broke a wheel stud

[robbie8586]

I took off my R/F wheel this weekend to look for a leak. While taking off one of the lug nuts it got tight and broke off. I don't believe it was cross threaded since I did a rotate about 3 months ago. Has this happened to anyone else? If so how do I go about replacing this lug? Also how safe is it to drive with just the 3 bolts holding on my wheel? This is for a 1998 model. Thanks

[Chris Corolla S]

Originally posted by robbie8586
I took off my R/F wheel this weekend to look for a leak. While taking off one of the lug nuts it got tight and broke off. I don't believe it was cross threaded since I did a rotate about 3 months ago. Has this happened to anyone else? If so how do I go about replacing this lug? Also how safe is it to drive with just the 3 bolts holding on my wheel? This is for a 1998 model. Thanks

Wow I never heard of this happening to a corolla

It is definitly NOT SAFE to drive without all of your lugs especially when you only have 4 to start with.

I was in a truck that had 2 out of 6 lugs missing on the rear left wheel and it fell of on the highway and it was not cool. Limp it to the shop for repair

[jck22903]

I've had this happen on both Corollas that I've owned ... the shop will overtighten the lugs and distort the threads. Go to take them off (without air tools) and you can't without destroying/breaking them.

Replacing them is fairly simple. Go to the auto parts store and get the stud and the nut. (Hell, go ahead and get four of each if you're going to be in there, if you want.) Jack up the car, pull the wheel off, remove the caliper and support it with heavy string so that it doesn't hang by the hose, and pop the rotor off. OK, now there's a dust cover behind the hub; at one point it has a recess behind it. Line up the bad stud with the recess and hit it with a hammer. One good sharp rap should make it pop out the other side. Remove it, put the new one in (it won't go in all the way by hand) and reinstall everything. When you go to put the wheel nuts on, tightening the nut on the new stud will pull the new stud into place until it is seated on the hub. Note that you should retighten that nut (well, all nuts really) in a day or two, because the new stud will continue to 'seat' and the nut will need a little tigtening.

Good luck.

[Bishop13]

I've had that happen to my Camry several times...there was a point when I had to drive my car a couple of miles to a repair shop (cuz i was too lazy to do it myself ) with only 2 bolts!

[GeoRolla]

Yeah, I've done that twice on my Geo. It was a real pain. Now I'm almost afraid to tighten them very tightly with my tire iron.