[vattyboy]

I was going from Udaipur to Surat by road in My Jeep Compass.
Before starting my journey, I checked and filled the air in all my tyres recommended by Jeep with my TUSA Tyre Inflator.

After driving around 100 km from Udaipur my front left tyre ( Bridgestone Turanza T001) got burst and it was just 2 years old with a lot of thread and life remaining. By God's grace, my speed was just 60 to 70 kmph when the tyre burst.

Drove the car to the left onto the shoulder of the road and parked the car safely.

I opened the boot and took out the lug wrench provided by Jeep then I connected it to the alloy wheel lugnuts to open them and to my utter surprise they were not opening and they were slipping.

Out of 5 nuts, I removed 3 but the remaining 2 were just slipping.

1- Just to give a better aesthetic appearance Jeep gives a chrome cover on top of the wheel lug nuts.

2- With ageing this chrome cover becomes weak and when we try to open it this cover slips from the nut.

3- After this chrome cover fitment on the lugnuts, the size gets so odd that most of the lug wrench can't open it

4- See the lugnuts, one is without a cover broken by the Hammer to open the tyre.




With no other option, I started walking on the highway in search of help. After walking 300 m I went to a puncture wala for help and he came with the 2-3 lug wrench which was available with him in the hope that lug nuts would open by them but No, Due to that chrome cover on the lugnuts the size gets so odd than most of the lug wrench can't open it.

Some local villagers sitting at the restaurant were seeing all this for 1 hour and they came to help me when the puncture wala also failed to open the lugnuts.

They brought a hammer and screwdriver to break this chrome cover and succeeded after another 1.5 hours. As there was no space to break this chrome cover when the lugnuts were fitted in the alloy wheels.

So Finally after 3 hours of hard work with no shade to protect us from the sunlight we all succeeded.

These 3 hours were full of mental tension as many thoughts came into my mind that I would have to call the towing truck and send my car to Ahmedabad and I would have to call a taxi to carry on my journey. For this silly lugnuts. Total damage to the wallet would be 50k approx.

But In the end, god was with me.

[vattyboy]

Now, I fitted the stepney and continued my journey.

Called my Jeep SA and told him the story and he told me - "Sir, due to many complaints by Customers, the new BS6 Compass comes with normal lugnuts and you can get them fitted in your BS4 Compass for Rs 5000". That day, due to it being a Sunday, ASS was closed so I told him I will come tomorrow. I mean what? Rs 5000 for lugnuts? Rs 3600 for the part and Rs 1200 for labour.

The next day i.e. Monday, I went to Nanawati Jeep ASS Surat at 11:30 AM sharp to get the new lugnuts fitted in my car. Now you guys guess how much time this small job should take.

30 minutes? 1 hour? Ok, max 2 hours? No. Nanawati Jeep Surat took 4 hours! Out of these 4 hours, for 3 hr 30 minutes the car was standing idle and only 30 minutes of work was done on the car.

I arrived at 11.30 AM, and 30 minutes passed. Now, at noon, the SA opened the job card and by 12.30 he gave it to the technician. By 12:50, the technician took the car inside. See how slow their work is. 1 PM to 2 PM was their lunchtime and I was sitting empty stomach. From 2 to 2.30 pm, they did the work. From 2.30 to 3.30, they took to make the bill and gate pass. Nanawati Jeep Surat, I appreciate your workmanship and the skills of your staff but the speed of completing the work is very slow.

Rs, 900 for 1 set × 4 for 4 tyres


New lug nuts (black) compared to old






After Fitting new lugnuts


After the whole process, I went to my nearby tyre shop and purchased 2 Yokohama Earth 1 tyres for the front of alloys. I was more inclined to buy the Yokohama BluEarth RV 02 but they are out of stock in the whole Gujarat. So went with Earth 1 for peace of mind due to their availability in every shop across India. Cost: Rs 11500/- per tyre.

I will compare Bridgestone Turanza and Yoko Earth 1 in separate tyre threads.

All my fellow BS4 Jeep Compass owners, I urge you to please get the lugnuts changed ASAP. I don't want you guys to face the same situation like I did.

The next work is to get the alloy wheels refurbished.

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Shreyans_Jain]

Default pre facelift Jeep Compass issue. I have also been stranded because of the stupid lug nut design. The updated lug nuts from Jeep are extremely overpriced for what they are, and it is very rich of them to expect customers to pay 4-5k to correct a clear design flaw. It should have been fixed as a recall. I am currently scouting cheaper aftermarket solutions, otherwise no choice but to cough up the money.

The current state of the front left wheel of my car. The chrome cover is of 18 number, but it shears off when force is applied. The actual nut inside it is of 16no. The supplied wrench is of 18no, so it doesn’t work if the cap shears off.

[arun_josie]

Yes, this is a known issue with the pre facelift models and it was a pain with these lugnuts. I think even Ecosport used to come with these kind of lug nuts.

