blackwolf wrote:

Today I fitted new front discs, calipers and pads to my '07 Puma DC.

Anyone who's taken the hubs off a Puma (or late TD5) will know that Landrover in their infinite wisdom changed from the old arrangement of hub nuts (an adjusting nut, tab washer, and locknut, an arrangement that has worked very well for nearly 60 years) to a system using a spacer between the bearings and a one-use-only nut, tightened to 150lbft, with a collar to stake down into a flat on the stub axle. The result of this retrograde step, done I believe solely to reduce build costs, is that the hub nut cannot be reused.

When I stockpiled the parts for this job, I foolishly didn't bother to get any hub nuts since I knew that I had four brand new ones stashed away 'just in case' I needed them. What I had forgotted until I started the job was that they came from a well-known supplier of budget spares that usually are defective in some way and were in blue packaging.

Not to worry, I thought, surely no-one could mess up something as simple as a hub nut! WRONG!

When I came to reassemble the first hub, the new nut seemed a little stiff as it went on (and no, it wasn't cross-threaded) and after about 5 turns it was clear that attemting to screw it further would cause damage. Worse, it wouldn't come off. Significant torque was required to remove it, and when it came off, so did the threads of the stub axle.

It turns out that all four brand new 'blue box' hub nuts have defective threads. I haven't yet had time to measure them to find out exactly what is wrong, but they are either the wrong pitch, or they are undersize, or the thread is not fully formed. The only good thing that a QA man could find to say about them is that they are consistently defective!

So, a trip to the dealer to get new hub nuts. Also, due to the thread damage it suffered I have now had to renew the stub axle as well.

Now it is very, very rare that I buy anything from this particular supplier, but as I was cursing this afternoon I was trying to remember if I have ever had anything from this brand which was actually totally satisfactory and did the job it was sold to do without any problems. I actually cannot remember a single part that hasn't been defective in some way, ever. The last 'blue box' item I bought was a mirror head for the Puma, and that was a s*d to fit because the retaining plate that clamps round the ball on the mirror arm wasn't the right shape and the socket head cap screw supplied had a defective head. Utter rubbish.

Morals of this story:

1) You get what you pay for (except in the case of Genuine Parts)
2) Don't expect to have a good day if you buy anything that comes in the infamous blue packaging.

It must be said that the Delphi discs and AP calipers are superb quality, and are exactly the same as those removed (including part numbers and casting numbers) and were (a) half the price of Genuine Parts and (b) approx four times the price of 'blue box' parts.

NickMc wrote:

Yep been there fortunately I didn’t wind them on, also had the lock tab washers not fit the stub axles too.