit which is a possibility. However, it depends how it's snapped. Some of them can be drawn out with a struggle, some of them are just wedged in far too much. Any big name brand mechanic wouldn't think of this as a possibility though as it's a bit of a botch sort of method at solving the problem, so they'd just replace it outright.

 

I couldn't tell you where it snapped mate, but no, all of it didn't come out, some was still in, the annoying thing is, it was the same on another socket. So I was left with only 3/5. Kwik Fit said they took the remains out, but was damaged inside so we needed a new hub.

 

The fact it;'s on the front hub means it can quite painlessly be removed and the old broken studs extracted.
There shouldn't really be a high torque on the thread now the head of the wheel bolts is gone; this is the
kind of thing DIY'ers try with sheared bolts etc:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_extractor

 

No where else to go mate! We have used Tyre-Spot and I am sure they ****ed it the first time. We have been to a local garage before for a tensioner and they quoted us £350. We ended up getting it done for £110. That was on our last car, a vectra.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_extractor

Decent drill, one of these bits and patience could save you £'s for new hub and garage labour if you fancy
DIY option but as I say decent place could do this for less dosh! I'm now stuck down here in Swansea so
years out of date with decent places in the Toon - watch this space I know a man who may be able to advise...

 

There's a possibility of that happening. Some of them can be a bitch to get out, and if the threads are damaged in the process, then it's extremely difficult to get a new bolt back in. It isn't exactly safe, either.

Bit extractors can work, but it depends how the bolt has snapped. If it snapped at an angle inside, then it's very hard to get a grip with an extractor without hacking away at the thread at some point. As you can imagine, you need to get the extractor in the middle of the bolt so it can be forced in and turned without touching the thread. That's a possibility, or the other one is that the mechanic wasn't careful and ended up botching up the bolt removal.

 

All they do is drill down the centre with a small drill and use an easy out to screw it out and replace with a new one. An easy out is normally just a hard sguare tapered peg that is knocked or pressed into the round drill hole where it grips the sides and allows you to turn it out. Sometimes though the stud is stuck and it needs to be drilled and re-tapped. Snapped studs is normally down to incorrect torque or uneven torque around the bolts so you get uneven or excess stresses. Poor workmanship and or faulty studs either from manufacture or fatigue.

 

My car works!

<running round like an idiot smiley>