C5 - How do I remove locking wheel nuts without the key!!

[hamster99]

Hi

Seem to have mislaid the special key for removing my locking wheelnuts (DOH!)

Do Citroen dealers have a "universal" key so that they can remove any citroen locking nuts?

Thanks

Rob

[Stickyfinger]

Hi....a "common" problem...

Most tire fitting units will have the kits...£5-10 per wheel.

Google finds many sets between £15-25

Citroen garages will use the same tools as the Tire centers....but charge more

Replace with standard nuts....who would steal Citroen Wheels ?

[hamster99]

Finally solved this one..!!

C5 went in to local dealer for MOT yesterday (passed with no issues...yay) but said I had nail in one rear tyre. Told them I lost the wheel nut key and they said they could drill the two bolts out (one on each rear wheel) and charge an hour's labour (around £85). At first I hesitated but then thought I would have to do something about the nail in the tyre anyway so agreed for them to do it.

In the end they took over 2 hrs and had to keep the car overnight..!!

Still only charged me the hour though.

The moral here is make sure you don't lose the key, or even better, take the locking wheel bolts off altogether. After all, who's likely to steal standard Citroen alloys these days!

[qprdude]

Ripped off! Lots of places will do it for much less. There is a thread about on here.

[vborovic]

I don't know about standard ones, but the original 19" variant for the C5 X7, I could see those being taken off ... ...

[waynedance]

1st thing to remove on my cars.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[hamster99]

Ripped off! Lots of places will do it for much less. There is a thread about on here.

I don't agree it was a rip off, I charge people more than that for 2 hours of my time!

Yeah I could possibly have taken it somewhere else but I doubt they would have charged less than £20 a wheel, plus cost of 2 new bolts, could have been more as they were on so tight they were a real pig to do and took over two hours. Plus, they are a dealer I trust having used them for many years.

Sometimes you just have to accept that you need to pay the dealers rate and avoid the hassle of arguing with an independent when they want to charge you more because it took twice as long or, even worse, they give up as it's too difficult and you're no better off and perhaps even left with a worse problem if they didn't know what they were doing and mullered the wheel too.

I might have done it myself but probably would have had to spend £30-40 on the right tools anyway and, after all, it's a once only job.

[den169]

A friend got theres done 4 of them for £40,The guy electric welded a a bolt to each of them took about an hour.So i agree £85 is a rip off.

[old'uns]

For future reference anyone in West Mids who's in same boat......
http://www.lockingwheelnut-removal.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I went to unit, £50 for 4 nuts, less than hour +£12 for standard nuts,meant I could get 2 rear punctures repaired.
Slow, gentle knocks with a reverse cutter.

[waynedance]

At the end of the day the price is quoted and the customers agrees so no ripping off done. Option to get prices from other garages was there but car already at dealer so time wise it made sense.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[qprdude]

For future reference anyone in West Mids who's in same boat......
http://www.lockingwheelnut-removal.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I went to unit, £50 for 4 nuts, less than hour +£12 for standard nuts,meant I could get 2 rear punctures repaired.
Slow, gentle knocks with a reverse cutter.

About what I thought. Irrespective of what has been said, the time taken, and charged, makes it seem like they were not very efficient. I could do it myself in half the time, so I'm assuming professionals with all the equipment could at least beat me using a drill, maybe a welder and possibly making up a tool with an undersized socket.

[wheeler]

It's all very well saying you could do it in half the time but every car & type of bolt is different, the last time the bolts were fitted they may have been racked right up with a gun or a 2ft breaker bar. If its the same bolts as the early C5's (the ones with the snap off centre pegs) then they can be a complete pig to remove, hammering a large or reverse socket on them is useless as the peg in the middle is designed to shear off when you do this, the bit that's left over is almost flat. I have the Dynomec kit for removing locking wheel nuts/bolts, most of the time you can remove a full set of lockers in under 10 minutes, sometimes each bolt releases in under 10 seconds but these Citroen/Peugeot ones can be a nightmare, last year I spent nearly an hour just to remove one on a 206.