We had somebody posting similar problem in the past. Broken bolt means the wheel fell-off and you can remove remaining piece with vise-grip.
The guy before had actually stripped head, what hold the wheel on.

 

can you remove the other lugs, then slide the wheel off....then file flats on the stud
to grip and remove? or.....is it broken with ball seat intact?

 

yes, its broken with the ball seat intact

 

ouch.....hmmm....having a bailey's and coffee and will cogitate a spell....

drill hole and then use stud extractor ¿

 

Don't think the bolt extractors are 100 lb-inch rated.
I am afraid you'll have to drill out the seat. Start with pilot hole and drill about 1/4" and than go lager till the head will come off. After taking the wheel off, the stud suppose to come off with hand or pliers.
Who torqued the bolts last time? Fire him.

 

Dear Lord, what a mess.

Do yours look like this?

If so that's all too common (hey, once is too much, right?), the ball seat "sticks" and the shaft breaks off above it.

You might see if you can find the proper length of the newer design that the ball seat is cast as part of the bolt head.

Snap-on has some pretty expensive "universal" sockets that have squarish little teeth, if you found one in the close size and pounded it on the end of the bolt with a sledge it might hold enough for you to get it out of there. Otherwise the drill method Kajtek1 mentioned is about it.

My sincerest sympathies.

Take care and enjoy the ride,
Greg

 

Take your car to a local welder, and get a nut welded to the end of what's left. Immediately remove the bolt with a wrench and replace it with the spare that you brought with you.

 

I am a welder and believe me -welding a nut inside cast aluminum rim is not an option. I will not even mention what power surges can do to car electronisc.
Than I had an incident few months ago, when couple of my bolts got them-self overtorqued. I torqued them personally, so I know they have been about 100 in-lb (I think there is 80 recommended for E, but I never remember details and torque all the cars 100).
So the 2 bolts for some reason took over 200 to break loose. I had to use a socket with big lever to do so. Thin'wall socket had some play in the hole and when I applied big force the bolt head extension bend in the process. I think some people in similar situation might not have big wrench and playing with smaller wrenches might fatiqe the bolt in its weakest point and brake it off.
So my conclusion is, that the factory lug wrench is having the big collar on it for a reason. Use it on hard to loose bolts, or get a thick wall socket, that will prevent bolt bending. The best would be Cross-bar wrench.

 

I think you mean 100 ft-lbs.

I was thinking someone could get in there with a TIG torch to weld the nut into place. Perhaps not, but drilling that bolt out is going to be difficult.

 

I stay corrected on ft-lb.
Drilling should not be too difficult. Evidently the bolts are not very much hardened since they bend and break. The rule of drilling stainless steel and hardened steel is slow speed and constant pressure.

 

I am a welder and believe me -welding a nut inside cast aluminum rim is not an option. I will not even mention what power surges can do to car electronisc.
Than I had an incident few months ago, when couple of my bolts got them-self overtorqued. I torqued them personally, so I know they have been about 100 in-lb (I think there is 80 recommended for E, but I never remember details and torque all the cars 100).
So the 2 bolts for some reason took over 200 to break loose. I had to use a socket with big lever to do so. Thin'wall socket had some play in the hole and when I applied big force the bolt head extension bend in the process. I think some people in similar situation might not have big wrench and playing with smaller wrenches might fatiqe the bolt in its weakest point and brake it off.
So my conclusion is, that the factory lug wrench is having the big collar on it for a reason. Use it on hard to loose bolts, or get a thick wall socket, that will prevent bolt bending. The best would be Cross-bar wrench.

I side with Kajtek1 re: welding, even if the surge possibility was not an issue there's virtually no room to work in there. I suppose you could weld a piece of rebar on it and then weld a nut on the end of the rebar outside the wheel, but how you'd get around the nut to weld it to the broken shaft would be really a neat trick. Not to mention that even nicking the wheel would melt quite a bit of aluminum. Perhaps with TIG you could have a larger nut and then weld it from the inside, but that would probably be too large for a socket to then go over.

Kajtek1, the spec is 80 ft-lb for the aluminum wheels on W210, I don't know the spec for the steel (like the spare and some aftermarket). My "clicker" is set to 80 all the time. Well, 85, I like to push the limits (except when E55s are in the hunt on I280!).

Take care and enjoy the ride,
Greg

 

I wasn't thinking about welding around the nut, but rather welding through the hole.

