A couple of weeks ago I noticed significant side wall damage on my front passenger's side tire so I decided to remove it and switch it with my spare. While I was removing the damaged tire one of the lug nuts refused to move so after manhandling it I noticed that the top of the lug nut had come off in the tire iron. (The dealership does my routine maintenance so I figured they had probably overtightened the lug nuts the last time they rotated my tires.) That same night I noticed that my rear driver's side tire also had a lug nut with a missing top. Fortunately, I had replaced five of my lug nuts with wheel locks, so I had extra lug nuts to replace those two with.

Anyway, the next day I went to Discount Tire to buy a new tire and they moved my like-new spare to the rear passenger's side and put the new tire I purchased on my rear driver's side, so I know they had to remove the lug nuts on those two locations.

Today at lunchtime I noticed this on my rear wheels:



This makes four lug nuts broken now and I have only one spare left. Tomorrow I'm going to see if Discount Tire will replace these for me so I don't have to use my spares.

Is this a common problem? Are the tops of lug nuts this easy to break? Should I replace all of them? If so, whats a good brand? Thanks for any input!

 

I had this same thing happen to me. I just put some super glue on it and slipped it back on. So far so good. At least until I loosen them up again.

 

Unfortunately I only have the one lug nut top. I don't know where or when the others fell off.

 

it really isn't broken. Jeep has been using those for several years now. It's an aesthetic cap pressed onto the lug nut. The more you pull them on and off the looser they become. Especially if you use the wrong size socket on it.

 

I used the best size from a standard 4-way tire iron. Is the stock tire iron a different size? What size are the lug nuts? Are they metric or standard?

 

I use a Mac 19mm deep impact socket.

 

Same thing happened to me. I replaced the cheapo stock lug nuts with Gorilla Automotive 91187SS Stainless Steel Lifetime Lug Nuts (1/2" Thread Size, "Bulge Acorn").

 

Exactly right, 19mm with their pretty jackets on. Don't know what size they would be missing the jacket. None of mine have gone bad, not even close. I do my own and if I have it at a tire shop I won't let them put them back on with an impact unless they have the proper torque stick.

 

It's caused by improper handling of the nuts. I've put mine on and off many times without a problem.

 

Nothing worse than improper handling of the nuts.