Locking nut removal, or how to steal your own wheels

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0200

Locking wheel nuts exist to stop opportunists nicking your wheels, and when you lose the key, they do their job a little too well.

A few years ago when I moved to the UK, I bought a very old Honda Civic with the intention of replacing it soon (I expected to get a lot of scratches before getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road), but really liked the car and kept it for long. One day came a time to replace tyres. I brought the car to the tyre service and confidently told them the key is in the glovebox. I saw it just a few days before when I cleaned the interior. Except it wasn’t there now.

The easy checks

I searched the place where I cleaned the car - the locking key wasn’t there.
If you think that half of the cars have the same locking nut, look more closely. They often look similar, but there are subtle differences. I checked some friends’ cars that looked similar, all turned out to be different.
I asked the tyre shop if they have locking nut keys. Sure they do, many of them - none was right.
I asked Honda about the replacement and local mechanic about the removal. Both gave me a quote that I didn’t like.

Time for a DIY approach

Most locking nuts these days have rotating collars - if you try to grip it from the outside, the outer part just spins freely. The solution is to break and remove the collar first.

Tools needed

removal sockets
breaker bar
hammer
cordless drill
drill bits for metal
wire cutters
centre punches

Of those, I only needed to buy removal sockets. These are hardened sockets with an internal profile that looks a bit like a reverse thread. Designed not only for the task I had, but also for removing stripped nuts. You could buy one socket, but I wasn’t sure which size I needed.

Removing the rotating collar

The rotating collar was made of steel, my wheels were aluminium. Breaking one without causing (much) damage to the other made the job both rough and delicate. And the moment you touch the collar with any tool, it rotates away. I had a set of centre punches, so I used one or two to hold the collar in place, and another one to make a small dent.

Then it was time for drilling. Repeated the process several times.

When the collar was damaged enough, I gripped it with the wire cutters (pliers were too big) and removed it.

First wheel took me about an hour and got the most scratches. But I gained experience quickly, the 4th one was done in a few minutes and almost unscathed.

Removing the uncollared nut

That was an easy part. Get the right sized socket, put it on the nut, then give it a few taps with a hammer. Use a long breaker bar (not a ratchet). You need a lot of force, push with your body weight. Even normally, wheel nuts take some force, but now you also have to make your socket bite into steel.

After removal

Of course the nut is useless after a forced removal. Have a new set of nuts prepared before you attempt it. You could use other locking nuts (and this time, don’t lose the key), but I opted for standard nuts. Nobody would be interested in battered wheels from an old Honda Civic anyway, even before I added some more scratches.