I have a dear friend. Mid-70s widow. Drives a well maintained 2015 Toyota Highlander.
She has it serviced at Toyota dealers either in NC or South FL. Today she was in for an oil change/service at a dealer in NC. They told her she needed new lugnuts. They were supposedly swollen. (?)
About $100 out the door. Of course she did it. Then this evening she calls me wondering if she was sort-of let's say... ripped off.
What does the hive say? I'm thinking if it was a real safety thing it would be a real recall. Could it be just a cosmetic thing. I'm thinking they did the "free" tire rotation/brake inspection.
It's a thing, it's caused by the rust and corrosion between the chrome decorative cap and the steel lug nut, when it swells the lug wrench will no longer fit. Toyotas are known for it.
Yep, two part lugnuts. You have the chrome shell over the steel nut. The steel part rusts which causes the chrome shell to swell and deform. Now suddenly your lug nut wrench won't fit over the lug nuts.
Maybe they went to do a courtesy tire rotation and discovered the lug nuts were starting to swell? Dealers will never turn down an opportunity for an upsell.
Honestly, $100 for new lug nuts and the labor to swap them isn't bad at all. I'd be OK paying that.
Toyotas aren't the only brand that this happens to. I had it happen on my 3 year old F150. I discovered this issue when performing a roadside tire swap in Nebraska in February. I swapped on Gorilla one piece lug nuts and never had an issue again.
Yep it's legit. I questioned just the same on my 2012 Highlander when I was told this is a thing.
For real. I've had to replace a set on my Tacoma and another set on my Jeep. They are incredibly frustrating garbage. $100 for them to replace them is probably fair.
dps214
SuperDork
6/5/24 2:23 a.m.
The only part of it that's a scam is that if they replaced the nuts with the same thing but new, they're just going to swell again in a few years.
Swollen nuts seem to be pretty common.
Every recent model Ford in my fleet has been switched to Gorilla lug nuts for this very reason. This is the result of me having to cut/pry the OEM ones off my daughter's Escape:
You'd think that lug nuts would be a solved problem in automotive design by now.
flat4_5spd said:
You'd think that lug nuts would be a solved problem in automotive design by now.
Indeed. Two piece lug nuts are a classic example of a solution in search of a problem.
dps214 said:
The only part of it that's a scam is that if they replaced the nuts with the same thing but new, they're just going to swell again in a few years.
This. If they replaced them with OE 2pc vs aftermarket/differing model 1pc that's kind of a bummer.
My Jag was the same way with 2pc lugnuts and ironically I used lugnuts from a toyota sienna that were 1pc
