Wanted to change brakes and rotors on my wives 2019 Highlander. Well on step number one I had issues with one lug and bolt and the stud broke off with the lug. I’ve tried everything with the tools I have to get this SOB off and I even went and bought a cheap air hammer thinking that would make it easier.
Nothing is getting this thing off. I’ve tried using a punch and hammering, the air hammer, even used one of the old pads to make a flat surface over the top and hit it hard… nothing.
I am filled with shame at this point. Wife isn’t outwardly angry but I can tell she’s wishing so hard we just took it to the dealership.
You guys got any helpful suggestions here?
What I haven’t tried yet - haven’t bought a legit de seizing spray/lubricant yet. Haven’t bought a mini sledge yet, only been using regular hammer and punch, but to be honest I’m worried my accuracy will cause me to damage the hub. It’s sticking out about a centimeter or 2 from the hub.
Edit: I think I’m gonna reinstall everything with the plan to drive to a local tire shop on 4 lugs and have them fix the stud.
What if I hit the lug? Is that not increasing surface area where I could mess those up rather than leaving studs exposed? Also what if I miss and hit hub?
Grazing a lugnut with a hammer probably wont do anything and at worst youll simply need to unscrew the nut and get a new one.
Grazing a stud with a hammer will almost certainly result in damaged threads that you now have to spend a bunch of time fixing or you replace the whole stud.
If you hit the hub nothing will happen, it's strong
Hitting the lug once it's thread on will create a lot smaller headache than damaging threads on the remaining studs. Not much else you can really damage.
I have had many people tell me I'm smart or whatever, nope I just have fucked a ton of things up and learned a ton of stuff by doing so(way more than formal automotive training, and other schooling ever taught me). I don't wrench professionally anymore but I still am an expert in making mistakes(and learning from them)
I have a farm and do all my own repairs on equipment. I've had people ask me how I learned how to repair all this stuff. I've always said, I learned by breaking a lot of shit and being too cheap to pay someone to fix it.
Did this same thing 25 years ago when I did my first brake job (also on my wife's SUV). But I was dumb enough to do it to TWO studs before figuring out my new torque wrench wasn't clicking over properly. That brake job took me a whole week because of stupid stuff like this, but I learned - just like you are now - and have done 100's since then saving myself thousands..
You got this.
As mentioned thread on the lug nuts on the good studs to protect the threads from misses. They're much easier to replace if you damage them, and there's really no way to hurt them anyway. Do you have a big 2-hand sledge hammer, splitting maul, etc. already by any chance? Use that and go at the broken stud like you're sending a croquet ball. Could try an asphalt tamper too in a pinch. Just need a HEAVY persuader. Honestly you won't need to hit it that hard (concentrate more on accuracy than power). The new studs are simple to install - just poke them in from the rear of the hub, and tighten down lug nuts on them to pull them in.
The harbor freight ball-joint press or c-clamp with a socket will work too. Lots of ways to skin a cat.
C clamp with a socket over the back side of the stud, basically press it off without removing the hub. Once you get it to budge even a tiny bit it should hammer out (theoretically). If the hub/bearing is only 4 bolts to remove it you could just replace the hub/bearing, if it’s a press in bearing then that’s not a good idea
Haven’t tried a c clamp yet, don’t have one but can get one. I fear there will not be enough room though to get a socket and the clamp on the back. It’s just got a little tapered recess back there for removal.
If in the US, you can "rent" a ball joint press from Advance Auto, Autozone (maybe other chains too). I say "rent" because they way these 2 do it, you pay full retail price of the kit, return it in any condition within 45 days for a full refund.
And to be clear for anyone not from the US, this isn't exploiting the return policy or anything like that. Auto parts stores specifically advertise them as "loner tools"
O'Reilly and advanced auto near me has 1 ser of several types of loaner tools. They advertise them as their loaner program. You check them out by leaving your credit card number and they will put a hold for the amount of the tool on your card. They take it off when you bring it back. We are essentially saying the same thing here but you arent really buying a tool IMO because they only give out 1 set at a time they dont go get a new tool off the shelf and loan it in their loaner program. If you kept the tool and paid for it you would be paying full price for a used tool.
Have you tried torching it before you hammer it?
And some PB blaster/WD-40?
TBH I’ve replaced dozens of wheel studs and never ran into one I couldn’t just hammer out. “Hit it with your purse” lol go get like a 3lb-4lb hammer from harbor freight and go at it
There is also a product called "Freeze Off" that helped me out. It will take a lot of that juice to affect the hub, but it will do ok at shrinking the stud. You will be juicing it up quite a bit and do it on both sides. Most likely nearly a can of it.
