In march 2013 I bought a 2003 Volvo V70 T5 (MY 2004). A very nice car with 366.000km of experience. One of the items that needed replacement were the tires on the front axle. When buying the car I was more or less expecting issues with the wheel lock key as it looked pretty used and worn.
Unfortunately it turned out that the key was beyond normal use and the bolts seemed to be bolted on using an air wrench. On top of this the wheels on the front axle were not removed the past five years. I had a look on different Internet forums and learnt I was not the only one with this problem...
None of my four wheel locks came off!
I spent one day trying the McGard masterset at a Volvo dealership, visited a wheel/tire fast fitter, a normal garage but this was all unsuccessful. The tools normally used to remove locking wheel bolts the "unofficial way" did not fit on the bolts with the original alloy wheel as the bolt hole diameter in the alloy wheels was too small.
As I didn't want to force the wheels of with a grinder or chisel hammering I decided to contact McGard Germany. They sent me a new key and a set of tools to drill out the bolts. Free of charge. Very impressed by their service level!
These are the contents of the package I received:
A new key
Set of three Cobalt drill bits and three drilling sleeves
Instructions / howto
Ofcourse I first tried to unbolt the locking bolts using the new key, but that was also unsuccessful...
Drilling the bolts out is not a difficult task, but it is an extremely heavy and time consuming job for someone without a lot of experience in this field. I would recommend the following things before you try this yourself:
- Car lift to get car up to a good working height. (I did this without one but wouldn't do this again if I had to remove another 4 bolts.)
- Professional drill with low rpm and high torque characteristics. (Like the Metabo I used.)
- Drill lubricant
- Safety glasses
- Patience, lot's of patience
Drill / sleeve size 1 (1/4")
Drill / sleeve size 3 (1/2")
Drill / sleeve size 3 almost there (22,8mm deep)
Remains of the bolt after head is drilled off
How bolts look like after removal
I also had some difficulty removing the remaining bolt/studs from the wheel hub. To show you how I solved this, some live drilling action and more pictures you can see watching this YouTube video:
http://youtu.be/Bq77uKSMU6M
Or search YouTube for "Volvo V70 McGard wheel lock drill".
Hope you enjoy this information and that it's useful if you end up in the same situation I was. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them!
Regards,
Koen from The Netherlands
