New Tires should not be this difficult (broken lug nut tool)

[jaanton]

So my 12v battery needed replacement and my tires were pretty well worn so putting in some work on the Roadster seemed required.
It took over a month of stops and starts. I'll just hit the high points here...

* TireRack took three weeks and a difficult chat with their customer service because they didn't have a full set of tires in a single place to ship. Had to break up the order into pieces. Getting the OEM AD07's front and back.

* I could replace the 12v battery except the lug nuts were on far too tight. Found my friend Craig who had a battery impact tool but that also couldn't remove some lug nuts. Eventually went to his garage to get the wheel off for the 12v battery replacement.ut in a Shorai (sp?) per another thread here.
We needed a 5 ft pipe to get enough leverage to get the wheel free. Since I heard that some people had their lug nut key break that was a concern. I purchased a whole new set of BMW lug nuts (again per another thread here). We were running out of time but did manage to get all the locking lug nuts free from all wheels and replaced them with some of the original ones from the front passenger wheel which we installed the new BMW lug nuts on.

* Eventually the new tires arrive and my shop can put on the front tires, but the rear tires lug nuts are so tight the shop broke the tool to remove the lug nuts. See photos. Shop kinda tightened the nuts they had loosened. but I was stuck. See photo of wheel with part of the tool broken off and stuck in wheel.

* Found a replacement ten point tool on Amazon (See the black metal items in photos..) but it takes a week to arrive. In the meantime Autozone carries the tool which is mentioned in another thread here and I buy that locally. But it doesn't really fit more than about 1mm in. So I'm back to my friend's place to rework the tool with a dremel (we determined that the low point in the tools needed to be lower) and again with the 5 ft pipe to get the last of the old lug nuts off the car. Install the new BMW ones.

* Take new tires to a different garage (a racing shop) for mounting and balancing.

The car feels great now with a smoother ride than I can remember for a long time.
It just shouldn't take this much work for something so ordinary.

So, in the end, I'm not going to use the old lug nuts anymore so if any Roadster needs a lock key (mine is code 888) or a 10 point star tool made to fit let me know. I'm based in the S.F. Bay area.

 

[IslandRoadster]

So my 12v battery needed replacement and my tires were pretty well worn so putting in some work on the Roadster seemed required.
It took over a month of stops and starts. I'll just hit the high points here...

* TireRack took three weeks and a difficult chat with their customer service because they didn't have a full set of tires in a single place to ship. Had to break up the order into pieces. Getting the OEM AD07's front and back.

Wow! What a PITA!

 

[X.l.r.8]

Can you flip the locking nut over, there should be a letter on it. It looks the same as mine so if you are not using the lock I’d take it off you. The torque settings are pretty low on the roadster, I presume the lastvghink that saw those wheel nuts was in impact wrench which is probably why they were so stuck. I still use the locking bolts but only torque them to 40 so I know they will come off easy.

 

[jaanton]

Can you flip the locking nut over, there should be a letter on it. It looks the same as mine so if you are not using the lock I’d take it off you. The torque settings are pretty low on the roadster, I presume the lastvghink that saw those wheel nuts was in impact wrench which is probably why they were so stuck. I still use the locking bolts but only torque them to 40 so I know they will come off easy.

It's a "D" on the lock key. Maybe if soneone has an immediate need for this.

 

[ML Auto]

Thats why all mine get converted to studs and 17mm lug nuts. Any bolts are a pain.

 

[gregd]

"D", huh... That's what mine had (past tense). It broke also at a tire place a couple of years ago (Looking for "D" wheel key), and long story short, the wheels now have a full set of un-keyed lugs.

I gave the keyed lugs to the service dept. (Rocklin, California), for their inventory in case another car came in needing one, but I expect they just tossed them. The Service Center up in Santa Rosa, if memory serves me, is where they located the compatible lock to remove them.

To the 12v battery, unless you have gorilla-sized arms, I found it was fairly easy to replace the battery without removing the wheel at all. Just turn it hard to the right, and work around the tire. Not an enjoyable task, but once I got focused on just doing it, it wasn't half bad. Did some interesting analysis (as is my nature) of the system surrounding the battery's use in the process. See 12v battery time (sigh)