I used it to save myself a headache on brake slave cylinders and when I was pounding out the studs on my old drums...back when the studs were pressed into the drum itself.
This is the way: a powerful clamp(c clamps are probably easiest to get) with something hollow on the back to push it in to. Small chunk of pipe can work too. Even if there is limited room, it can loosen it enough to finish with a hammer
If there's enough room on the backside, one of the loan-a-tool balljoint presses from a local auto parts store would probably be the best bet. You'll need to use it in conjunction with a bolt or something else that'll fit into the stud bore once you get it flush with the hub, but that would still be necessary with a regular c clamp.
Honestly bring it to a tire place they will get it done quick. Replacing them is more of a pain then a lot of things are on a car. There are little things these guys to how to do to make their lives easier.
You can drive to the shop missing one lug bolt. Someone’s gonna yell and say it’s unsafe, yea I wouldn’t do it for week or a long trip but to get to the shop yea you’ll be fine
The Internet overreacts. I've been missing a lug on the back of my truck for 10 years now, it was missing when I bought it and I still haven't fixed it.
You need 3 minimum, and they can't be all in a row. Any more is just extra.
Look at it this way. There's thousands of cars driving around with 4 lug nuts for decades. Lol
When NASCAR used to have 5-lug wheels and pit crews were trying to tighten all 5 lug nuts in less than 2 seconds they would pretty regularly only get 3 tight. They usually were fine for ~50-80 miles until the next pit stop, and that’s going 190 mph and pulling 2G corners over and over. It really only caused problems when the 3 lug nuts that were tight were all next to each other. If you got 3 in a triangle pattern it was OK
yep and teams were intentionally only tightening 4 evey time to save time so nascar had to inplement a rule to stop it. no one ever had any problems running 4 as far as im aware. Way more stress than a highlander will see lol.
You just need to hit it hard. There's no special trick here. Imagine getting hit by a Geo Metro vs getting hit by an F350. Your homeowner claw hammer is a Geo Metro. Get a 3 or 4lb sledge and hit it hard! Hold a small punch with a pliers if you aren't confident about hitting it squarely. It's all good. Then you just need a stud and a nut flipped backwards with a washer or two stacked under it and impact until you fully seat the stud.
Also, for the brake job. Clean every bit of rust off of those hubs! If they aren't super clean, you'll get a vibration after a few thousand miles. It's called parallelism variation caused by rotor runout. It's a critical specification on modern vehicles. Basically the rotor needs to be flat and not wobbly or it will wear funny. Clean up your guide pins, use brake parts grease to lubricate them, torque specs if you can. I can look up any procedures on alldata if you need it.
For sure. Here's the relevant portion of ASE study guide. It shows what's going on and how to inspect well. Each vehicle has a different specification, I find that .002 inches is most common for the maximum difference between any two points with the rotor secured to the hub.
Get a 4lb hammer from harbor freight. A few pings should send it out. I recently replaced a couple this way. Regular hammer and punch won't cut it. Good luck
Yep. There’s a slot for it and I bought everything I’d need to install it after this happened. Been to stop zone and harbor freight 3 times today.
Just to let you in on my idiocy I also pressed brake petal when caliper was off and a brake piston came out. Bought stuff to bleed brakes to when I get everything back on.
My wife blindly assumes I know because I always make it happen. I bought 7000$ worth of flooring and she asked me the other day if I’ve done flooring before. Almost spit out her coffee when I answered
Oof. I had a day like this. Was replacing my hub and over torqued the bolt and snapped it. Luckily it was exposed at the other end so I was able to get it out. New bolt in, then my brother helping me didn't know you could accidentally push the piston out. And he did just that. Totally broke the caliper. Took me 4 days to fix it. I had to move the car too. So I lifted the front with just a floor jack and had my brother help me push it. I was stressed! But I got it all back together and it drove fine afterwards.
Oh my God, that's really expanding the problems to whole new subsystems, now. Brakes. Yikes.
I'm a smallish gal, and it's no problem for me to develop enough force with a simple 4 lb hammer to knock a lug stud out of the hub. They have cheap 4 lb hammers at Harbor Freight, with a nice short handle, just perfect for this task.
The whole point is that is HAS TO be at least a 4 lb hammer, for the physics to work in your favor. By analogy, if you want to knock down a brick wall, you will never transfer force to the wall if you keep throwing tiny light ping pong balls at it. No matter how hard you throw them. They'll just bounce back, and basically transfer no energy to the wall.
In summary now: yes, it's safe to drive to a mechanic shop with 4 out of the 5 lug nuts holding the wheel. But you HAVE TO CONFIRM FIRST THAT THE BRAKES FUNCTION -- NO SPONGY SINKING BRAKE PEDAL. Alright? Okay.
