Wheel bolts too long, hub damage
 

So my dealer called, says the bolts the winter tire company sent me were just a couple threads too long, They say when I put them on, I mushroomed the end of them - and when they removed the bolts today for warranty work, they stripped out the hub.
They said the rears are fine as they have more clearance.

This can happen?!

something simlar happened to me. its indeed possible. had spacers on the rear and extended bolts it ended up touching and damaging my parking brake a bit. now I only use oem spec lug bolts and ditched the spacers entirely. also replaced parking brake

More likely longer bolts generally will cause a problem with rear bolts as they will sound the e-brake mechanism and cause damage, not on the front. The front hubs have nothing behind them usually to cause damage. Many mercedes cars (modern ones away) don't use those types of inner brake shoes anymore for the e-brake. They now have calipers that have an electronic e-brake.

Anything is possible however, I would just be weary of the dealer saying thats the cause of your hub being stripped.

Good luck with the dealer.

Huh
I compared bolts before putting the wheels on they didn't seem that far off at all.
You think I would have noticed, torquing them by hand, two times, that something was wrong. I've driven on them all season so far.
I guess I need to go to the dealer and see what they are talking about. It's over $1k/hub mistake if I did mess it up.

yeah if he's referring to the front which he is, i just reread it. then they definitely made a mistake there it sounds like their fault. I had no issues with my extended lugs on the FRONT

Thanks guys
yeah they say the rears are fine! And the fronts stripped when they removed my bolts.
Argh.

A simple way to confirm is to make them show you what caused the bolts to "mushroom" i'm curious to hear what excuse they make about what the bolt pressed up against on the other end

If it were the rears I would buy this sales pitch. The fronts I don't think so plus you Tq by hand and you would have felt a loose wheel my now or they would not have snug the wheel to the hub the first time.

This story sounds a bit weird. The lug bolts are tightened to about 130 Nm or 96 ftlb. They are saying the longer bolts were tightened to a level where they were plasticity deformed at the top? Then undone with enough force to tear the thread?
I would postulate that if you drive a lug bolt into a fixed length hole, you will hit the 130 Nm torque value long before the blot starts to deform to that extent.

And if the bolts used a re too long and driven straight through the hub, they may very well hit things behind the hub (like parking brake parts in the rear), but you would have heard all that first time driving to drive the car after installing the snows.

If the winter tire installer use the wrong bolt type, they may have cross threaded / ruined the bolt hole threads. That sounds more likely to me. if you were the one that installed the bolts and you cross threaded them you would also have felt that. Cross threading an entire lug bolt takes some real force.
Or the dealer stripped the threads for some other reasons (as in putting on the bolts without any torque limitation and simply over torquing the bolts).

FastWgn you are spot on and understand what they are saying.

Here's the thing: I'm the one that checked the new bolts, put them on by hand, torqued them with a snap-on by hand, drove for 10 minutes, torqued them again by hand, and have been driving on them all winter long for months no issues. It's been perfect.

The car went in for a squeaky a-arm bushing today, and the dealer called me to say the front hubs are stripped by the bolts being 1-2 threads too long, and mushrooming hitting the bottom of a blind hole in the hub or some other piece. I just can't remembr if those holes are blind or through, and google isn't showing me any good images where I can tell.

I can't understand what they are explaining to be possible without seeing it. I've left voicemails to stop by and have the techs show me. I don't want to start going off on them if they happen to be right.

I'll eat crow if I messed up, it just stinks to eat crow :)

just based on sheer probability. I would say its highly likely that the dealership made the mistake and is trying to cover it up. I have a friend that was a lead MB service advisor for years and well yeah, he'd agree. So i wouldn't write off that possibility. but yeah like you said if it does turn out to be your fault then oh well but definitely make them prove it first

Dropped by the dealer
 

My service manager has been GREAT communicating with me and the tech, and told me to come on by. After showing me everything, and letting me fit it myself, I agree.

Short story: BE CAREFUL using aftermarket wheel bolts! I only ruined one hub out of 4, it could have been way worse.

There is not enough contact area on the bolts supplied with my wheels. When torqued they drop in just a TINY bit too far into the wheel vs. the stock one (pictured beside it) and so stick out the back of the hub just a mm or less too far. But you can't tell, because at that point, the part sticking out the back may not even be touching anything.

As it rotates it comes into contact just enough to barely rub the last thread sticking out through the back. Not the whole bolt being mushroomed, but just a tiny tiny bit of the end, just the peak of the thread on one side of it, only after while driving.

This didn't happen to all the bolts, just the ones that were a **** hair through too much, and it was so close, it would depend on bearing play too it's very easy to get these all in without noticing!

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...14d906703b.jpg


See the end (barely sorry iphone focus) the thread is rubbed flat:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...538c515635.jpgWhich wrecked the threads in the hub when the disfigured bolt was removed (red).

When the bot hole was orientated where the green is, the bolt does not touch anything when through, only when it rotated to the top did it touch stuff - and just barely, with enough bearing play, there was zero scraping or weird noises or drag - it just wrecked the thread whatever thousands of an inch, waiting there patiently to wreck my hub one day on removal.



https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...20befbee4d.jpg



https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...5b58136140.jpg

OK - good you got it resolved.

For the DIY guy, this could (may)be fixed with a tap and die set.

Yeah they are too far gone no meat left or have to up size threads/bolts.

I've replaced wheel bearings in parkinglots on road trips.
I've straightened pushrods with a ball peen hammer, welded up new guides with the demo welder at the Milller booth, to drive home ticking 600 miles after the races.
Swapped whole engines in a weekend.
Etc.

And now can't even swap rims!?

;)

Getting old is a son of a *****.

:D

PS thanks for your help. I just couldn't fathom what the service guy was explaining being possible. As soon as the tech explained it: "oh."

All is well