I wanted to share an experience I had in the very early days of ownership of my Pirelli which
I thought I had been put to rest. That was an incorrect assumption, a trackday this month at Goodwood proved this.
Not long after I bought the vehicle I tried to fit my winter wheels I had at the time. In order to get the bolts undone I had to resort to using an extension bar that was in the order 1.5m long. Even with this it took me around 4 hours to get the job done.
Once done, on refitting the bolts it was noticed that a good deal of torque was required to even screw the bolts back down before even correctly torquing them. In the photo you can see the level of distortion to the bolt profile and thread pitch:
Peter Cooper replaced the bolts under warranty without hesitation. They also confirmed that, according to their servicing policies, routine servicing does not require them to remove the road wheels unless pad replacement is required or other specific repairs are required. Brake bleeding is also completed with wheels in place. What with this and the general propensity for the use of air powered tools it's clear to see how this can happen. Air tools may also prevent the issue from being noticed and exacerbate the problem.
I also had to clear the hub threads with a correctly sized and lubricated tap (M14x1.5mm) and while doing this the amount of metal that was removed was considerable but I continued and all was well for while. Until this recent trackday. Being good practice to do so, and with the new vibrations experienced (another issue which turned out to be pad pick up), I set about checking torque on wheel bolts and one of the bolts stripped the hub threads and damaged it's own. On inspection it was evident that the other front hub also required replacing, all bolts were too slack in their bolt holes. The rears were not bad enough to warrant replacement. It was an expensive repair, and one that should not have been required given the root cause.
Had I been more aware of possible complications at the time I would have pushed Peter Cooper to inspect/replace the hubs while under warranty.
In fairness to the Shirley branch they did say they may consider adding the removal and replacement of wheels periodically to servicing programs to prevent this from happening again. Whether or not this was implemented I don't know.
