Milners Wheel Stud

Hi Guys, Ordered a wheel stud from Milners on Friday and it came yesterday but I am a little dubious about the quality and size of the splined bit. I used the method I was taught when I was 7 to put the new one in. Line it up and wind on a nut with some washers behind it and it should pull through. Is this right. Obviously the splined part looks to be bigger than the original as the hole has stripped away some of it. But the main thing I am most shocked at is that it snapped, I was putting much less effort into turning the nut than I would tightening them up when putting wheels on. So what do you think. Try Milners again or go to Mr.T

Hi Chris

There does look like a difference in size, I think the first thing to ask did you order the right stud ?
But assuming you did I guess they supplied the wrong one to you so I would measure the splined hole,
and the spline of the bolt, and contact Milners and tell them what happened and get them to measure
the rest of the bolts they have on the shelf.

I'd get straight on to Milner's because nobody would deliberately sell anything that weak you would probably be doing them a favour as it might have come from a new supplier . Makes sense that Milners would quickly replace the stud with a genuine part which will save you from being robbed by Toyota .

Some of the staff at milners are really really helpful. Then there are some of the others. Rang them this morning and all I got was an earful of abuse. As it turns out because of the postage I ended up paying as much for the stud as I would have from Mr.T when you factor the postage. They will only refund me the cost of the part and not the postage and only if I post it back. The woman on the phone was not interested in the fact that the main reason for the call was just to inform them that the size was wrong so they didn't have any problems in the future.

In total contrast the guy I spoke to on Friday when I ordered it couldn't have been more helpful and nice.

Won't be getting a refund as I am not sending it back for £1.20. It'll cost me that in the post.

FYI £7.08 from Toyota

Hi Chris

Sorry to hear that, Not a very good customer services, and with that sort of response I will not be buying from them soon !

pretty rubbish response from Milner but about what we've come to expect from them I'm afraid.

It all depends who you speak to. The office staff don't like you talking to the sales counter. There's a bit of politics there I feel. I am happy to speak to Carl about this if we can summarise it. The stud looks wrong - clearly and I'm going to ask - because he will, why did you try to fit it? There are tow points here - accuracy of the part supplied against the part needed and then quality of the part. I fully agree that snapping studs are a concern. They need to be told. If this had simply snapped whilst putting a wheel on it would be pretty straight forward. Failing whilst being fitted (wrong part) is a little more tricky. It's always going to be an 'Oh no I didn't - oh yes you did' argument.

I get very different service from them, becuase I never speak to the people in the office. I took my busted CVs back and Carl is shipping them back to Japan for examination. He knows I off road and could simply have said 'abuse - no chance' but he didn't. Trust me whan I say that he and others truly value our custom and what we think about parts. I am testing some brake pads for him at the moment (really impressed so far I have to say). Several of the parts they now stock are as a result of us asking for them. But, I don't know what their quality control on products is in relation to safety. Wheel studs are pretty crucial unlike a wiper blade for eg.

I can talk to him about the subject in general if you like. I think I should.

Chris

Even if he did try to fit the wrong part , and even if he used a 6ft scaffold pole to try to force it in (not saying he did just being hypothetical) surely the threads should have given up before the stud itself snapped ? It's a quality issue regardless in my mind .

Was it the wrong size or is it such soft material it has deformed instead of pulling through cleanly? Can't really tell for sure from the pictures needs measuring against the old one really?

I won't buy anything even remotely critical from Milner, too many quality problems and then they'll tell you tough luck get lost.

TBH Chris I didn't have the original one. When I knocked it out it rolled down the drain. Should be more careful. The threads etc are the same size and the splined part only seems to be about 1mm out which I couldn't see by eye. so it looked about right. The material is clearly quite soft as it only took a little pressure my standard 9ish inch ratchet.

By all means Chris If you wish to speak to him that's fine feel free to tell him who I am and point him in the direction of this thread if you feel it will have any bearing. As I said in the first place this was less about getting any money back and more about stopping them having any other unhappy customers in the future with the same issue. but the response I got was "we sell hundreds.

Will do.

Chris

Well I sent Milners an email and part of that reply was this

Hi Chris

Every now and again we get the odd stud snap (normally from customers using the air guns !) I don't know why this is. We have had genuine studs before we had these made and we have had them snap also.
We can supply the man a new stud no problem. We don't really have a clever answer why this happens I think its just one of those things
We must sell over 6000 studs a year all over the world if we had a problem I would expect bucket loads of s**t

I have forwarded your e-mail to one of the directors and let them have a look at the manner this was delt with.
Any problems tell him to ring up ref you and ask for me.

I did tell him the story as told on here. OK does this answer the whole thing? No, but it shows that there are people there who take it seriously, but unfortunately they aren't the ones running the company. I can't really answer the question about the part being right or not. I didn't buy it nor pack it so I can't say. I have fitted some before and they have been fine. Have to say that the ones we fitted to Ben's 70 were tight but they went in.

Chris

All my wheel studs are now milners, and as Chris says above, they were a bloody tight fit!

They certainly wouldn't have pulled through with a nut, or knocked in with a hammer.

They went in with 10+ tonnes of pressure, but even then they didnt pop straight in.

If I needed studs again, I'd try genuine next time.

From what the photos show it looks like there may be two or even three small pockets of impurity in the bolt where it snapped. I would like to think that the splines should be weaker than the cross sectional area of the bolt so by rights they should deform. Having said all that they do look a tad too wide so perhaps there is a tolerance issue with the manufacturing side of things. I guess thats why we have six wheel studs instead of two....

I rather think those marks are where it was battered to get it back out of the hub after it had snapped

C