An interesting question is how much of theft from cars (or residences?) is skilled vs unskilled break-in? I know I don’t know.
My uninformed bet is lock-picking is simply fun-to-watch video with little real world applicability and the vast majority of break-ins are some variant of brute force.
My locknut key is in a zippered bag with the four conventional lugnuts in the trunk, I think on top of the spare tire. So easily accessible by anyone who need to change a tire, or steal all of the wheels.
Well, it depends on the goals of the intruder. I can break into my house in half an hour without damaging anything just using stuff that’s lying around on the premises. That’s not a ton of time to spend, but I care if I need to fix the stuff. Also if anyone catches me doing it I can just declare that it’s my house, I’m just an idiot and locked myself out.
In the case of a thief, that’s a totally unacceptable amount of time to spend breaking in. It’s two seconds to smash a pane of the 3x3 paned window on the back door and be in. I can’t see any reason why your average residence or auto thief would try the skilled method of getting in when reliable unskilled methods are available.
On the other hand, if the target is one that will replenish what is stolen and might not even notice the theft, a wave rake takes basically no skill and you can potentially return to repeat the crime. I knew a kid who made a wave rake out of a paperclip because he wanted to steal candy from a 5 cent candy machine. Most locks seem to require very little skill to pick.
Right. It’s in the car, somewhere. Glove box, on top the spare wheel… somewhere.
And thieves know this; they know it’s somewhere in the car, most likely in the glove compartment.
As mentioned by others, locking lugnuts don’t make sense.
And as also mentioned, thieves are probably not going to care if they have an impact wrench and lug nut removal tool.
I was thinking about this because I bought some bits to use on a half inch impact driver back in the 80’s. They make some pretty robust slotted screw heads for them.
That certainly looks hefty. From the “other related sellers & products” links your page here’s another seller selling a used example of the same thing.
With the person’s hand, probably male, holding it, it doesn’t seem nearly so … formidable.
Before I take a more drastic route (like having a tire store tear them off), consider: If I go to the dealer and buy another set for my car, will a new “key” be the exactly same and fit my locking lugnuts? Or, is this a gamble?
Also, would a tire store have a variety of regular lugnuts to fit my car?
A gamble that’s not worth it, IMO.
They might, and will charge you a premium price if they do. I recommend buying them online, e.g. Amazon, and then taking them to the tire store.
It’s very possible that the tire store is able to remove the locking lugnuts without “tearing them off” so first ask them if that’s possible before spending any money on another set of locking lugnuts. And no, a new key may not match your current one. And yes, the tire store should have regular lugnuts to replace the locking one.
So just go there and talk to them.
Pet peeve: I hate going to tire stores for anything. The fact that they do not show their prices on their inventory and steer you to average tires THEY want to move steams me.
In my limited experience, conversations with people like tire store clerks don’t cost anything.
I took my car to a shop that stole/lost/forgot to return mine.
Apologies if this is a duplicate but I think Discourse ate my other reply. After the loss of my key, I took my Lexus to the dealer assuming they had a key. I just paid a few ducats to have the shop remove the security nuts and replace them with standard ones because those security nuts do not stop wheel thieves.
Where do you go? Discount Tires has messed up once in 2 decades for me. In fact, I told Mrs. Cad if she ever has a tire issue and I’m not around, go to a Discount Tire and do what they say.
There’s an independent, single-location, family-owned place about 10 miles from me. It’s the only place I go to for standard tire installation.
(I also own a German-made roadster with “special” wheels. When I need new tires or wheel work done, I take them to a specialist. Big $$, unfortunately.)
Why if you don’t like their practices?
I’m not sure I understand your question. At any rate, I’ve found that independent places tend to have better service. YMMV.
Sorry. Not enough coffee. I replied to Jinx, then you replied to me so I replied to you as if you were Jinx. Hilarity ensued.
If they have regular lug nuts to replace the locking nuts causing a problem why would you care if they “tear off” the locking nuts?
It doesn’t have to, but talking to tire store clerks costs some people a lot of money.
My guess is that most tire shops have keys for most locking lugnuts, so that it’s not necessary to tear them off.
But you’ll know better after talking to the tire shop.
Been there done that. Reckon it was not put back by a garage when they fitted a new tyre. Unfortunately, they had closed down by the time we realised 6 months later when another tyre needed replacing. I now always check every time the car goes in for work.
On that car we paid a back street garage to get the locking nuts off and put standard ones on. They welded a nut onto the end and then managed to get them off with a lot of swearing.
I think this (or a variation of this) was mentioned in an earlier reply, but the one time I needed a locking lugnut removed, the shop used a socket with a sharpened " + " at the bottom of it, and hammered it down hard on the nut, then spun it off with an air wrench. This was 30± years ago, and I can’t find anything like that in a search, just those spiral cut socket things.