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Triple chrome? My first job out of high school was hand chrome plating small parts. First you copper plate. Can polish after that if needed. Then you nickel plate. That gives it the shiny nickel color. Then the final plating is chrome, which is kind of a dull grey without the nickel. We used to thick chrome plate parts for machine shops if they needed to build a dimension back up because they overdid it. Chromium by itself is just grey.They are nice and solid and triple chrome plated. The have the 60 degree angle on the bottom to match the factory alloy wheels.
These were definitely the way to go. Sturdy and they look real clean. I changed all the lug nuts all the way around to do away with that factory mess.
I bought the Gorilla solid steel chrome plated lug nuts & started installing them. $105 for 24 pieces, no tax or shipping. They look great (so far so good) and IMHO an improvement over OEM. Picture at the end, showing one OEM nut I removed is already splitting ... several others look like they're starting to rust inside and have dings from previous wheel shops. Nice improvement.
I chose not to apply any lubrication after reading up on it, such as this article --> http://www.tirereview.com/its-really-all-about-lug-nuts/
I'm just taking one off and replacing them one at a time. Torque by hand / feel ... which might not be the best but so be it.
I found that my year (2014) Expy is M14x2, 60 degree, OEM is 13/16" hex BUT the Gorilla replacements are 21MM so I had to buy a heavy duty 21MM 1/2" drive 6 point socket and will keep that as well as a quality breaker bar in my tire change tools from now on. Hope the tire shops can figure this out also and I may post a sign on the wheel when I have tires rotated.
After I ordered these I found other Gorilla nuts that say STAINLESS STEEL and are advertised as solid one piece so I contacted Gorilla and was informed thats not correct. Those are SS capped just like the OEM - dont want that! Nobody makes one piece solid stainless steel because it would not have the strength in the threads like hardened steel. I bought the best ones I could locate and possibly best on the market. Guy from Gorilla said chrome will rust (most know that) so keep them clean with soap and a brush to prevent rust.
The OEM are about 3/4" threaded from the conical end, remainder has no threads and is thinner walled. Not sure why. The Gorilla are full diameter threaded metal all the way inside.
View attachment 25947
In that case, shoulda saved 70 bucks and got the Venum wheel lock set
Btw, the OEMs are metric, maybe thats why y'all keep messing them up so fast (not that they aint flimsy shit, cuz they are)
Again, for people who dont wanna venture into the realms of blowtorches and sawzalls:
OEM LUGNUTS ARE MEANT FOR **DEEP** **METRIC** SOCKETS.
I think that's the explanation. That and the (OEM) "cap part" gets squeezed/deformed making 13/16" socket a better fit for OEM after a few tire changes. Lets put it this way ... 4 year old OEM lugs nuts, 13/16" deep socket slides on and seems about right. That same SK socket will NOT slide on the Gorilla and I HAVE to use a 21MM.Unfortunately after the chrome cap swells and splits on the OEM nuts the metric socket won’t fit over it correctly.