Wheel Studs
Wheel studs and lug nuts are what keep your tires attached to your car. The studs are the bolts on the brake drum or disk hub, and you slide the wheel onto them, fastening it to the car with the lug nuts. Anybody who has ever changed a tire has seen wheel studs. The lug nuts are what you unscrew to take the tire off, and the wheel studs are what you’ll usually be unscrewing them from. Wheel bolts can also be used for the same purpose, but wheel studs are generally better than bolts for a variety of reasons.
When comparing the advantages of wheel studs and bolts, studs usually win out overall. Studs generally do a better job of staying attached to both the cars and lug nuts, which means that they are more durable and last longer. That makes them safer, because they keep the tires on tighter and longer. Tires are much easier to install with studs. With studs, of course, you can place the tire on them and screw on the lug nuts. With the bolts, you have to hold the tire up to its mounting place. The bolts are screwed in from the outside, just like lug nuts with studs. Except with the wheel bolts, you have to screw them into their corresponding holes.
Usually, drivers go through their cars’ entire lifetime, and maybe even their driver’s lifetime, without once thinking about wheel studs. They’re one of the most durable parts in a car, and one of the few that isn’t likely to fail. Especially since there are almost no cars in North America that have wheel bolts, the studs that come on our cars are taken for granted. They aren’t a popular topic of discussion, as there is no reason for any further development of that type of, and they so often ai or break.
However, although it is not a popular problem, wheel studs can be a source of frustration. It’s very hazardous for one to break, and when that does happen, it’s a problem that needs to be fixed immediately. Unfortunately, it’s a problem that might not be completely clear to a driver until it’s too late. A stud can begin to bend or break without the driver noticing, because the pressure will be put on the other studs instead. However, the tire is designed to be held on a certain number of studs, so if one breaks, the others will probably follow soon.
Replacing a wheel stud can be done fairly easily. They are made to be un-installable in case of an emergency. There are two types of wheel studs: screw in and press in. The screw-in kind is easy enough to understand. The press in stud is installed from the back of the brake disc, and is much hard to remove and reinstall, as you will likely have to remove parts of the vehicle in order to access it. As a matter of fact, most press in studs are recommended to be installed by an actual press that can exert the proper amount of pressure when installing the stud; too little pressure can fail to install it correctly, and too much can actually break the lining. Therefore, you should get a professional to install a press in stud.
For a screw in stud, reinstalling it is easy enough for almost anybody to do on their own. It can be done in less than an hour, and you likely won’t need to buy anything except for the replacement studs. To find out what kind of stud (length and width) you need, you’ll need to measure the other ones that you have; most studs don’t print their information on their surface anywhere.
