Those lugnuts go on the other side

[Lark Parker]

Repetitive commercials usually annoy me but the insurance comm where the young guy holds up a tool and asks "Is this a lug wrench?" and his buddy answers, "Maybe." Still amuses me.
It reminds me of an incident a few years ago. An old neighbor widowed grandmother asked me to look at her car as it was "making a noise".
Armed with the information that the noise started after one of her young grandsons changed her tire I quickly found that he had put the 5 lug nuts on backwards. (Tapered side of the lug nut was to the outside.)
My first thought was about the kid's stupidity but after a little thought I decided that he had just never experienced that part of life. So I conceded him a point for trying to help his grandmother. (I didn't use my Navy Master Chief method of teaching.)
I'm afraid that there may be a growing lack of practical learning opportunity for the current and future crops of people. I'm not sure whether this opinion is just ignorance/stuck-in-the-mud on my part or perhaps is true. Maybe all the important stuff is now floating around in the digital cloud world.
Considering my projected lifespan I won't be applying this potential learning to myself.

[t walgamuth]

Its a different world out there now. Its neither good or bad, its just how it is.

My #2 grandson is about 11 now. When he was three his father got a different set of alloy wheels put on his mom's car. From his stroller he commented to his mom that the car had different wheels on it. I was very excited I was sure he had inherited the grease monkey gene.

Now he spends every waking minute playing these games on his phone where he goes around with an outsized machine gun and kills any number of enemy every minute.

He beat me at chess though! I guess he'll be OK.

[DieselJim]

Many years ago, probably in the '70's, I saw a person that looked to be in his 20's trying to change a right rear flat tire on his car. Having trouble, said I have twisted 2 lugs off. Only got 3 to go. I said turn them the other way. The nuts came off. His comment, "I didn't know that". If my fading memory is correct, it was a GM car.

[Lark Parker]

I guess those people who buy the new cars that have no spare don't have a need to learn how to change one.

[benaslopoke]

Am I losing it or didn't some of the lug nuts on Chrysler(??) cars have LH threads on one side and we learned from that maybe?? I'd like to see one of our young TECHNICIANS today face that challenge.. ..HA.. HA !!

[rockne10]

I believe most manufacturers used left thread lugs on the left side well in to the 1950's; some even later; and most of the big trucks on the road still use left thread on that side.
Several decades ago I watched a fellow try to remove his full wheel cover with the jack end of his lug wrench, as most all of us learned to do. This was on a newer car at the time. After he had the thing sufficiently mangled I thought to ask him if there was a tool in the glovebox to unlock the cover. There was.

[toymobile]

The L H threads were on the DRIVERS side of those that chose to use them, the idea was that they would tighten them selves up instead of loosing while driving.

I don't know if it worked or not but I have never seen a wheel come off the right side on modern cars???

Johnny

[Noxnabaker]

Left-siders on left side!
Studebaker (mine), MoPars & Jaguars I've owned has had it & it goes down to racing experiances, the Cadillacs I'va had would have needed it too cuz they're such heavy bastards & I always had to re-tighten the left side wheels a little now & then.

[Bordeaux Daytona]

I've seen the lugs nuts backward before on trade ins that I work on at a dealership. We once had a car come in with a rim on backwards.