But yes, the electrics would be at risk and are quite expensive.

 

In order to get good penetration while welding trough the hole, you need to use high-current and solid electrode. That will raise the temperature of welded nut over 1400 F. Do you know melting point of aluminum?

 

In order to get good penetration while welding trough the hole, you need to use high-current and solid electrode. That will raise the temperature of welded nut over 1400 F. Do you know melting point of aluminum?

Aluminium — Melting Point: 933.47 K (660.32 °C, 1220.58 °F)

Forget that just use his Fork lift

 

5 broken bolts & 1 lug wrench

Now I have a total of 5 broken bolts & 1 broken lug wrench 2 on the RR & 3 on the LR. Was able to get 3 bolts out so far & 2 to go

 

...

 

That sound quite serious 007. You didn't explain who torqued your wheels last time. For a job like that investing in 3/4" impact gun might make lot of sense.

 

last time they were torqued was about 2 1/2 yrs ago at goodyear tires. have been working on it since yesterday. well I guess I'll be going back to work on the car.

 

I think this tale of woe is a good lesson to us all to reinforce (for a different reason) the importance of regular tire rotation... 2-1/2 years in Jersey the threads are simply bonded to the hubs.

 

Pushing with a breaker bar will provide torque as well as a large force to the side. Is it perhaps less likely to break these bolts when using an impact wrench?

 

Ug!!!

I had this happen twice already. First one tire shop and then another.

As Greg mentioned, leaving them go too long without rotation is a bad bad idea.

In both cases, I was replacing a set of tires, and the shop sheered them off, then spent over 2 hours drilling them out. Even though it seems counter-intuitive, although they sheer off, the remaining bolt is something like airline grade aluminum, i.e. denser then a black hole.

In addition to that, the wrench monkey heavily damaged the wheel finish surrounding the hole because he couldn't steady the drill. Luckily I bought a second set from another forum member, so I only have to look at it in the winter.

I've had good luck doing my own wheel changes with an 80lb wrench, but at some point a shop will be needed to mount new rubber, so I'm wondering how to ensure this won't happen a third time.

 

Pushing with a breaker bar will provide torque as well as a large force to the side. Is it perhaps less likely to break these bolts when using an impact wrench?

This worked out very badly when it happened on our E320 this April. The wheels were off the car last October, and torqued properly. It just happens sometimes. Don't use a breaker bar. The tire shop I was at used a 4 foot breaker bar, and it lived up to its name. They broke the head right off the nut. I had another seized one in a different wheel, and I stopped him from using the bar, and took it up to my mechanic.

With the seized bolt, he took a large metal tap and just pounded on it against the top of the nut with a heavy hammer. He did this maybe 8 or 10 times in a row. He then used a 18 inch breaker bar and removed it fairly easily. By striking the head of the bolt several times he "shocked" the threads into releasing. He's done this successfully numerous times.

We weren't as lucky with the bolt that had the head broken off. He tried everything he could think of but the end result was removing the bolt with a cutting torch. It messed up the rim, unfortunately, and it couldn't be repaired.

The lesson from this is that if you have a seized bolt, don't try more torque. Try shocking the threads of the bolt with several sharp strikes from a large punch and hammer.

 

I've had good luck doing my own wheel changes with an 80lb wrench, but at some point a shop will be needed to mount new rubber, so I'm wondering how to ensure this won't happen a third time.

Get the upgraded bolt, as gregs210 mentioned in his post on the first page. The upgraded bold doesn't have that section between the seat bowl and the bolt head. That section is what twists and breaks off. When my mechanic had to cut off the broken bolt he had a replacement set for me right there. Its cheap insurance.

 

Last I heard, the shorter replacement bolts ran something like $130 for a set of 20. Is that correct?

Awful lot of money for bolts.

 

Last I heard, the shorter replacement bolts ran something like $130 for a set of 20. Is that correct?

Awful lot of money for bolts.

Yeah, that sounds about right. I think my set was $160 Canadian. The rim I had to buy to replace the messed up one was $357. Plus there was the labour cost of paying my mechanic to remove the bolt. I change my tires over twice a year, from summer to winter and reverse. If the $160 saves me two hours of labour over the next several years, I break even. If it saves me another rim, I'm ahead by $200.

 

If you need bolts in the future, get them from RAD USA. Got mine shipped to my door for about $80. Quality bolts, made in Germany.