The Toondruh came with basic steel rims. Not big on bling but they were getting seriously nasty and I expect to keep the truck for several more years, so I scored some stock Toyota alloy rims off Fee Bay. Arrived on time and in good condition. Seller threw in the lug nuts as they're different from the ones for the steel rims.

Had an appointment today to take the existing tires off the steel rims, mount and balance them onto the alloy rims and rotate them while re-installing on the truck. 45 minutes or an hour tops. Then the excrement began impacting the air circulation device.

1. Appointment at 8:00. Arrived at 7:30. First employee wandered in around 8:15, truck pulled into the bay around 8:30.

2. Confusion over TPMS sensors - Tech thought I was saving the old rims for Winter and price of sensors for the new rims is $94 a pop. After some discussion revealed the fact that I'd be selling/trashing the old rims, tech says "Oh, then I can move the sensors to the new rims." Cool, do that.

3. An hour passes, truck still on lift, no tires on it.

4. Another hour passes, tech comes out and says "The old sensors won't fit on the new rims, you need new sensors" and demonstrates why this is. Well, that sucks, but okay, gotta do what ya gotta do.

5. Another half hour passes and the tech comes to the waiting room and says "The new lug nuts they sent are wrong, no way I can use them" and takes me out to the shop to show me why. Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacccck!

6. Fuck around for another half hour deciding how to deal with this, truck gets pulled out into the yard, put up on a jack stand and one rim taken off. I call Mawteen to come get me, we lug the rim and a sample lug nut to the local speed shop. Proprietor is familiar with the problem, identifies the correct lug nuts and orders them.

So now what should have been a $100-$150 job will be $300-ish for labor plus $300-ish for sensors (one was a replacement from a previous issue that would fit the new rims) plus $100-ish for new lug nuts. Plus the initial cost of the rims.

FML...

Sorry for your troubles


It's times like this that I remind my son mostly and sometimes myself about the 6 P's

Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

He hates it

6P's, Aye.

I thought I WAS prepared, but didn't know that alloy Toyota wheels are unique and require Toyota-spec lug nuts.

Were they able to give a reason as to why the sellers lug nuts wouldn't fit the sellers wheels? Taper? Pitch?

I would have gone crazy if I had to stay at the same place for five hours. Yikes!

You can try to make something out of the other three TPMS or the other set of nuts and see if anyone would bid on them. Idunno.

When I changed rims on my Tundra, I researched it and found the same thing. I went to the tire shop with new TPMS sensors and lug nuts and it all went together fine. Sorry for your troubles.

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:
Were they able to give a reason as to why the sellers lug nuts wouldn't fit the sellers wheels? Taper? Pitch?

Apparently Toyota alloy wheels are unique to Toyota. There is no taper on the hole. There's a boss on the lug nut that fits in the main hole and centers it over the stud, and a rotating ring that bears against the outer part of the hole and torques the wheel against the hub.

My assumption is that whoever packaged things up just grabbed the wrong lug nuts. The seller was kind enough to ask me if I needed lug nuts and included them at no extra charge, so I wouldn't feel right about dinging him about it.

Of course, I don't feel all that great about the extra $100+ the new lug nuts are going to cost me either...

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
There is no taper on the hole. There's a boss on the lug nut that fits in the main hole and centers it over the stud, and a rotating ring that bears against the outer part of the hole and torques the wheel against the hub.

Wow. I haven't seen any wheels made like that since I had a set of American Racing magnesium wheels. They are over fifty years old. It is interesting the variety of how things are made and how long they stay that way.

I was thinking about finding a set of moons for my truck. Found a guy selling the steel wheels for $12 each. Problem is, I can't find anyone who sells a twenty inch moon.

More importantly, are you liking your new rims and how does it ride compared to the other set.

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:

More importantly, are you liking your new rims and how does it ride compared to the other set.

Couldn't say. Truck is sitting on jackstands in the shop parking lot until the lug nuts come in.

Appearance-wise, they aren't radically different from the stock steel wheels, just not rusty.