Below is my update from my ownership thread,

Originally Posted by arun_josie

Wheel Lugnuts:

I got rid of this troublesome cap model lugnuts. It was becoming a pain every time the tyres need to be removed for wheel balancing. At least 2-3 used to get stuck. So, I got this replaced to the normal ones which is standard in the BS6 Compass. This cost me 2600/-

Here is the pic after fitting the new black wheel lugnuts. I prefer the one which matches the alloy colour but now they have this black one only.

[theredliner]

Does this happen even when the bolts are torqued to spec?

FCA service centres, like most workshops in India use impact wrench and end up over tightening them.
After my Linea came back from service recently, I had to use 235 Nm to get one of the bolts loose where as the service manual specifies 88-108 Nm!

[Kosfactor]

Originally Posted by theredliner

Does this happen even when the bolts are torqued to spec?

FCA service centres, like most workshops in India use impact wrench and end up over tightening them.
After my Linea came back from service recently, I had to use 235 Nm to get one of the bolts loose where as the service manual specifies 88-108 Nm!

Loosening a lug nut may need more breakaway torque than tightening it, so that may be it. Usually ASCs will overdo it by about 20% because their trainees have made mistakes in the past and tyres have traveled faster than the vehicles.

[MT_Hyderabad]

Guys, save your money and keep two suitably sized wrenches in your car.

Let Jeep do what they want with their customers. It will come back to them.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by theredliner

Does this happen even when the bolts are torqued to spec?

FCA service centres, like most workshops in India use impact wrench and end up over tightening them.
After my Linea came back from service recently, I had to use 235 Nm to get one of the bolts loose where as the service manual specifies 88-108 Nm!

This happens when loosening. When your car has a flat and you are wrestling with the lugnuts to unscrew the wheel, the nut has to be designed to withstand the shearing force with adequate margin of safety. That is clearly not the case here. I was able to break the chrome cap using the stock supplied wrench and the strength of my back. No elongated levers, no jumping on the tool.

Originally Posted by MT_Hyderabad

Guys, save your money and keep two suitably sized wrenches in your car.

Let Jeep do what they want with their customers. It will come back to them.

Doesn’t work. The inner nut is soft, its edges easily deform and become rounded when force is applied. It is just a stupid, flawed design.

[Cresterk]

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

Default pre facelift Jeep Compass issue. I have also been stranded because of the stupid lug nut design. The updated lug nuts from Jeep are extremely overpriced for what they are, and it is very rich of them to expect customers to pay 4-5k to correct a clear design flaw. It should have been fixed as a recall. I am currently scouting cheaper aftermarket solutions, otherwise no choice but to cough up the money.

The current state of the front left wheel of my car. The chrome cover is of 18 number, but it shears off when force is applied. The actual nut inside it is of 16no. The supplied wrench is of 18no, so it doesn’t work if the cap shears off.

Attachment 2516269

I believe we should just use normal lugnuts from outside rather than pay extortionate amounts to a company that created the issue in the first place.

[The Rationalist]

Ford cars have this issue, I have 12 lug nuts in my boot! I had to get it laser torched once my wheel got stuck. I don't allow electric torque wrench to be used in the nuts. I only allow the wrench that came with the car. Whenever I see the covers have started distorting, I check with the wrench to see if it's slipping, if it does, then I replace them with new ones. I have replaced around 10 till now. Ford service centers acknowledge the issue. One option is to cut open the covers and use the nuts.

[ABHI_1512]

I didn’t know that Jeep Compass also had this issue with the lug nuts. No wonder the Compass is always projected as the natural successor to Ecosport

Jokes aside, I have faced this problem with my Ecosport as well. And after the initial disappointment, I have now almost removed all the hub caps. It becomes easier to remove the lug nuts without the caps. It is not aesthetically pleasing to the eyes and I am searching for alternate wheel nuts as well. The company ones are priced at around 300 a piece. I would have still bought it if not for the same design. Have asked for the wheel nuts without the caps and the ASS have assured me of procuring those for me. The aftermarket ones found online doesn’t seem to inspire much confidence.

Lug nuts without the cap:

[Jeroen]

Several of my cars have these chrome capped lug nuts. The problem arises due to over-tightening. You should always, for several reasons, use a torque wrench and look up the manufacturer torque specification.

The best YouTube video on lug nuts!

https://youtu.be/P-Hz6QIbCt0?si=fFZsHWVJevoqSdUb

[RMN]

Wow, didnt know that the Ecosport has this issue too. I'm due for a tire change and hopefully it hasn't got stuck yet. Will try to get an aftermarket one.

[purohitanuj]

I also faced similar issue with my Mahindra Scorpio. The design of alloy is such that there is no "face" of the lug exposed. Hence it becomes impossible for nut to open in case the face of the nut is deformed due to over tightening. The nuts become taper in one end to facilitate auto-centering. This also means that if one tries to free them by hitting, they squat and get more stuck!

This was on the new Gurgaon - Mumbai expressway. My stars were aligned as the NHAI recovery service started just 1 day back. Hence they were also very enthusiastic to help.

Hence in my case, I had to call in a gas cutter and destroy my alloy as well.

See that nut is completely inside the alloy shell and there is no access.


Trusty gas cutter in action






Job done. Lost alloy worth 8K.