Wheel locks really work?

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my new civic has some nice wheels on it. it gets parked outside and i am concerned they might get pilfered. Thinking of getting some wheel locks ,but the vids i have watched seem to say they don't really work.

So are wheel locks worth the trouble?
 
certainly wheels get stolen - although not as much as they used to - it's easier to steal the whole car. are wheel locks worth it? it depends on your parking situation.
and how disciplined you are on keeping the key where it belongs. I have a horrible time with that and have had to remove locks a couple of times....
 
Wheel locks are worthless
crazy2.gif


You will lose the key, and it doesn't stop wheel theft one bit. You can just hammer on a socket just smaller than the wheel lock, get a breaker bar or impact gun, and the wheel comes off
 
If you have ever watched an experienced dealership tech deal with a lost wheel lock key, you will know how useless they are against theft.

10 extra SECONDS per wheel. Maybe.

Spend your money on insurance ...
 
You will lose the key and then one day when you need to get your tires rotated or a new set of tires, the store won't be able to. Or, they will be the ones to lose the key themselves and deny any responsibility.
 
Originally Posted by WhyMe
my new civic has some nice wheels on it. it gets parked outside and i am concerned they might get pilfered. Thinking of getting some wheel locks ,but the vids i have watched seem to say they don't really work.

So are wheel locks worth the trouble?


Pretty much a question only you can answer. Everyone else's answers will apply to themselves, but you are the one that has to judge worthiness against the trouble of it within your context.
 
Probably best to just save your money and if you want to spend it, spend it on a lower deductible on your insurance. I had wheel locks once, it was a pain to keep track of the key, normally I left it in the glove box. If you keep it at home, what do you do if you get a flat on the road? If they have enough time to steal your wheels, don't they have enough time to also look in the car like the glove box or trunk for the key?

Never had wheels stolen either although once I had my car stolen and it had BBS rims on it. I thought those were gone, but it was just a joyrider and the car was found a week later with just a popped ignition and broken glass, wheels were still there. I did see a car with wheels stolen before though, they had put the car up on milk crates and those didn't really handle the weight of the car and had collapsed. Probably held it up long enough or high enough to slide the jack out.
 
Wheel locks only work when the shop forgets to give you back your key and you get a flat tire, and stuck on the side of the road because you can't change your wheel to your spare wheel
 
I am going to disagree with most opinions expressed here against wheel locks. I am very much in favor of them, and I am a recent convert after having been ambivalent about them for years. I recently ran into a guy (lets call him Kent) that I was acquaintances with since elementary school. We lived in the same general area, but were in different social groups. About 10 years ago I ran into him again and we got to talking, and it turns out he did a stint in prison for car theft. Not just any car theft , but industrial scale car theft, chop shops, back room deals with shady junk yards, insurance fraud. Pretty much anything you can think of in the realm of car and motorcycle theft. He was so successful that he bought into a small chain of junk yards and used them as a cover to move product.

We talked briefly about wheel locks, steering wheel clubs, home security, all sorts of topics. His take on wheel locks is that they are a good thing: "Wheel locks are easy to defeat if you have the right tools. But they take extra time and preparation to defeat, and they cause noise. It is difficult to defeat wheel locks without drawing attention to yourself. The act of removing wheel locks without the correct key is unusual, it draws attention. The banging and vibration sometimes set off car alarms. " He had a lot of opinions on what things are worth the time and money, and what things are worthless. His opinion is that spending $25-30 on a decent set of wheel locks is a cheap deterrent, " its very cost effective , it makes me do extra work. If I am planning on stealing the car then its just a nuisance , but on the off chance I am just trying to boost the rims it makes me think twice.". It cuts down on amateurs and crimes of opportunity.

He had a lot of other cool stories- if I remember some more details I might post some extra stuff. I mentioned I had a motorcycle stolen from my house about 15 years ago, and he asked me a few questions (make, model, condition, location), then said "it could have been just some average Joe, but I would bet was probably John Doe down in Smallville (fictitious name)- that's his specialty as the engines have a lot of demand". I expressed an interest in following up and he said not to bother, "he got killed execution style a few years ago, down in Florida." In the end " Kent " was caught by a combination of the scale of his enterprise, and mistakes made by junior members of his team. An insurance investigator was able to put some stats together, worked with local police and develop some solid leads and eventually his whole organization was rounded up. Turns out the insurance investigator also went to school with us.
 
