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The FSM for the Ford Escape says that axle nuts should be discarded and replaced with new ones whenever they are removed.
I’ve never experienced this before, I’ve only known axle nuts to be re-useable without issue. Anyone know if it’s a definite safety-critical thing or just a “best practice” thing?
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Yes, but do you know why? The nuts are a $14 item, as you’d expect from something from the dealership, but there doesn’t seem to be anything about them that’s unusual or special.
It’s not the price. From what I understand there is a nylon ring in the threads of the nut that basically act as a lock or serve the same function as a cotter pin. After the nylon ring has been threaded and tightened once it has worn to the point where it is not recommended to use it again. I’ve read some cars where they have a 3 time limit or some that have a 4 time or like yours a one time limit. If the part is available I usually replace it. We have actually had a VW come into our shop where the guy replaced his wheel bearings and he reused the nuts, realized he forgot something, backed the nuts off, retighted them, and they ended up backing themselves off and losing the torque so the bearings got play in them, so he tried tightening them again and a couple days later boom they were loose again. He brought it to us, we replaced the nuts and he ended up coming back later not because the nuts were loose but because the bearing shit out from riding so loose all those times. So in my experience I would just say spend the little bit of extra cash and don’t have to worry about it in the back of your mind.
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years back I paid $50 for a pair of axle nuts, $14 is cheap. How much would it cost you to redo the job and replace a wheel(or more)? If I can’t “lock” the nut by mechanical means, it gets replaced. This is important part of how the wheel stays on.
Don’t screw with it. I have fixed other people messes, and learned from my own mistakes.
I have not seen an axle nut move yet. Some are staked, others have pins, others have the nylon thing. Someone did 60k miles without any nut at all.
The worst thing that would happen is that you wear out your wheel bearing, wreck axle threads, etc. You’re wheel isn’t going to fall off with most designs.
I would call it best practice.
A prevailing torque nut is designed to be used once. Its what hold the torque to the shaft. Fix it right the first time 🙂
Don’t know if this the case with the Ford Escape’s nuts, but some lock nuts are out of round. They’re round at the starter threads to allow thread engagement, (duh), but are a bit “squashed” beyond that point. The interference provides a cheap self-locking feature. To my knowledge, that type of lock nut can only be used once. (The nuts don’t spring back to their original non-roundness after being removed, so the locking feature is lost.)
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