Wheel nuts

[sproutdreamer]

I fortunately stopped at motorway services and checking round the car. tyres etc found one of my wheel nuts missing. When I checked the tyre pressures a couple of weeks ago before a long motorway journey I checked all nuts for tightness. The remaining 4 nuts were quite slack. I managed to improvise and complete the journey by borrowing one of the towbar towball nuts which fortunately was the same size and thread.

So I wonder if someone was tryng to steal a set of nuts or a wheel but could not complete the theft?

Anyway when I look at OE wheelnuts for sale I find it impossible to source single nuts so it looks like I need to buy a set. These are the longer nuts about 47mm long but the claimed OE (2 different suppliers) nuts offered are 43mm long. Is it likely that the weight difference could cause an imbalance and hence wheel vibration? When I used to use locking wheel nuts they looked vusually more bulky than the standard alloy wheel nut so I suspect that close to the centre of the wheel it is less critical.

Being weekend I have not had the opprtunity to check with the Toyota Dealer locally the availability and price of single nuts but I am always appalled at the price of some Toyota spares so buying a set of 4 nuts for what Toyota will probably charge for a single nut appeals if the balance thing is not an issue. If I bought from Toyota I might well find that the nuts are longer anyway. Any views whether this is a problem or not.

[TonyHSD]

Perhaps a breaker yard, or eBay someone who has a same car for spares. 👍

[jimtaxi]

Sounds like the last person to remove and refit wheel has not completed the task. No one will ever admit to it, the only thing I would say is only fit wheel nuts supplied by Toyota. Pattern parts may look the same but in critical component like this it has to be correct material etc.