01c - Lugnuts Detail

This picture compares the Gorilla spline drive lugnut (foreground, on the left), and the McGard wheel lock (foreground, on the right).

- Instead of a conventional hex head, the spline drive uses uniformly spaced splines. This makes it theft-resistant however the spline spacing is not unique, so someone else with a spline key (the long dark gray cylinder on the left) may be able to loosen your spline drive lug nuts.

- A wheel lock uses a patterned key to drive the lug, located at the top. Since the keys are randomly generated it is much less likely that someone else has your key. The long sleeve on the McGard key (the long shiny cylinder on the right) keeps the key aligned while tightening/loosening the lock.

Most aftermarket alloy wheels use a cone lugnut seat, although Toyota alloy wheels use a shank lugnut and a washer.

I use a Gorilla Automotive 1721 Telescoping Power Wrench for better leverage.