Hi all

On my way to the office I had a flat tyre so called LR recovery who in truth were very good, the guy came within 30 minutes and got on with swapping my wheel over, then the problems started.

Straight away he noticed "all the wheel nuts were swollen" as he described it, and he was having a bit of difficulty getting the wheel wrench onto them properly, got another socket and issue sorted. Then some of the nuts were very tight indeed, he snapped his wrench on one of them. Finally all 5 nuts removed and the wheel is stuck solid, 20 mins of persuasion with a mallet from the inside of the rim gets it unstuck but its rocking on the hub. It comes off in the end only to find 1 of the 3 lips on the hub had been previously damaged and had gouged its way into the inside bore of the wheel. The lip is clearly flared out over and now stops the fitting of the spare.

Car now declared unfit for road use because the spare cant be fitted properly and is duly towed away.

Now I had the wheels removed and powder coated black in April but with no side effects. Its since had lower control arms and a front diff change at the LR dealer and I reported a vibration through the floor after the diff change. A recent trip to another dealer confirmed a vibration in the steering that they were planning to look at when its in from 2nd Nov to have the front airbags changed.

Would they have taken the wheels off to change the lower control arms and / or front diff and what would be causing the wheel nuts to become swollen?

Car is just over 2 years old so not happy, again, with this RR. I expect the dealer to call me with a price to remedy the problems, £200 for wheel nuts sir. etc, etc.

LR recovery have been good, a new disco sport is currently on its way to my office, so cant fault that side of this issue to be honest. Just dreading the diagnosis from them, I am certain they will blame the powder coating I had done 6 months ago.

Carl

Ive had 4 sets of wheels powder coated in the past, and currently waiting for the latest to come back for fitting to my FFRR. I have had no problems with them at all, but as a member of the MX5 owners site, I know quite a few peeps who had trouble with swelling paint, usually caused by the use of solvents, apparently.

The man who does mine.. Steve at Fastline Coatings Preston always reminds me to use only a pressure washer on them, no cleaners, no solvents, no wax.....nada, nuffink, rien, etc etc

Sorry to be negative, but from what he's told me, the powder coating is a thermoplastic polymer and any solvent-based product will cause it to lift and bubble.

So, if youve not used any such product, I'd contact the guys who coated the wheels, and if they arent helpful, contact their public liability insurers.

Good luck 2007 TDV8 VSE Java Black
1994 MX5 1.8s softtop customised VW Diamond Black

Having just woffled on to you about swelling powder-coated wheels, Ive also found this on the Disco site, which is a similar problem I had on the FD's old mini cooper wheels..........so this may be of more use to you than my previous post.

http://www.disco3.co.uk/forum/topic69886.html 2007 TDV8 VSE Java Black
1994 MX5 1.8s softtop customised VW Diamond Black

Sorry if I confused matters, Im not commenting about the condition of the wheels, they are fine, its a comment about the wheel nuts being faulty and the hub being damaged by LR during recent suspension / drivetrain repairs?

Mods, why has this been moved to this section, its not about that and I wanted to know if other 405 owners have had any issues with nuts on their new RR, please put it back?

I did have my LR dealer report some swollen wheel nuts on my L322 when it was serviced a year or two back and I agreed to have the swollen ones replaced to avoid the problem of fitting a socket to them which you describe.

I never saw the swollen wheel nuts so not sure exactly how they looked.

Swollen nuts on the 322 was / is, a common problem.

Iirc the hub was damaged when they played with the front diff, probably used some sort of persuader to get the splined shaft out of the hub, which is why it is flared and the new wheel won't go on. LR had done this to my 3.6 l322 and I had to have the hub changed to fix it. There is nothing that can't be fixed with a hammer😜😜
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2010 LR D4 Commercial 2.7 TDV6

Just the info I was looking for, thank you very much

Just on the subject of the swollen nuts, LR should change these for you under warranty on a 2013 car, at least the non-locking ones. That's what happened with my 322, luckily I spotted it just before the warranty expired.

On "what do they look like", they look completely normal, but you can't get the 22mm socket on to them either at all or properly. I was alerted to the problem when I was having my winter wheels fitted and the tyre fitters were going back for a different socket, hammering it on and then using a big bar on it. The tyre fitters (C&R Tyres in Kelso, very good, who use only hand tools) said that air powered tools were unhelpful so I now ask that only hand tools be used on mine at the dealer. I went round the wheels and found that each wheel had at least one or two nuts one couldn't get the socket on properly. 405 owners coming up towards the end of their warranty might like to do a similar test...

You'll see a thread on 'Wheels and Tyres' about stainless steel nuts, headed I think "these are the muts nuts" or similar. I wondered about getting these, but the foreman at the dealer put me off, citing concerns about reaction between stainless and alloy. That seemed counter-intuitive to me but I did find some comment to support it online. I asked whether anyone had experience of using these with RR alloys, but have not heard of any. Only Range Rovers since 1988

Swollen nuts is a long standing issue.

I was told by a local type place that its the impact guns that knacker them - so ever since then I've insisted on them being taken off by hand

Its crap design that causes the issue, they aren't really upto the job of being taken on and off a few times in their lives. The outter steel covering dowsn't help matter or that the alloy used for them is too soft as a sacrificial metal.


Its been discussed before but replacement solid steel units are probably the best way to go, stainless ideally. Not perfect as they increase the risk of damaging the thread on the hub but if you fit them by hand before using tools it shouldn't be a problem. FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
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