Can you teach me more about lug bolts & related tire tools?

Thought it would be obvious even to you that tyre wear can effect grip in poor conditions. Ah well. But unless you read something in Honest John it can't be so.

Quite. Rather shows the difference between those with real word experience and bar room 'mechanics'.

Nor is the Mini - BMW owned.

But I doubt the OP is referring to ownership, given how many US brands ain't wholly owned by the US. I'd guess he is referring to where they are assembled. But even then various parts can come from factories anywhere.

Actually first saw the light of day in 1947 in the Austin A30. Must have been one of the longest production runs of any basic engine.

Nissan UK says the US is its second largest export market for UK assembled models. After the EU.

the EU will soon be gone, and good f****ng riddance.

Long live the bureaucracy of un-elected EU technocrats!

I'd like their testicles attached to the HT end of a car's coil.

Cracks are more likely to start at a *corner*. That's why crankpins on a crankshaft have a radius at the fillet. The radius also keeps the impact forces back away from the very tip of the hex point.

It is thicker and made of a stronger material.

They are stronger because they need to be in order to resist the

*impact* forces.

A hex socket is much less likely to round off a nut.

It's off topic, but I put the following related items in my trunk kit, even though I prefer to repair my flats at home by removing the tire completely from the wheel and then using a one-piece patchplug that both seals and fills the hole from the inside out.

1. Compressor (operated off the cigarette lighter socket)
2. External plug kit (they work just fine even though they're not approved)
3. Magnetic LED light from HF (so you can see what you're doing at night)

I can't please everyone with the details, but I do appreciate learning from others who have the intelligence to understand and convey the details better than I do.

I wouldn't think of not using a torque wrench, but, I did watch a dozen videos last night on how to /calibrate/ the torque wrench.

The problem is not in twisting the calibration mechanism, but in having a known good standard. A lot of the calibration videos use the Harbor Freight $40 Item #68283 "digital torque adapter", which seems like a neat tool if I didn't already have a bunch of old-style torque wrenches already.

Since my old-style "made in usa" (so you know it's old!) Craftsman torque wrench is likely still accurate, I can use that as my calibration standard.

There's value to doing a job right, in and of itself.

For example, when you choose a tire, you choose it by the specifications, and then when you mount it, you mount the red or yellow dots (depending on the brand) next to the valve stem, and you clean and statically balance the wheel sans tire, and then you mount the tire by the dots, and then you statically balance the assembly (often it takes no weight) and then you take it for a drive at speed for your dynamic balance test (almost never do you feel any vibration that would indicate a dynamic imbalance at speed).

Same with repairing a puncture, where we all have successfully plugged a hole from the outside with the rope plugs, which aren't approved by the RMA but we all know that method to work just fine.

I get pleasure out of the method of marking the tire (so that I don't change the balance), breaking the bead with the HF bead-breaking tool, and then dismounting the tire with a different HF tire mounting tool, then marking the location of the injury from the inside, removing the offending protruding nail (or whatever), honing the hole from the outside to 1/4 inch standard size (or whatever was chosen), buffing the inside area to remove non-sticky layers, applying the cement and waiting for it to get tacky, applying the cement to the patchplug and then pulling it through with pliers, rolling down the patchplug from the inside from the centerline outward to force out air pockets, and snipping off the protruding metal tip, and then covering the inside area with the blacktop formula (whatever that black gunk is made up of).

After that, if desired, I replace the valve stem, and then I remount the tire on the marks made prior to dismounting, and then, after setting the bead at about 60psi (whatever it takes to pop) and airing up the tire to

40psi, I doublecheck static balance, and if necessary, I rotate the tires on the vehicle or put it back where it was, making sure to torque the lug nuts evenly to 85 foot pounds.

Some people get pleasure in doing things the "right" way; others don't care to.

I get a flat about once every couple of years, where it's almost always a screw (dunno why but it is). If flats used to be more common than they are now, you'll have to explain to me why.

If it's true that flats are less common now than before, than the natural question to ask is: a. Are tires more resistant to punctures now (what with steel belts)? b. Or are screws and nails less prevalent on the roadways nowadays?

It has to be one of the above if it's true that flats are less common now on radials than they were in the olden days of bias-ply tires.

I have heard many times that nowadays, people don't get flats as often, but I can't see why unless radials, by their very nature, are more resistant to flats than were the old-style bias-ply tires.

I don't count the averages, especially since I repair neighbors' tires for them at times, but I think I have been repairing at least one flat a year, what with four cars now in the driveway and a few neighbors whom I help out (and who help me in return).

So I average one flat a year, roughly, where I use the RMA-approved patch-plug method, which can only be done from the inside. On the road, I would use the rope-plug method, which, we all know, works just fine (even thought it's not RMA approved).

For me, it's just so very satisfying to fix a flat at home.

I just pull the wheel, mark the location, break the bead, remove the tire, repair the hole from the inside out using the RMA-approved method, replace the valve stem if necessary, remount the tire, test in the pool, check the static balance, and then mount the tire back on the vehicle (rotating other tires if desired) to the proper torque spec.

It just feels good to do things the right way.

And given the EU is Nissan UK's largest export market they will likely soon be gone too. Along with lots of others - especially in financial services.

I get a few a year. Mainly nails from incompetant builders. (Builders have an average IQ of 50).

To save ten quid at the local garage? You're nuts.

The EU is a silly little group of countries playing silly little games and costing everyone money in a f***ed up socialist club. They can die a slow and painful death.

Where do you lot live? Remind to stay right away.

What are you objecting to? The ability to pay =A310 to get a puncture f= ixed? Do you live in the Aussie outback or something?

-- =

All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.

I've got a Petzl Tikka headlamp in the car, along with a couple of flashlights. The advantage of a headlamp is the beam is focused exactly where you are looking rather than trying to position a separate light. The flashlights, one of which is 1000 lumens, allow for a wider beam.

Project fear continues!

These days a car factory in only in existence as long as the model it was built for is still in production. Manufactures wanting to build a new model prefer a green field sites in countries that gives them maximum grants and the labour cost is cheapest. In the case of western Europe its likely to be the former soviet aligned countries that will get future car manufacturing/assembly jobs.

Alternatively, Europe will be importing many of the cars from China or India.

Royal Music Association? I've had good luck with the common rope plugs, including on an almost new motorcycle tire. I rode home slowly but without any exciting events. A few more short trips without any disasters and I forgot about it. It did develop a slow leak by the time the tire was worn enough to be replaced.

I now carry Dynaplug kits on both bikes that have tubeless tires. Knock on wood, I have not had to field test them. On a bike you don't have the option of getting out the spare (unless you ride a Ural with a sidecar) so roadside repairs are a necessity. Speaking from experience, plugging a tubeless tire is a lot easier than breaking down a tubed tire and patching the tube while the bike is propped up on whatever you can find.

Someplace in the United Kingdom. I've managed to stay away all of my life. I've gathered it's not the country of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron anymore...