Here's a story this dumba$$ experienced today. So taking wheels off to get balanced. One lug has a special nut for special socket. Look everywhere for it. Also check manual. Find package it came in but no socket. Call dealer, Whats last eight of your vin, tell him. Comes back and says car did not come with those lugs. Figured he was giving me the run around. Says you got to grind them off. Go to mechanics shop and they borrow me a socket to get it off but will ruin them in which it did. So after all this is done I gonna look one more time in car for socket. There it was in plain site for all to see right where it was supposed to be. I looked there before but didn't see it. lol. Now I have a socket and no lugs. Oh well, I want chrome ones anyway. Seems lately I can look at something and not see it. Must be the old age. Just thought I would share a little humor.

 

New car, all excited, sometimes we just all need to slow things down a bit. It could have been worse!

 

Look at the bright side, you didn't ruin a set of wheels getting the locks off. And a new set of locks are not that expensive.

 

 

 

I always thought those things were ridiculous. If you live in that kind of neighborhood you should not be wasting your money on a vette. If you frequently visit those kind of neighborhoods, well........... I've lived in a lot of places in my 59 years, but I have never walked out to my car and had the wheels missing. but hey, maybe that's just me and I've lived a charmed life.

 

Atleast you didnt lose your starter key.

 

half the cars ive purchased has been missing the lock key

Luckily a mechanic near me has the answer for it , a socket set that you hammer on , it bites into the lock nut and you can unscrew it

sometimes takes a few tries but its never failed

 

No biggie, for a few bucks you buy a new set of locks. Keep things simple. When looking for a fix, first look for the easiest and cheapest fix first. "This ain't a transmission job".

P. S. You already won, you have a Corvette.

 

I did worse the other day.

I was changing the oil and rotating the tires on my DD truck.

After changing the oil, I backed down the ramps to start the rotation and gathered my tools. Except I could not find the lock nut socket. I have done this every oil change for the last 130K miles, so I was pissed. The truck had not gone anywhere to be serviced, all 20 lugs are locks. I have the code to reorder a key/socket, but WTF did I do with the socket?

Later that night my SO got home and couldn't remembereither, but I checked with the spare tire tools and sure enough it was there. The lock goes in the glovebox, the lock goes in the glovebox, the lock goes in the glovebox.

I don't know what I was thinking 130K miles and I have yet to have a flat tire, but I rotate every oil change and look for the lock in the glovebox.

Lock glovebox.

 

There have been worse situations out there

https://forums.finalgear.com/general...ensured-40787/

 

FWIW, there's a place for the lugnut lock key in the storage area in the trunk/hatch. No need for it to be rolling around in the glovebox or getting misplaced.

 

Mine was in the glove box before I swapped lugs and got rid of the need for a key. Mine didn't roll around, or at least I never noticed (I drive my car very hard).

 

Similar thing happened to me when I had my 01 z28 (about a year ago.) "Lost" my lug nut key so I ended up hammering a socket onto the lock. Backed the lug nut off, removed wheel, turned around and there was the key socket laying on the garage floor.

 

When I was going to get new tires for the first time on my vette, the GM dealer legitimately told me to make a styrofoam impression of the wheel lock so they could send it to their manufacturer and get me a new lock. I wish I had recorded the conversation, it was so insane.

I ended up hammering on a smaller socket and they came off with no problems, glad you got everything taken care of though!

 

All those locks are easily defeated. they only keep honest people from removing them. any pro or even a gu7y like me could remove any wheel lock in less than 1 minute. Lock lugs are usually not torqued to 100 ft. lbs.
which only makes it easier to remove them.

 

My Corvette doesn't have lug nut locks. I took the car in for brakes, guy looked everywhere for the socket. I said a few times, I don't think there is one.

Finally, he looked at the wheels and agreed with me.

 

When I was a 18yo my first car was a '72 Plymouth satellite all jacked up with air shocks I thought it was cool. One day leaving my girlfriends house ( her parents ocean front condo) in Cocoa Beach my transmission went out (Automatic) would just rev up no forward or reverse. The car was a piece of crap mechanically but looked ok ($300.00 car in the '80s). Anyhow I checked the trans fluid and it was ok so I figured I was in for a rebuild . So I called my buddy I bought it from and asked him to come get me and we would tow it home. I started walking out to the street to wave him down and took one last look at the car and saw the passenger side was up on a block, I could not believe someone had stolen the wheel these were painted steel slotted rims with retreads stretched on to the rims who would steel them? Anyhow I felt kind of dumb that I had not noticed but the backend of those cars were so big unless you looked you could not notice


On a side note this experience taught me a couple of things... one, the cops don't really care about 18yo kids..... a week or two later I was picking my girlfriend up at school and low and behold there was my wheel, same tire and all right in front of me, so I took down the tag and called the cops and they would not even consider asking the guy where he got the wheel and actually suggested I should have followed him and ask the guy myself

So there you go, life is full obstacles. Some we put in front of ourselves, some by others