Focus ST: A "Wheely" Big Problem. Wheels Powdercoated in Metallic Grey

Thursday, 30 January 2014

A "Wheely" Big Problem. Wheels Powdercoated in Metallic Grey

So, I had some Falken 452's put onto the car by a local garage and then a couple of months later I needed to take the wheels off for a good deep clean. The only problem was that the fitters fitted the locking wheel nuts with an air gun and no copperslip.... So as you guessed the nuts were effectively welded in place.

My locking key slipped and chewed up the teeth, so I had to order two more from McGard in Germany. These turned up and both of these went the same way.

This resulted in me returrning to the garage, no help there. Had a specialist out with a "no fail" kit... guess waht? IT FAILED!! My car broke a kit worth £400! I then had a garage weld a steel bar to the locker and try to twist it off. No movement there either.

So in the end I ended up drilling out the wheel locking nuts and the studs behind were obviously damaged. Now Ford wanted to sell me the whole hub, bare in mind I did all four wheels, so the cost was looking at around £1000 to fix this monkeys mess. Anyway, after going onto STOC, I found that the studs would fit from a Mondeo and were available individually from Ford. £3.04 later and the hubs were fixed.

The wheels were damaged during the drilling, and they were slightly kerbed anyway. So all four were powdercoated by Top Marques in Fenton (Stoke on Trent).

Pictures of this episode below:

Drilling out - all hours - took about 12 hours in total