Lug Nut confusion!

Wheel and tire information and upgrade discussions
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bluebadge
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 1:57 am

Lug Nut confusion!

Post by bluebadge »

Ok, my wife is driving a 2006 Vibe with the alloy wheels (not the GT version). She recently took the Vibe in to a local garage for a tire rotation and she was told she had the wrong lug nuts on the vehicle and that she needed to swap them out for the correct ones as the ones she has are dangerous. So I went to a local Advance Auto and bought a new set. I figured that since they had a computer system they would pick the correct ones... When I removed one of the lug nuts from the wheel and inspected it. It appeared to have a washer on it. which is odd because the set that advance auto sold me was identical. Can someone please let me know which lug nuts are the correct ones? Was the local garage who did our tire rotation incorrect? Do I indeed already have the correct ones. And if they are not correct why did Advance Autos computer specify the wrong ones? I'll probably call the dealership tomorrow but they in the past have been pretty useless.

Cheers.
BB
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trb
Posts: 1670
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 4:06 am
Location: Houston, TX

Re: Lug Nut confusion!

Post by trb »

Alloy wheels use the flat bottom lug nuts with the washers, so the shop is the one that is wrong. My GT came with them stock. The steel wheel hubcap cars came with the conical tapered end style lug nuts. You can tell what nuts the wheels use by looking at the holes. If the holes are tapered, they use the tapered nuts. If the holes are flat, obviously they use the flat nuts with washers. I installed the 17" wheels on my son's 06 that had hubcaps and had to get the washer style nuts to install the wheels properly.

Oh, and the 03-06 GT came with the 16" wheels standard. The 16" and 17" alloy wheels were optional on the Vibe models as I've seen them both on base and GT models and I've seen the 16" on AWD vibes.
Thomas
the "Mustang Guy"
1987 5.0 LX Mustang
2016 Mustang GT - current daily
2004 Satellite Vibe &
2009 Red Vibe GT -twin's cars
2003 Neptune Vibe GT - prior daily
2010 Red Vibe GT - RIP 6/16/14
2006 Platinum Vibe - son's car
bluebadge
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 1:57 am

Re: Lug Nut confusion!

Post by bluebadge »

Awesome, I knew someone on here would know the answer. Many thanks. :)
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