We’ve mentioned several times already how exciting out VW Beetle TDI is to drive. Well, it was also exciting every time we took our wheels off, and the lack of hub-mounted lug studs allows a 40-plus-pound wheel and tire unit to fall perilously close to our tender feet. Yes, as much as we like our TDI, we were less than thrilled that VW still uses wheel bolts on many of their cars. This situation is particularly heinous when using wheels that aren’t quite hub centric, or use hub spacers like our TSW race wheels do.
The simple solution is to do a stud conversion. And, thankfully, it truly is a simple solution. In our case, we ordered our studs online from race-studs.com. Our order included 20 studs, 20 ball seat nuts and we even got 20 hardened cone seat nuts for our race wheels. Total bill was about $125 including the shipping.
Installation was a breeze. We put some anaerobic thread locker on the part of the stud that would be going into the holes in the hub, threaded them in, waited for it t set a few minutes, then torqued the wheel on with the new nuts. We’ll torque again every day for the next few in case the studs want to take a “set” in the hubs. That’s probably unnecessary, but safe never hurts.
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