Plastic lugnut protectors like these on our longterm 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI need to become extinct. They serve little worthwhile purpose to the end user other than to provide an additional obstacle to changing a wheel.
The problem arises when (not if) you lose the little ring-hook that Volkswagen includes in the trunk kit in order to yank those little bastards out. Then you're relegated to finding some scrap of metal by the side of the road or prying them out with the supplied screwdriver and risk mangling your nice alloy wheels. This was the situation when we were doing the Jetta's pre-test check which includes torquing the lugnuts.
As far as I can tell, these plastic caps exist so that automakers can use lugnuts that don't need to look nice. Ugly things cost less.
Give us nice lugnuts and spare us the caps. Go ahead, tack on an additional $0.03 per lugnut to the Jetta's MSRP. It'd be well worth it in the aggravation saved.
Jason Kavanagh, Engineering Editor @ 8,372 miles.
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Agreed. If for my winter steel rims I never bother with plastic hubcaps for the reason that they are a pain in the rear to remove and in the cold of winter on the side of the road I can easily live without the hassle.
Also, saves valuable seconds in putting on my summer rims :)
Same thing with locking lugnuts. If you lose the special "key" good luck taking them off.
Yanking those caps off was my least favorite thing when swapping out the GTI's winter tires, but the bare nuts looked like #(&$.
Are aftermarket lug nuts available?
I recently encountered these when helping a friend with a 2005 Golf diagnose a bad wheel bearing (what gave it away? Maybe the incessant 80 decibel grinding noise/feeling at anything above 20mph).
The hook was gone, so I found some random metal pick in my toolbox to pry them out slowly. What a PITA.
When you take you car in for service, please tell them to hand tighten the lug bolts!!!!
When I had my VW Beetle, the kid at the tire shop used the impact wrench and over tighten the bolts. well, a few months later, when I went to do the front brakes, I stripped one of the bolts with that stupid special key. It was HELL!! trying to drill that stripped bolt out. 6 months later when I went to do the rear breaks, it happened again, ....always hand tighten those lug bolts.
I worked for a tire shop for a while and I would always sigh when I get handed a work order to do any VW model. Seems like VW and Audi are the only companies to use these stupid protectors. Most of the cars that came in never have that special tool. So I waste my time looking for a suitable tool...(mostly a L-shaped allen wrench) then struggle with getting them off so I can do my work.
What is the point of these anyway. I mean they don't look any nicer than bare lug nuts I would guess. Unless you're going to do a real nice hiding of the valve stem and lug nuts like the BMW B7 Alpina: http://www.seriouswheels.com/pics-2004/2004-BMW-Alpina-B7-Front-Wheel-1280x960.jpg
Then don't bother at all...
Don't German cars use lug bolts not lug nuts?
"Don't German cars use lug bolts not lug nuts?"
Some do. My 2009 Mercedes C300 has bolts instead of lug nuts.
The Dr. is correct, at least for my GTI's lug bolts. But then the headline wouldn't be much fun - 'Protect Your Bolts'.
Wow, when I had seen these I had assumed that VW used special Torx bolts for the wheels. Had no idea these were just cheap plastic covers. Boooo, VW.
Recently tried to help my friend change the tire on her Audi A4 1.8T these crazy things have these caps on the bolt and need a special tweezer to pluck them off. they look awesome but what a pain the butt. Nobody ever wants to spend forever trying to change a tire..
My 04 Jetta has lug bolts and the corresponding plastic caps. They are a PITA to deal with, but in my opinion, they do look better then just having the lug heads exposed. They are fairly hardy too, at least 4 were partially broken when I bought my car (used) and they stayed on through two seasonal tire changes.