Nothing is worse than enjoying your day at the track, or on an early morning drive to work, and the next thing you know your wheel falls off your car. Let it be known, if you remove your wheels even a few times a year, wheel studs and lug nuts are an absolute must to ensure your safety and make the wheel installation process a bit less challenging.
We here at Garagistic want to teach you about the importance of wheel studs by explaining why we use them. More specifically, how wheel studs make our cars more safe and easier to work on. We are also going to help guide you in the correct direction to which studs you need for your car!
| Our 5 Lug Competition Lug Nuts
Why do we recommend Wheel Studs over Traditional Lug Bolts?
Safety: There are many reasons to run wheel studs and nuts instead of the lug bolts traditionally found on commuter cars from the factory. However, the main reason for running wheel studs is to ensure that your wheel doesn't come flying off due to improperly installing or torquing your wheels during install. Unlike lug bolts that can become warped or damaged due to excessive wheel removal and install, lug studs stay semi-permanently fastened into the hub (at 27-32 ft/lb), meaning that wheel studs will never have damaged threads inside the hub leading to improper torquing! Keep in mind that you do still need to ensure that lug nuts are torqued to factory spec according to your vehicle.
Ease of install: The second major reason to run wheel studs and nuts instead of lug bolts, is for ease of wheel installation. Wheel studs, given that they stay fastened in the hub, allow for you to put the wheel directly on the studs instead of having to hold the wheel up to align the bolts as you would with factory lug bolts!
What wheels can I run with the studs?
Wheel Fitment: Another huge benefit to running wheel studs and nuts, is that wheel studs can accommodate wheel spacers and aftermarket wheels of all sizes. Oem lug bolts, due to their size, must be replaced with either extended lug bolts or wheel studs for a proper installation of wheel spacers and aftermarket wheels on your car. Our studs are 90mm long and can accommodate almost all wheel specs and spacers up to 35mm in thickness.
| The setup we run on our Grip E36 - Apex Arc 8s with our Competition Lug Nuts
Which Wheel Stud Kit do I need?
Depending on the application, BMW’s have either 4-lug wheel hubs or 5-lug wheel hubs. Cars such as an E30 for instance uses 4 lug bolts to fasten the wheel to the hub, whereas E36’s are 5 lug and require 5 lug bolts to fasten the wheel to the hub. We carry a variety of wheels stud kits from Mercedes 190e to BMW E30’s all the way to the new A90 supra!
If you are interested in purchasing a set of wheel studs, check out the links to all of our wheel studs below!
