Hello All;

I have a 1981 240d with the old school star hubcaps (image attached). These hubcaps are works of art as far as I'm concerned, haha. Will soon be moving to a city environment where car will be street parked, and concerned about hubcap removal, as they are very easy to pop off. There might not be any way around this but I'm wondering if there are any ideas out there for securing these hubcaps- obviously in a way that makes them reasonably easily removable by the car owner/tire shops, when needed. I know that fancy rims can be 'locked' but what about wheel covers?! Shot in the dark, thanks!

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Back in the day there were cables that went through the valve stem hole in the cover then the other end had a washer on it that went under a lug nut.This would keep someone from doing a pry and run. However they might end up pulling and tugging anyway. A down side is if a hub cap comes loose while driving it will flail about damaging the fender.

You might be able to use super duty plastic zip ties through the cap holes and wheel slots.

How long will you be in the city? I'd tend to pull the covers and hood star to minimize issues.

Sl320,
Thanks for the reply. Heavy duty zip ties- interesting idea. Seems obvious now but I wouldn't have thought of it! I'll give that a shot. Not necessarily expecting to be able to stop a pro with tools but it would be great to at least inconvenience the casual opportunist or drunk kid.

X2 for zip ties

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Your welcome. You can get white large size zip ties that would blend in the caps.
Silver / gray might be possible but the color range generally gets limited the larger you go. ( small ties can be had in all sorts of colors )

Whatever method you choose, be sure to keep the necessary tool to undo it with the spare tire tools. It would suck if your anti-theft measures prevented you from being able to change a flat.

It's kinda like losing the key and being locked out of your own luggage.

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