Did you go to NTB?
They ruined my front suspension..

Tundra steel wheels and alloy wheels have a different angle on the TMPS.
So they were right on that.

I had stock Toyota aluminum wheels on my 2005 Tundra and hated them.
In 2014 I bought another set of 2005 TOYOTA stock aluminum wheels off Craigslist.
I've seen them on Tundras, but I saw more of them on Sequoias.

Dropped off the new(?) wheels at NTB and had them install new tires.
Came back later and they swapped them, had 3 hours of issues trying to get the TMPS to work.
Swapped the old TMPS into the new wheels, still had programming issues because they fucked it all up.
8 hours later, they had it up and running.

It's a very long story, but come to find out my old aluminum wheels used acorn lug nuts.
The 'new/old' aluminum wheels NEEDED the flat washer lug nuts.

I found that out a week later when the acorn nuts came loose at 75 MPH on the highway coming home from work.
Ended up breaking a stud off before I got stopped (that is where the long story starts).

When I pulled over to see what was going on, I found the old lugs were only getting 3 full turns before they got tight.
So some NTB moron that installed the tires/wheels knew that the acorn lugs only got 3 turns to tighten and never told anyone.

Old wheels.



New(?) wheels.




End result of them fixing the broken stud.
It is a long story.







All this happened in November of 2014.
End of the long story, bought this in December 2014.
Plan to keep it until the wheels fall off (again)...





The correct lug nuts are pretty important and NEVER let NTB work on your vehicle ...

Small private shop that was recommended to me by my local mechanic a while back after my usual shop for front end work totally fucked up an alignment.

I've been pleased with them and none of this was their fault, just bad luck and poor research on my part.

I'm hoping they'll help me out a little on the bill, but will totally understand if they don't. They were making an honest effort to work with what I brought them.

UUUGGGHHHH- sounds like a very frustrating experience and a lot of $$$ surprises.......I'd be ticked off also.

Aaaaaaaaaaand the shop I ordered the lug nuts from said they weren't on today's delivery. So now we're hoping for delivery late Monday and get my truck back some time Tuesday.

Just to make extra sure my blood pressure pills are working, I ran out of MIG wire right in the middle of a job and NAPA had to order in all four of the ignition bits I need for the tractor.

It's a good thing I'm such a calm, peaceable feller...

Several years ago, I got everything on my place except rear tractor tires and lawnmowers consolidated on 16” wheels.

What does Ford do? They go to 17” wheels out of spite.

And yes, let’s change style on those stupid wheel air pressure sensors every single year.

You are handling it 5 times better than me,
I'd have been the hell out of there after 2.5 hours.

After 5 hours I'd be
Pounding on someone's counter

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
You are handling it 5 times better than me,
I'd have been the hell out of there after 2.5 hours.

After 5 hours I'd be
Pounding on someone's counter

Usually, that's me too, but they caught me in a mellow mood. Plus, not their fault. Combination of lack of research on my part and the ol' Shit Happens Syndrome.

Speaking of pounding on counters...

For those of us that don't already know, throwing the clock spring from a Stihl weedeater starter is a singularly unsatisfying way of dealing with the frustration of trying to rewind that miserable sonofabitch.

Iam very close to opening up a kick starter account for you to spend a nice quiet
" Resort" in the country side, with your own " special"
Helpers.

Maybe some leather craft or basket weaving,
Some afternoon group " discussion "

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
Iam very close to opening up a kick starter account for you to spend a nice quiet
" Resort" in the country side, with your own " special"
Helpers.

Maybe some leather craft or basket weaving,
Some afternoon group " discussion "

Is Nurse Ratched still working there? She's hot...

If anything else goes haywire with those tires and wheels,

I just may join you,
They put carrots in the Orange jello on Thursdays for supper.

GAAAHHHHH!

Ordered lug nuts Wednesday. Came in Monday. Went to get them this morning and...you guessed it...wrong fucking ones. So now we're looking at Friday at the earliest.