As titled above I've had what I believed to be 5 attempted thefts of my wheels over the past year and a bit. Had the cops in for the last 2, but now I'm starting to wonder

Usually it's the 2 locking wheel nuts that are removed on the side facing away from my house, regardless of which ever way the car is facing. On a couple of occasions some of the nuts were loosened. I've changed the brand several times and now I have McGuards on there. Replaced the old set in November after another suspected attempt, and the ******* have had another go last Friday FFS... this time they only got one off.

I'm starting to question whether these are just coming loose??? They're all torqued up an **** and I there's no vibration to mention so they should be OK. I'd imgine if they did work their way loose, they'd either come back on me and damage the car, or I'd be hearing report on the local news that innocent pedestrians have been shot in the head by a locking wheel nut??

They're only Inovit Redlines FFS, hardly worth nicking as they're cheap as chips to buy new. So why would anyone wanna nick'em? TBH I'm getting absolutely fcuked off with it now, one time I didn't realise until I drove up the road with the Mrs & kids in the car. If I hear any noises outside in the night and I'm running outside frothing at the mouth like a rabbid dog ready to skin the barstewards! It's ruining my sex life!!

Joking apart... any ideas anyone?

 

Do the wheelnuts have the correct taper for those particular wheels?
With the correct mating taper and torqued to the right figure, the nuts simply should not loosen!

JohnD

 

Use some threadlock. It`s not permanent and at least it`ll confirm either way.

 

Yes mate, they're McGuard's; got'em from ScoobyParts. I don't think they're coming loose tbh, I've been trying to thing of another potential reason... foul play I suspect

 

Hadn't thought of that... I'll give that a try.

 

What I meant was, that depending on whether your wheels have steel inserts in the stud holes or just drilled in the wheel alloy, may dictate the angle of the seating for the wheelnut. Did the wheels come with their own wheelnuts? If they did, it's possible the seating angle could be different to the standard Subaru wheelnuts and the McGuards, having the Subaru seating angle, will not seat properly. Just a thought!

JohnD

 

No they didn't have their own nuts but in general it's the lockers that tend to go missing, and the time the nuts were loosened it was just on one side. I have D1 Spec aluminum nuts on there and they have the right seating angle so do the lockers

I'm going to start checking them with a wheel brace daily to see if they start to loosen.

 

Have used the standard Subaru wheel nuts & locking nuts on my Inovite Redlines, not had 1 come loose yet!

 

Do you work at homebase ? just been looking at your pics I am not far from there

Other thing to check is if they have been refrurbed or overpainted at the end of the shaft as you really need metal on metal as the nuts can loosen mating with painted surfaces

 

No mate, I don't work there but I live round the corner from there and it's a handy spot for taking my pics. No refurbs either, I've had it all from new. I've defo starting to think they were attempted thefts

 

You could always undo all your wheel nuts, jack your car up and leave it for the night. If the wheels are still there in the morning it’s the nuts at fault!

 

Do them all up tidy and then grease them up. Soon see if they have been touched if they're smeared

 

Better still, wire them up to the mains!

JohnD

 

This is the preferred option

 

cheap cctv system

 

agree about cctv. or webcam at an upstairs window pointing at the car and see if u get any footage.

 

Are the old locking nuts still left by car or completly gone
surely you would have damage on the nut if attempted theft as i had to smash a socket on my locking nuts (lost key) and there was damage on the nut

 

No they're always gone... further developments though. I was getting some bits out of the car the other night when I came back from the gym. Heard a couple of guys walking down the road talking about the car, one said "what this one?", to which I stood up. They were quick taken back as they clearly didn't see me. The one started saying, yeah I've got one of these, a non turbo one... they carried on walking up the road and casually turned back after passing another 3 cars, and then the same guy engages me and asks me if it's a VXR?

Now this doesn't automatically qualify him as a thief, but it does qualify him as a complete bell end who doesn't know his Vauxhalls from his imprezas; if he did have one he would know that they didn't make a VXR. But what I did find odd was the fact that they just walked up the road to check out my car, and then walked back up the road and jumped into an old Puma. Didn't get the index as the car was too far up the road but something was defo a miss

I made it quite obviously to them that I'd seen their faces up close, so we'll see what happens next.

 

Very dodgy!