Broken Lug Bolts on 1999 E320 Station Wagon
 

All of the lug bolts on my 1999 E320 wagon are too tight for the tire shop to remove without breaking – already three have snapped on them. The shop mechanic is sying that heating them to remove them is the only way to get them off at this point, but that doing so will burn the anodized surface on the rims. Any suggestions/advice?

More importantly, the heat will remove the age-hardened properties of the aluminum alloy, resulting in loss of strength and even making it dead-soft. Worst case this can result in the growth of fatigue cracks and an eventual wheel-off.

Try to find a mechanical solution to the problem. Drill through the center of each wheel bolt to remove them. I believe that's done with cobalt drill bits.

If breaking the bolts causes no other damage then that's the best course

Todd, I would have the mechanic go ahead and attempt to remove the lug bolts ... if they break they break. Be sure you have a supply of new lug bolts on hand before proceeding to break all the existing ones. Soak the stubs with penetrating oil before using a small pipe wrench to remove the stubs from the hubs. In the future it's a good idea to use grease or Neverseez on the lug bolt threads so they don't rust in place.

I went through the same thing with my wagon a year and a half ago. I had the tire shop push on the lug bolts with a 4 foot pole extension to try and get enough torque - one bolt snapped and two bent. I took the car to my indy (who was closed that Saturday, unfortunately) and he said he sees it all the time. Here is what he did to remove the bent ones.

He took a large hammer and what looked like a very large punch - it was about a foot long. He put the punch against the lug bolt head and hammered away at it a few times. The shock from the hammer strikes broke the threads free, and they removed easily with a standard 18" breaker bar. I was amazed how easily they came out.

Now removing the the broken bolt was a different story. We tried drilling but it was just in way too tight. We ended up having to cut the bolt out with a cutting torch. And yes, the combination of the torch, hammering, vise grips, etc wrecked the rim. I got stuck buying a new one but he warned me up front that was probably going to be the outcome.

Try the hammer and punch trick if you still have the head on the bolt. And make sure you upgrade to the newer specification bolt that is shorter in length, without that extended spacer above the "collar" on the bolt. The new ones don't cause the problems the way that the old ones do.

This happened to me also, my indy worked at it with a drill and drilled out the bolts. The new replacements were shorter, thus less of a weak point. Good luck. My indy was going to cut the rim as a last resort

i would opine that the broken bolts is a blessing in disguise. that design is
inherently weak. note that MB modified that stilt design afterwards and no
longer supplies them. the original idea, I believe, was to have the bolt head
up near the wheel surface and made it look nicer. but that giraffe neck of a
bolt on a 12mm diameter shank also made it spindly. when you switch over to
the newer, shorter design, just be sure you use an extension with the socket,
or a deep sockete to reach to the bolt head.

Don't blame the bolts, it's knuckle heads that don't think the wheel bolts warrant torquing that create the problems.
Gilly

Yeah but its a common problem on those long neck wheel bolts, which is why MB no longer makes them.

We have a 4 ft bar specifically for this problem, the last one I had, 18 of the 20 bolts were seized. Put the bar on the bolt, apply some torque, just enough to tension it and using a sledge hammer, pound on the end of the bar, square with the bolt head. after a few knocks, the bolt will start to turn with out the bolt breaking. It also works on bent lug bolts.

riiiiight, but you need to grasp the fact that EVEN though it's a common problem, if the bolts were being installed properly, they wouldn't get stuck on like that. Sort of like "whoever" in this country outlawed Lawn Darts (Jarts). If people wouldn't have tossed them straight up into the air and (and come straight down onto their heads) they would hae been perfectly safe. It's the guys who just HAD to hammer the things on with their 500ft/lb impact gun that ruined it for everybody. Now you have to replace them with the stubby ones and it looks like "dirt".
Gilly

I agree with Gilly.

If you are checking your brakes per Service Schedule A and rotating your tires and using proper torque, you won't have seized lug bolts. Seizing comes from over-tightening and/or being left in place too long.

Not to contradict Gilly, but in my particular case neither of those conditions were present (overtorqued or left on too long). The I put my winter tires on in late October, and when I did the switch again in late April to my summer tires, I had seized bolts. I always use a torque wrench set to 82 ft/lbs to secure the bolts. I don't own an air wrench.

Jonathan - Do they still use salt on the roads in Toronto? :eek: If so, 6 months is probably too long. Under those conditions I would loosen and retorque your lug bolts after about 3 mos.

FYI, 110Nm is for the short 'Style A" lug bolts. The extended 'Style C" lug bolts should be torqued to 150Nm.

We could also discuss (again) the pros and cons of using antiseize on the wheel bolt threads.

Drilling out lug bold is not that hard. Start with a small drill and step up to 12mm.

The problem with 10 or 12mm drills is that they are sharpened for a relatively high pressure on the drill. This pressure is much higher than can be applied by hand. If I have to drill out a lug bold I sharpen my drills to a greater angle, this makes it much easier. With modified drills and low rpm it takes abut 10 minutes to remove the bold.

Rob