Howdy,
On Wed, 19 Dec 2007, David Hillman wrote:
> I'm sort-of shopping for my wife's next car, and have recently
> learned that two of the would-be candidates feature this insane method
> of wheel attachment called the 'lug bolt'. Now, I had a Alfa years ago
> that used these, and the day I sold it, I vowed never again to be stupid
> enough to buy such a car. Actually, I think I made that vow every damn
> I had to put a wheel on that car, but it was Italian, so you expected
> some hassle.
>
> But, the choices are pretty slim apart from these two cars... so can
> anyone give me some good reason why I shouldn't think lug bolts are one
> of the greatest mistakes in automotive engineering history? What is
> their purpose, other than to take a perfectly good design and ruin it
> completely? Are they the result of a bunch of German engineers getting
> way too drunk on dark beer at a Christmas party, and betting each other
> to see who could come up with the worst idea?
I'm no particular fan of lug bolts, but its pretty easy to convert to
standard studs/nuts. I wouldn't let that stop me from buying a car I
wanted otherwise.
The only advantage I can think of with lug bolts is that you just need to
match the lug bolts with the wheel, and they'll always be the right
length. With studs/nuts, its possible that you'll need to change the
studs for longer/shorter ones to make things fit well. Of course, that
wouldn't seem to matter to an OEM, where they presumably have a lot of
control over the wheels.
Mark
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