The problem is as follows. Tyre fitters love to use impact guns. Many do not understand or care that using such equipment leads to flattening of wheel nut chrome caps. They operate in blissful ignorance knowing not of the damage or inconvenience they unwittingly cause. They don`t teach this sort of thing at a tyre fitters college!
Generally a wheel nut is removed in good condition by a 19mm socket. That will slip if the nut has been damaged. Correct me if I am wrong but X300/308 have larger sized wheel nuts and may or may not also suffer from difficulties as described here.
I`ve had to replace probably ten wheel nuts with this flattening issue after I failed to stop a tyre man using an impact wrench on my wheel nuts. With that experience gained, only I will remove and tighten wheel nuts on my car. Note also that an impact wrench will break old pin type security lock wheel removal tools and the newer offset thin wall socket types.
So if you have a damaged wheel nut which stops a 19m socket being used, how do you get around this?
Firstly accept you will need to buy at least one new wheel nut or perhaps more if other nuts are in a similar condition. Replacement nuts are cheap enough on ebay. Do not buy second hand. Only new items.
To remove a damaged nut you will need to take an old 1/4" wood chisel and find a hammer. Brutal as it sounds, this is the only way to get the nut off. The flattened chome cover cap is about a half mm thick and easily penetrated by a sharp chisel blade. Chop into the cap head, then down the sides of the exposed wheel nut below. Move the chopped metal away from the cap on all sides of the hex nut.
Mike
