True,.   well almost, i have seen ones that are not pure crap and go many years looking good.

 

But i have never seen any as bad as some of the VW Group ones, and coming from the centre bore, not just on a diamond cut surface.

Worst of all being the Dark Chrome Gigaro that even though maybe less than 1,000 sets on Mk2 Fabia in the UK Skoda UK had to replace many dozens of, 

and sometimes replace replaced ones.

I've found loosening the bolts on the wheel you are replacing first with a breaker bar on the ground before jacking it up helps keep you safe from the scissor jack from failing. Just make sure you don't take the bolts out. Just one rotation to take the stiffness away.

If you have difficulty taking fully torqued bolts off a wheel a long breaker bar (£15 from Halfords) seems to be a life saver. Lots of leverage.

Edited 15 December, 20178 yr by T00mm

2 hours ago, CWARD said:

All our cars have copperslip on all the mating surfaces of the wheels, once done never a problem to remove.

Same here, been doing it without any problems ever since I had alloy wheels on my cars - which would be in 1981

So have thousands if not millions of people, but then you are removing them, do you leave Skoda / VW wheels on for 3 years or more from the factory and have no issues ever getting them off, or do you change, rotate etc before the corrosion / reaction has began.

 

Unreal that Central European Manufacturers can have issues and Japaneses , South Korean, etc that build in Central European Countries do not have.

 

That will be the Vorsprung Durch Technik, Advances through technology, or is it  Just go on reputation for quality deserved or not, they buy your cars anyway.

3 hours ago, glosrich said:

Yeah I was also told to never grease wheel bolts/nuts, can make them loosen off.

 

 

 

The reason not to grease bolts or threads or bolt seats is that you will over tighten and stretch the bolt at risk of breakage. Because the lubrication interferes with the torque reading.

I’m someone who always used to do his own repairs and will happily swap wheels at home using a breaker bar, torque wrench and trolley jack.  However, these days I simply wouldn’t attempt a wheel change on the roadside using the supplied toolkit.  If the ‘chocolate’ wheel brace doesn’t hamstring you, releasing the wheel on the flimsy jack probably will.  That is before you even consider the ‘where you are’ particularly with an offside wheel.  For the sake of a wait, I will now call the breakdown service right away and let them do the deed using the right kit and H&S protection.