My mechanic in favor of using wheel locks. And I really don't understand why you would lose the key? I always left it in glove box and never had a problem. The mechanic needed it only once a year at the time of inspection. Don't understand why it is such a bother.

Originally Posted by rubberchicken

He had a lot of other cool stories- if I remember some more details I might post some extra stuff.

I would be interested in the stories if you can recall and have time to write it up.
 
Wheel locks are a deterrent and a good idea. McGard made in Orchard Park, NY USA. I used to drive by almost every day. Get an extra key. They're cheap compared to your deductible.
 
Glad this came up.
The inconvenience, added time and necessary noise created when attempting to defeat wheel locks is always what I thought they provided.

A neighbor uses them on a car I maintain. He keeps his key in the glove box.
Today it's in a drawstring velour bag in the glove box courtesy of me.
What you MUST do is use anti-seize and be REAL CEREBRAL when you tighten them.

The stories on the Volvo board regarding these locking bolts fusing in their bolt holes are indeed freightening.
You'd think, "Get rid of them [censored] locking bolts" was the service mark of the forum.

Trouble is, grease monkeys find such hardware personally insulting and bothersome. They may be sloppy workers to begin with but the shear number of chewed up keys affirms destructive behavior. (Didn't know I was as shrink, did you?)

I'd like to ask rubberchicken's friend "Kent" about the stolen car business as I'm under the impression that car theft has done nothing but go down over the past 2 decades due to built in anti-theft systems.
 
Originally Posted by slacktide_bitog
Wheel locks are worthless
crazy2.gif


You will lose the key, and it doesn't stop wheel theft one bit. You can just hammer on a socket just smaller than the wheel lock, get a breaker bar or impact gun, and the wheel comes off


Lose the key how? You put it in the glove box, center console, the trunk next to the spare, or my favorite, on a magnet stuck to the seat frame or inside the trunk somewhere. Somebody would have to be pretty lame to lose that. And the idea for wheel locks is slow a thief down or have him move on to a car without locks. There are some brands of locks https://www.gorilla-auto.com/the-system that replace EVERY lug nut with a lock so a thief would have to spend 5 times as much time to get just one wheel off.
 
Originally Posted by wdn
Or, they will be the ones to lose the key themselves and deny any responsibility.


Happened to me twice in the 6 years I had my Corolla. No one was going to steal those 16" wheels anyway...
 
I am a LEO officer with 23 years in a low income town where thefts of all types are prevalent, I have seen perhaps 2 cases of legit stolen rims on vehicles as compared to perhaps 1 stolen vehicle per week. Meanwhile I have dealt with wheel locks that were damaged when mechanics did not realize they were installed or just didn't' care and decided to just try to zip them off with the larger socket. My 2 cents would be they are a waste of time money and if you are not deligent with the key good luck. However its not a big expense so if you sleep better do it. The Club was the same exact thing 30 years ago, I almost want to buy one of those now just for the nostalgia factor.
 
If you do decide to get wheel locks, don't make the same mistake I did. Bought them as an add on from the dealer when I bought the car new. Ouch!

JMO as a retired LEO also; anything to slow these guys down or make them decide to go to the next car is a good thing.
 
If you are the only person ever to work on removing/installing the wheels, it might be worth it, but otherwise they are way more trouble than they are worth! I cannot believe how much time I've wasted working on someone's car trying to find the key they didn't know they had. With no key, that's when the fun starts. The car wash I do maintenance at I've found a few keys by the vacuum. People don't know or care, and throw away the key. The locking nuts can easily get damaged if someone uses an impact wrench on them, or so tight the key strips out trying to remove it. Some locks are impossible to grip with anything, and I've had to do some creative welding to get them off.

IMG_4748.JPG
 
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