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[Butts69]

Hi peps
Swapped wheels around today as fronts wearing slightly faster than rears. When removing front wheels both had seized onto brake hubs, tried all sorts of things to remove them ie hitting with rubber mallet, lump of wood, wd40, placing wood under outer edge of wheel and lowering jack, of which none worked. only way to get them off was to loosen lugs and drive back and forward braking hard. first wheel took nearly an hour to get off . found a bit of corrosion on hub face and wheel which I cleaned off with wire brush. when refitting wheels I put some copper grease on hub face to hopefully stop this in the future. was this a good idea and has anyone else had this problem if so how did you get around it.
Cheers Butts.

[Bigron]

I've never had it happen to me, but I understand from others on here that your solution is a standard technique - just loosen wheel nuts and drive like a BMW driver, accelerate wildly and brake like a pratt! 

Ron.

[Butts69]

Thought Audi driver had taken over that mantle now . read somewhere copper grease and alloys don't get on.
Cheers Butts.

[terry paget]

Every other Omega I buy has some wheels stuck on. Alloys are worse than steel wheels. First thing I do when I buy an Omega is try to get the wheels off. Some come with security wheel nuts, whcih I immediately replace with standard nuts. If any wheels are stuck on I do as you did - loosen the wheel nuts half a turn and go for a 3 mile drive; that always loosens them. Then I remove the wheels, wire brush the hub and copper grease them before reassembly. 

[Butts69]

No locking nuts on mine all standard. found driving forward and backwards on drive was enough, knowing my luck the wheels would have fallen off if I drove any further . is it a bad design on the wheels as the centre hub is very tight to centre of wheels.
Cheers Butts.

[Nick W]

No locking nuts on mine all standard. found driving forward and backwards on drive was enough, knowing my luck the wheels would have fallen off if I drove any further . is it a bad design on the wheels as the centre hub is very tight to centre of wheels.

It's not bad design, but inadequate maintenance. The wheel is supposed to be a tight fit on the hub, that is what makes them rotate concentrically. Remove the corrosion with a wire brush(use scotchbrite on the wheel), add a smear of copper grease and the problem will never reoccur.

[Butts69]

First time I've had wheels off since buying it, lady driver before . have cleaned off rust and put copper grease on. slowly getting it back up to standard. new back box, fixed scuttle leak, new plugs due to leaking scuttle causing misfire, got rid of engine electrics light by cleaning air intake pipes, waiting for oil to come from fleabay, hopefully here tomorrow, got breather sump gasket and throttle body gasket, oil and air filter on Friday so going to give it all a clean and service. then it will be onto central locking motor on drivers door and cloudy bonnet and lacquer flaking on wing and spoiler. she will be proud again
All jobs have been done though the wonderful guides on here thank you all
Cheers Butts.

[STEMO]

I guess a bad time to discover your wheels are stuck is when you have a puncture. No driving up and down the road with that.

[terry paget]

It's one more problem Omega owners face. No Omega is less than 12 years old. Many do few miles every year, and wheels are only routinely removed for tyre changes. Alloy wheels have cast in steel centres which over severAL years can rust solid on to the hubs. In earlier times servicing included moving tyres around to even up wear. Asymmetric tyres stopped that. Modern cars are so reliable that old cars get little servicing, just MOT tests and repairs to identified faults.

I wonder how tyre shops cope?

[omega2018]

copper and alu do not mix, they are at opposite ends of the galvanic table, high risk of galvanic corrosion and alu will corrode preferentially to the copper. hence never secure an aluminium sign with brass or copper fixings. 

having said that the grease element will probably prevent a galvanic circuit forming but why risk it.  i use a careful smear of lithium grease.

edit -  just read the bit about steel centres, are you sure?  I thought they were an alu alloy of some type.  they don't seem to rust.  maybe stainless? anyway if steel or stainless steel then no problem with copper grease.

[TheBoy]

I coppaslip mine for this reason, as the alloy wheel and steel hub otherwise corrode together.

[TheBoy]

It has to be a high temp grease, as my wheels, fronts in particular, get freckkin' hot.

[Webby the Bear]

Never had a problem by leaving a single wheel bolt loosely threaded in and beat living hell out of inside of the rim with my biggest dead blow hammer

[Butts69]

Thank you all for the comments and advice. I think basically the moral of the story is better maintenance I will be keeping on top of this from now on. glad I came across the problem when doing general maintenance and not on a motorway with a flat 

Cheers Butts.

[johnnydog]

In theory, hub faces should be clean /dry, without any grease. Although many use copper slip to reduce the issue of 'stuck on' wheels, other 'thinner' lubricants are better, as suggested, a high melting point grease, but only the mere thinnest of wipes, so that there is barely any on the disc / hub face. Really, copperslip should be only be applied thinly to the flange where the wheel centre sits.
Some believe a small amount of copperslip should be applied to the hub before new brake discs are fitted - again this is a no no, and the hub faces should be clean.
The reason behind this is that copperslip can cause the brake discs to run slightly out of true, and accelerate other issues such as brake judder. It's hard to comprehend that a small amount of copperslip could be a factor in these issues, but a 'smidgen' out at the hub represents a larger amount at the edge of the wheel.
I only ever put copperslip on the hub flange, not the face, and have never had an issue with a 'stuck on' alloy. A quick rub with a wire brush every wheel removal helps.