user456101

I have a 2007 Honda Accord 4-cyl EX. I had the tires replaced a week ago and the next day or so I noticed that one of the lug nuts was sitting out further than the rest on the driver's side front wheel. When I took it off, sure enough it was cross threaded. Now if I had just stopped there and taken it back to the tire place things might have come out better, but then again, maybe not. I had previously watched a video about replacing a wheel stud and I thought I would just fix it myself. In the video the old stud could be hammered out and a new one threaded back in. So, I thought I would just pick up a wheel stud and a new lug nut at Advance Auto and just take care of it. So, I proceeded to start to take the tire off and found to my horror that 3 more studs were so overtightened that they broke off. I was thoroughly pissed off but at that point I couldn't take it anywhere without fixing it, unless I wanted to pay handsomely for a tow - it was in my garage after all and how would a tow truck get it out without special equipment and procedures? (note - I called a tow truck guy and he wanted $150 to take it where I needed it to go). So, I decided to just buy all new wheel studs and lug nuts and proceed anyway. After taking off the tire and the brake hardware and the rotor I became aware, to my newest horror, that the studs cannot be taken out of the hub, with the wheel hub in place. They just won't come out. There isn't enough room and rotating the wheel doesn't make any difference. I could cut them off with a hack saw to get them out, but that wouldn't help me get the new ones in. I watched several YouTube videos where guys were filing down and cutting off parts of the dust shield to make room to get them out and back in, but that seemed extreme, and also with 4 or 5 wheel studs to do, I couldn't see putting a wheel on and trusting 5 filed-down, partial wheel stud tops to hold. I tried pulling the hub off, but it wouldn't come off, even with a slide hammer. The only way to get studs out, is to take the hub off, and to get the hub off you have to take the whole knuckle off! That means taking the spindle nut off which is a 32mm nut, (not 24 or 22mm like it says literally everywhere) for which you will need a breaker bar, it also means taking off the bottom ball joint, which won't come off with the recommended joint separator tool (at least not Advance Auto's $25 version of it - the supposed equivalent of the Honda Recommended "Ball joint remover, 28 mm 07MAC-SL00200" did nothing), but which will come off with a tie rod end puller, which you can get as a loaner from Advance Auto for free. And the top ball joint and the tie rod end have to come off as well (better to use the tie rod end puller here too if possible since the tie rod separator fork has a tendency to damage the rubber boots) And removing the brake line and abs sensor, which are minor. At the end of that you can take the knuckle off with the hub attached and take it someplace to get the hub pressed off hydraulically, which will ruin the wheel bearings, so you will have to have new wheel bearings installed at the same time you have new wheel studs pressed on, and then the hub pressed back on the knuckle. This will cost you many hours of effort finding out how to solve the mis-information on the spindle nut and the puller. And, if the place thinks they can do the pressing work, but really can't, you will wait a couple of days to find out that they can't do what they thought they could do, and you will probably then decide to go to the junkyard and remove an un-damaged knuckle and install it instead of trying to solve this no good, horrible, very bad wheel stud experience. And then you have to decide how and when to get your money back from the tire place given that you have 3 more wheels that you really don't know if they screwed them up or not too!

DCFIVER

LoL, but that $150 tow bill wasnt so bad after all......