My new alloys

[highlander]

Hello,

Sorry about the poor-quality photo (it's Aberdeen in November and not even 8 AM when the photo was taken, so the lighting isn't exactly great), but here is my Coupe...

...wearing the set of 19" Mille Miglia alloy wheels I got from Ade last month



They are VERY shiny, and I reckon they complement the car very nicely! Will try to get a better shot when it's not cloudy and not dark (I had to tweak the brightness and contrast settings on the photo to make it look a bit clearer).

I do have a quick question though - should I be using the original wheel bolts that were used to fit the Hoggar alloys to the Coupe? Just wondering (or should I say "needlessly worrying") if I've used the wrong bolts to fit them. I have had to tighten up the bolts every so often, some of them by as much as half a turn, since fitting them on Sunday.

Also - pleasantly surprised by the ride quality - from all that people have said about 19in rims so far, I was half-expecting my teeth to have been shaken out and my bones to have shattered into a million pieces, but it's really not bad at all (must be the soft suspension the 406 is renowned for). The tyres aren't brilliant, they're actually quite noisy, but I can live with that 'til they need replaced.

Well chuffed!

[lozz]

Very nice rims them mate

Wheel bolts, er, Waue is the chap to ask on that Subject, hes well clued up on wheel bolts & alloys

[steve_earwig]

Wheels look, er, interesting

I have had to tighten up the bolts every so often, some of them by as much as half a turn, since fitting them on Sunday.

No needlessly about it - I wouldn't even drive it like that!

[highlander]

The photo really is piss-poor (and has been badly manipulated from a dark-and-dingy original to what you see above), they do look much better in person.

I know it's a very subjective thing, opinions on alloy wheels. I like a simple design; I actually prefer a nice 5-spoke star design with fairly thick flat spokes (like Hoggar, but with 5 spokes instead of 7), but I saw these and liked them quite a lot. There's a guy on the Coupe Club (nicelines) who was looking for 3-spoke alloys, a la 1982. I don't like the Coupe Starfish design even though it's designed with the curves of the Coupe in mind.

Also, they were only £240 including tyres - bargain!

[steve_earwig]

Graeme - seriously, don't drive it like that it sounds dangerous.

[lozz]

iagree with steve,

its just not worth the risk driving it like that,
perhaps the wheel bolts Pug ones wont lock up right in the aftermarket rims,
if you have tightend them a few times, somethings not right

Maybe taking a picture of one of the wheel bolts and a pic of the chanfer part on the wheel might help
someone give you a clearer idea of wether you need to replace the bolts or not,
as above already mentioned, id run that question by Mr Waue

[highlander]

Well yeah, that's what I'm worried about... the problem is that this is my daily drive, I can't just stop using it, and the old wheels are at my brother's house.

My brother helped me fit them (he's done loads of wheel changes on other cars, including his own Seat Leon Cupra R and his girlfriend's Mazda MX-5) and he assured me that I should just need to tighten them every so often for a few days after fitting them. I've been doing that since they were fitted on Saturday morning (not used the car all that much since then). He says that they won't need tightened after a few days, they'll stiffen up and be fine.

I'm just worried in case I'm meant to be using flat bolts, not tapered ones (could at the very least be damaging the alloys by tightening these possibly wrongly-shaped bolts, and at the very worst, be using bolts that won't hold the alloys on properly at all )

Supplied with the wheels was a set of spacers and the bolts for the spacers. Ade1122 said the wheels were removed from a scrapped V6 Coupe with Brembo brakes, so the spacers would be used to help the wheels clear the calipers. I've asked my brother to check how many bolts were in that box - if there are 16, then that's just the bolts required for fitting the spacers to the hub. If there are 32, then that might suggest he was supposed to use those bolts instead of the ones that were originally holding the Hoggars on to the car. I also asked him to check what shape the bolts were - if there are 32x flat (non-tapered) bolts, then that would suggest we've definitely cocked it up...

Found this picture online showing two types of 406 Coupe wheel bolt - the one on the right is the type I had on the Hoggars, and is the type I'm using with these wheels:


I'll nip down to the car at lunch time and remove one of the bolts entirely, and check the shape of the recess where the bolt goes.

I hate it when I screw up (unfortunately this happens a lot ). I should really just have taken these to a garage.

[steve_earwig]

Remind me not to accept a lift from either your brother or his girlfriend...

He says that they won't need tightened after a few days, they'll stiffen up and be fine.

The taper is obviously wrong but they'll be fine when the bolts have mangled the wheels enough

You either need the right bolts or have the wheels machined so the bolts you have fit.

[highlander]

Will get this sorted, pronto. Kind of shitting myself now

[steve_earwig]

Just do the wheel bolts up tight (by tight I don't mean jump up and down on the spanner, just tight) and take a cool and steady drive to your brother's house where you can either sort out the bolts that came with the wheels to see if they fit or bung your original wheels back on.

[steve_earwig]

I just had a thought - if all the right bolts came with the spacers you could put the wheels on using the spacers.

Not that I like spacers.

Obviously I'd prefer you to get your car transported instead of driving it but I understand this isn't going to be easy or cheap. But then I'm a bit of a worrier too.

Incidently, when I bought my D8 it had a set of mix 'n' match steel wheel bolts on the alloys and, after spending an autumn thrashing it about followed by a winter on snow tyres with steel wheels, I went to put the alloys back on and found that the bolts were too short - they only screwed into the hubs 1 and a half turns I bought this car off a mechanic!! I then spent 3 months still on the snow tyres trying to find a set of bolts that fitted (& that were cheaper than Pug), eventually giving up and buying similar bolts that I then had to get the wheels machined to fit.

[highlander]

Waiting to hear back from my brother first on the shape and quantity of bolts.

There is a breakers' yard just a 5 minute drive from my office door; I might nip over there and buy a complete set of bolts if I do discover that the bolts are the wrong shape.

I will also then need to go and buy a set of locking bolts as well, because the locking bolts I currently have will also be tapered, and I'm buggered if I'm going to find my car up on bricks.

[gumby6371]

I've got coupe starfish alloys from a V6 on my D8, the bolts are the ones on the left of picture but they came with big fat washers.
If you haven't got any it might be worth a walk round your local breakers.

[lozz]

Starfish?

so are these wheels actulaly propper puggy wheels?
ithought they where aftermarket jobbies

they look very nice, where can iget a set from ?

[waue1978]

Nice to know I'm renowned for something.

Looking at the pictures of your bolts Graeme, I wouldn't use either. The bolts on the right are the correct tapered type for the Hoggar wheels indeed, while the bolt on the left looks like another standard Peugeot bolt which would be found on the older types of alloys like the old 205 GTi wheels. Relatively easy to tell as they still have a very slight taper halfway up the thread. You shouldn't use either of these on those wheels.
Neither are long enough to use with spacers. The standard Peugeot bolts are designed to go through the washer, the wheel & into the hub. Add a spacer into the mix & you find that there is less of the thread going into the hub. This would explain the loosening effect. Your safest option for now is to get the standard wheels back on a bit sharpish & get some extended bolts for the spacers. I haven't got a massive amount of experience with spacers (as I really don't like the idea of adding extra bits between something as important as a wheel & hub) but the ones that I've seen have always been mounted by using the wheel bolts through the spacer to hold it in place - not a set of 4 bolting the spacer to the wheel & another 4 mounting the wheel to the spacer.
You also need to bear in mind that the tapering on the Peugeot bolts is so that the bolt screws into the wheel itself aswell. Your new bolts need to have a perfectly straight thread.