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Those nice free valve caps!!!!!!

6K views 9 replies 8 participants last post by  D3GGY 
#1 ·
Many of us will have been pleasantly surprised by the gift through the post from Land Rover of valve caps when we bought our cars.

I'm no longer a fan of them.

Today driving home the TPMS came up and I noticed the software update had changed the graphic since the last flat. No problem I thought, nearly home I will get the compressor out and top it up.



That's where the fun started. Could I get those nice caps off? Could I heck. Now I had heard of after market caps corroding on but I guessed that JRL would have selected ones that wouldn't do that. How wrong I was.



Had to use pliers to gently ease them of to avoid damaging the stem.



Then I thought I'd check the other tyres. I suspect they were not checked on the recent health check at the dealer, maybe because the valve caps wouldn't come off. To get new caps on I had to use the dremmel with a wire brush on it to clean up the threads.

I feel a complaint coming on.



In this photo I had already inflated the two off side tyres.

My advice to anyone who had the "free gift" is to go straight outside to see if you can take them off. Take care as snapping a stem will result in an expensive visit to the dealers.
 
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#3 ·
My advice to anyone attempting to screw threaded metal to metal where salt/corrosion/atmospheric particles could interfere over time would be to smear the threaded part with graphite grease first. Copper grease would work equally well, but doesn't cope with low temperatures as well as the aforementioned.

Bet they don't teach that at modern JLR engineering academies these days!...... :cry:
 
#4 ·
Err, I wonder why they have been given away; two explanations - they're not shifting them at £35 a set and now we find out that they corrode in place !!
Additional reasons to love Land Rover ?

Thanks for the warning D3GGy I shall be removing mine.
 
#5 ·
#6 ·
Badgerface said:
My advice to anyone attempting to screw threaded metal to metal where salt/corrosion/atmospheric particles could interfere over time would be to smear the threaded part with graphite grease first. Copper grease would work equally well, but doesn't cope with low temperatures as well as the aforementioned.

Bet they don't teach that at modern JLR engineering academies these days!...... :cry:
I learned 30 years ago when I had an alloy wheel corrode / weld itself to the rear drum on a Capri.
Ever since then, like you say, a bit of copper slip or grease on any metal to metal area like with the freebie valve caps !
ATB 👍
 
#8 ·
I don't seem to have this problem although there is evidence of some "stuff" on the threads at time, maybe because I check tyre pressures weekly with a digital gauge as the TPMS readings seem to swing around a bit and gauge readings (even though may be a little out in absolute terms) get side to side the same and front to back relatively correct.
Thanks for the post, I will keep taking my (std) caps off regularly!
 
#10 ·
So the car went in on Friday to have the stems swapped out under warranty and co-incidentally for its service.

Came back serviced and the service manager asked what caps I wanted. Most puzzled when I said what are you talking about it's supposed to be having the stems replaced.

So back up again next week, just getting stems and having the tyre fitter put them on when my new tyres go on.

Putting the same tyres on again, can't grumble at getting 42,000 miles on a set of tyres and if it wasn't for the impending cold snap I think the rears would do 50,000
 
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