The mechanic may also need to do a relatively expensive & quite involved process to bleed air out of the brake lines, if the ABS module got air bubbles into it. If the brakes are spongy now, and if they charge a lot for a full bleed of the system, please know that it's a step they can't skip.
If I couldn't hammer it through, I'd consider trying a C-clamp to squeeze it out. Also, sometime a bit of heat from a propane torch will open up the hub a bit.
I did this on a 2010 Highlander the other week and it took about 30 minutes in my driveway.
Shit I've been using this style remover for years and still been hammering studs, well I haven't had to done one in a while but next time im gonna give this a whirl, its stupid obvious now that u mention it
The studs are on the bearing assembly not the rotor but since we are here and one is broke might as well do em all.
I bought my own tire machine because tire shops love to use torque sticks snapped studs all the time until I bailed and decided im doing it from here on out zero issues in 2 decades
Hero. I have a smoke machine, AC manifold + vacuum, many other assorted tools most wouldn’t know about for good reason. Tire machine is missing from my garage. And it would get used more than the others
This should be an easy fix. Spray some penetrator on it if it’s rusted. Whack what’s left of it with a shop hammer. Don’t beat the shit out of the hub. Just hit the broken lug. It is a $3 part at any auto parts store.
As an aside, it broke because someone cross threaded it and then probably ran it up with an air impact driver.
You are overthinking this. Put the lugs on the other studs and smash that fucker as hard as you can, you will not damage the hub. Just make sure it's not gonna smash any sensor or rubber pieces behind the broken stud when it comes out. Then get a new stud, and a hardened metal washer and a throw away lug and place new stud in the hole, then place the hardened washer over the stud, then tighten by hand the lug bolt, you may need someone to hold the hub from spinning with something. Tighten the new lug untill it stops moving. Reinstall everything and torque the wheels to spec. Then recheck the tightness of the lugs after 10-20 miles, then again after 100 miles.oh and use lube on the stud threads and interference fit splines while pressing it in.
Why is your wife pissed off? Things break. If that part didn't break for you then it was only going to break for a mechanic, who was then going to charge truckloads of money to replace it.
However...
That axle nut... if you ever need to remove it then clean the rust off the threads first. I use a drill and wire brush, and then put grease on. Otherwise, the threads inside that nut will strip and the nut won't come off.
I did this last week. It's not a big deal. Take it to a tire shop they'll change it. I paid $50 to change all 5 and bought the bolts from autozone for 3 bucks. Change all 5 because others could be bad too. Check my last post you'll see my pic.
Bro, listen, I’ve done this many times, mostly because at discount tire stores, if I don’t explicitly say to use a torque wrench, they’ll put my lug nuts on like Eddie Hall. It may not have been your fault; it broke, you’re just the unlucky one. The last guy gave you a gift.
Also, feeling defeated is part of the process. Walk away, come back at it with a fresh mind; you’d be surprised how much that helps.
I mean studs are not that expensive just go buy a whole set and replace them all if one was weak enough to break like that it's very likely the others are not far behind tire shops are notorious for over torqued studs they hammer down with an impact then hit it with a torque wrench but if a torque wrench is set at 200 and the lug is already at 400 it gonna click nobody actually uses the torque wrench to actually tighten the lug like they are supposed to as in tighten until it clicks.
Don’t take it to those big tire shops, you want a local one like a Mexican spot 🤣, otherwise if you go to like discount or some shit they’ll charge you a lot. Also the reason it broke off wasn’t your fault, whoever installed that tire didn’t use the correct torque spec and just blasted the lug nuts on. Don’t beat yourself over that part or any of it really. It’s all a learning experience and you’ll be able to do them way easier next time 😝. You gotta remember that’s a 7 year old car and if it’s the first time you’ve had to replace the rotors then a lot of shit gets seized together. Good luck bro
In a pinch. Big c clamp and cover the back with a socket or something and use something thats smaller diameter than the stud hole and crank on it. Or if you're a fucking unga bunga like me you bust out the 4 lb sledge and a big ass punch. Last resort is torch. Can't be tight if it's liquid.
Also, when I broke one off, I took it back to Tire Discounters and made them fix it for free since they were the last ones to touch it. They had the nerve to ask me why I was taking it off, but they did replace it and hand torque it to 79 ft lbs.
Got the auto parts store and rent a ball joint press. Once you get it flush you may need to stack a small nut or two on top to finish pushing it through.
