WARNING: Genuine Nissan Rims are becoming a HAZARD!

[Timbo]

Hi all,

Swapped my Muddies (Sunraysia Steel Wheels) over for my ATR's (Genuine Nissan Alloy Rims) on the weekend and went about my daily routine this week. I noticed the car felt a bit floaty on the road but didn't think too much about it and put it down to road surface.

Pulled into a car park Wednesday night and turned a corner and the back end of my car felt like it went side ways. It was a wet night, but I was doing about 5kph so I thought maybe there was some oil there.
Knowing I changed wheels, I got out after parking and checked my wheel nuts. ALL my wheel nuts were loose and the right hand rear wheel was getting to the point where it was about to fall off.
This would be why I felt the car shift sideways a bit. It was the wheel sheering a nut off a wheel stud and the wheel moving around. I had 4 nuts hanging on the end of the stud with maybe a half inch of wheel stud showing. That's how close it was to coming off. Lucky it happened in a car park.

Dropped the car off to the Mechanic this morning and it turns out NISSAN have released a statement within the last 12 months (i never got the memo obviously) saying there is a problem with the genuine alloy wheels. Not just on the Patrol, but on any other large car that uses those wheels. (like Navara)

Apparently what's happening is, because the wheels have been around since 98, they are starting to fatigue. When we tighten the wheel nuts up, it's crushing the Alloy slightly. We then drive around corners and the weight distribution shifting to each wheel is causing a small gap between the nut and the rim. So you think you've tightened them up but because the Alloy has been crushed that little bit, it's not actually as tight as you think after having driven around for a few days.

This makes sense as every time you take the wheels off and put them on again, you're tightening the nuts up pretty damn tight.. obviously because you don't want the wheel to fall off! So every time you're tightening them up, it's weakening the Alloy.

SOLUTION: Either buy a new set of STEEL rims like Sunraysia's, or, whenever you put your Alloys back on, tighten them up, go for a drive around the block a few times, then RE-TIGHTEN the wheel nuts. Try and check them once a week with a wheel brace or the rattle gun.

Hope you guys find this helpful and make you think about your wheels.

Cheers
Tim