Josh Wardell’s MINI Cooper S

With the first break of our weeks of rain on Wednesday, I attempted to switch my snow tires off and mount my summer wheels. With a $20 2-ton trolley jack this process usually only takes me an hour. Of course nothing ever goes easy for me. It’s common that after a winter of snow and salt, the rims are a little rusted on, and usually need a good kick to come off. But for the best of me, I could not get 3 out of the 4 wheels to budge. I even loosened the bolts to finger-tight and drove around the block, cornering and braking. These suckers were good as welded. I gave up after several hours wasted, but at the end of the night I drove over to Home Depot and bought the newest tool for my car: an 8-pound long-handled sledge hammer!

After a late day of work Thursday, I ventured out at 9pm with my ever-useful LED headlamp flashlight to make another attempt. To make a long story short, I was still at it till 11pm when I finally got that last wheel free. But I had to try several times over and combine several techniques. Here’s what I had to do, in case it happens to you too:

-Squirt WD-40 in the seam between the rim and the hub, give some time for it to penetrate.
-While on the ground, loosen the bolts a turn.
-Jack up the car.
-Loosen the bolts so they are about a quarter inch away from the rim.
-Place a board of wood (I had none so instead used a 1-inch thick phone book) on the ground at the bottom of the tire.
-Hit the wood/phone book with the sledge, centered at the edge of the rim (not just hitting the tire).
-Try kicking the wheel at 3, 9, and 12 o’clock.
-If the wheel doesn’t budge, repeat a few times, re-spray with WD-40, drop the car, and move on to the other wheels.
-When you have tried once on all the wheels, drop the car and move it so the wheels have turned half way.
-Repeat all steps again as needed.

Once the wheel budges a little, even if it does not pop off, you can now squirt more WD-40 behind the gap, and kick around the circumference to loosen it, then one more hit with the sledge should free it. I should also say to only hit with the sledge medium-hard, you don’t want to screw up your alignment!

Once the wheel is off, I scrubbed the face of the hub and rim with steel wool and WD-40, as well as the inner hub. Ideally, applying a layer of anti-sieze compound before mounting the next wheel would also be a good idea.

I also took the opportunity to replace the stock bolts with lugs and studs with a Lug Nut Conversion Kit from PiloRacing. I used the shortest length and chrome open type lugs so they would still fit under the center caps of my X-lites. I also used LockTite Threadlocker Blue on the inner threads of the studs so they stay put. These not only look much nicer than the stock bolts, but make future changes much easier as you don’t have to line the wheels up perfectly and insert bolts while holding up the wheel.