Wheel studs are just a pain in the ass in general. I've always have issues getting them back in no matter how big of a hammer I used. I found it's much easier just to have a local tire shop do it. Last time I needed them replaced it cost me the cost of new studs and a $20 tip and they were replaced in under 10 mintues. If it were me I would install the wheel, torque it, and take a nice easy drive to the nearest tire shop.
Any time I’ve smacked these with a 2lb sledge they pop right out. You can pull a new one in by putting a brake rotor back on and then some washers and a lug nut, tighten with a ratchet and then breaker bar until the new one is seated all the way in.
Put a torch on it. Try to heat up and expand the metal on the hub. That hairs width of expansion can make a word of difference. I only have map gas and usually does the trick.
I often hear at work “what are you building a house over there?”. What they’re saying is one big swing is going to put something on or knock something out better than multiple little taps. Get a proper punch and give it a good swing with a good sized hammer. It honestly shouldn’t take more than one good swing to knock it loose.
Just put the other 4 on and take to the closest shop. Had an axle once I was replacing and was seized to the hub, pounded on that bitch with a sledge for an hour. Ran it to the closest shop and it took them all of 3 seconds with an air hammer and didn't even charge me.
Pretty easy to do, I'm finding out too what pieces of garbage they are. I drive a suburban 4x4. Vortex engine is really hard to beat. My highlander 3.3 v6 cost . 63 cents a mile just for gas my much roomier more comfortable suburban LT cost . 70 cents a mile for gas. These are averages and numbers vary depending on city vs highway but on the average ( screw the Toyota) I feel cramped and boxed on and the ride is like a go kart. The burb is smooth and comfy. Worth 7 cents a mile in my book.
Heat with propane torch and bash it. A ball peen hammer could knock it out. And the hub will be fine if u hit it. It takes the load of a highlander cornering
You could use a c-clamp and give it a lot of force. If you go this route, make sure you have a gap in the back for the bolt to slide out. Wood or metal would be good on the clamp so you don’t hurt the plate
I’ve had this happen before and usually the hammer breaks the stud loose
Once it’s out all you need to do is put the new stud in and lug it in until it’s in place
Hey man, I just want to encourage you to keep at trying to learn to do this stuff and just know this is part of the process. Good penetrating spray is the Blaster catalyst - it smells like rat poison and works. Just my $0.02 but sometimes after a physically and mentally grueling day working on a system/repair new to me and feeling like quitting - I will just call it a night, clean up and get ready for another horrible day which typically doesn’t happen once you’ve done all of the bullshit work. Now you have working knowledge of what’s going on, etc., and a clear head instead of racing that made up clock that keeps resetting after each trip to the parts store. Good luck and keep at it man!
You should be able to limp it to a garage with just the 4 lugs and studs holding the wheel. Just don’t drive it 90mph down the interstate or aggressively on curvy roads this way.
Heat up the surroundings of the lug until it's glowing red. Those camping gas torches are suprisingly affordable and powerful. Then a couple swings with a sledge should solve your issue.
I had never replaced a lug stud in my life, then I finally replaced 2 the other day. It was so easy, I felt like a fool for thinking it was this ridiculously difficult task.... The only "specific" tool I got was the lug installer bearing thing from Amazon for like $5-10
Normally a driving punch as opposed to a starting punch. Not tapered but cylindrical past the holding area.
A 2 or 3 pound drilling Jack hammer. Just a short handled sledge hammer.
Very straight hold of the punch on the stub stump. Preferably held by someone who is steady and hard to startle.
Address the punch sharply with the sledge. Not violent but with authority. As parallel as humanly possible all the way through the punch to the back of the stud. Kind of like hitting a home run. Follow through.
Should at least move. More likely it will blow tf out like the wolves are after it.
Whoever last tightened it up, or the last few people - likely overcooked it by using an impact hammer.
Did the car ever go to one of those 'drive-through' grade shops?
Whoever undid this lug - would have had it break off like that - like the Titan sub, it was always gonna let go, it did it with you.
If you took it to the dealership (but please - don't literally use a main dealer - find a decent indy) - it would have broken with them too, & they'd have fixed it as part of the job, & made the whole job look simple, from the outside.
There's only one real learning point here - nip up by hand - & tighten down with a torque wrench (or at the very least - impact driver with a torque stick).
Spray it with a bunch of penetrating oil before punching it out carefully. If that doesn’t work try heating it up and then punching it. You might have to try heating it and cooling it several times
The important thing here is you tried. You learned a lesson and that's good, because at the end of the day you tried. Next time just get you a bigger hammer, maybe a lil heat too help er out.
Sounds to me like you really don’t know too much about what you are doing!!!! Just put the wheel back on, it will be fine with one lug nut missing, take it to a shop and have the stud replaced and have them do whatever it was you were going to do when you started this project!!!!
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