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Loading...Seven wheel locks, from a $15 White Knight set to a $90 Advanced Wheel Lock system, were torqued to 100 ft-lb and then attacked the way a wheel thief would attack them. Every set is 12 mm x 1.5, and every set faced the same sequence: a high-quality pair of locking pliers, used first on a factory wheel that allows only about 200 degrees of access and then on an open-rim wheel with a full 360; an undersized socket hammered on; a universal removal tool and a lug nut extractor socket of the sort sold over the counter for around $40; a spring-loaded universal socket; a spiral screw extractor; and finally a $140 handheld inverter welder used to weld a nut onto the lock. A second, undamaged set of each went into a hydrogen peroxide, vinegar and salt bath alongside the damaged locks to see how well the plating held up.
Nothing here is unbeatable, and that is the point of the exercise. The extractor socket took four of the seven off in about 20 seconds apiece, regardless of how hard the steel was or how good the plating looked — but two designs stopped it dead. The free-spinning collar on the $36 Gorilla and the tapered, heat-treated Advanced Wheel Lock both turned away every hand tool tried against them, and it took a welder to get either one off. A wheel lock buys time and forces a thief to bring a specific tool; what separates these sets is how much time, and how specific the tool has to be.
Fit comes before security with wheel locks. The diameter and the thread pitch have to match the lug nuts being replaced — the "12" and the "1.5" on this packaging mean 12 mm and a 1.5 thread pitch, which is the size of every set tested here. The thread depth of the lock also has to be deeper than the thread length of the stud, and the outside diameter has to be narrow enough to clear the wheel. That last point is not academic: the White Knight's wide body left no room for a socket alongside it inside a factory wheel.
Best Performance
$90 per set
Purchased for: $90
Made In: USA
$90 a set, made in the USA from heat-treated alloy, with a patented key-plate system offered in a very large number of key configurations. No hand tool in this comparison removed it. Locking pliers could not find traction on the tapered profile on either the factory wheel or the open rim, and left almost no visible damage; no socket would drive onto that taper; the extractor socket could not gain a grip; the spiral screw extractor was a non-starter. It came off only after a nut was welded to it with a handheld inverter welder. Its plating was also the best of the group, showing no visible corrosion in the salt-and-acid bath.
Beat locking pliers on both wheels, every socket tried against it, the extractor socket and the spiral screw extractor. Only a welded-on nut removed it, and it showed no visible corrosion.
Best Value
$36 per set
Purchased for: $36
Made In: Taiwan
$36 for the two-stage Gorilla, whose upper stage spins freely to shield the lower stage from removal tools. It is the only set besides the $90 Advanced Wheel Lock that beat the purpose-made tools: an extractor socket had nothing to bite on, and a spiral screw extractor was equally useless. Inside a factory wheel the locking pliers could not reach the lower stage either. Its weakness is soft metal and an open wheel — on the open rim the pliers had it loose in about a minute and left clear teeth marks, and a 6-point socket driven deep enough to capture both stages took it off in 35 seconds rather than the usual 20. Only a welded-on nut finished it in the factory-wheel setup.
The free-spinning upper stage stopped both the extractor socket and the spiral screw extractor cold. Pliers needed an open-rim wheel and about a minute; a deep-driven 6-point socket took 35 seconds.
Best Low Cost
$19 per set
Purchased for: $19
Made In: USA
$19 and the only USA-made set under $90 here, finished with several layers of nickel and a layer of microporous chrome and a narrow pattern groove meant to keep removal tools out of the pattern. The plating earned its keep against locking pliers: the jaws could not sink in on the factory wheel or on the open rim, and even with full leverage the lock came away with very little damage — one of only two in the group the pliers never turned. Sockets were another matter. A correctly sized socket broke it loose in under 20 seconds, destroying the socket's own points in the process, and an extractor socket took about 20 seconds and left deep tooth marks. It corroded noticeably less than the White Knight, Dorman and Tavaski.
USA-made, with plating hard enough to turn away the locking pliers on both wheels and destroy the points of the socket used against it — though that socket still had it loose in under 20 seconds.
| Name | Purchased for ($) | Link | Made In | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White Knight | $15.00 | Search on Amazon | China | |
The least expensive set here at $15, in 12 mm x 1.5 like everything else tested. Its body is wide enough that no socket would fit alongside it inside a factory wheel, which is the only attack it turned away on that wheel; on an open-rim wheel a 6-point socket carved straight through the soft metal and had it loose in about 30 seconds. Locking pliers bit into it easily and broke it free in a minute, leaving heavy damage, and a universal removal tool took it off in about 20 seconds. A spiral screw extractor made short work of it as well. Where the plating had been chewed up, it showed heavy corrosion within a day in a hydrogen peroxide, vinegar and salt bath. | ||||
| Dorman | $18.00 | Search on Amazon | China | |
$18 for four locks and one key, with a free-spinning outer collar and a corrosion-resistance claim. That collar is the most effective delaying feature in the group: every successful attack began by drilling it off with a self-tapping sheet metal screw, roughly a two-minute job on its own. With locking pliers the whole removal took 2 minutes 30 seconds, and the socket route ran to about five minutes once a pair of nails had to be wedged between an oversized socket and the nut. With an extractor socket the nut itself gave way in 20 seconds after the collar was off. A spring-loaded universal socket managed to strip the collar but never turned the nut. Corrosion on the damaged lock was about the same as the White Knight's. | ||||
| McGard | $19.00 | Search on Amazon | USA | |
$19 and the only USA-made set under $90 here, finished with several layers of nickel and a layer of microporous chrome and a narrow pattern groove meant to keep removal tools out of the pattern. The plating earned its keep against locking pliers: the jaws could not sink in on the factory wheel or on the open rim, and even with full leverage the lock came away with very little damage — one of only two in the group the pliers never turned. Sockets were another matter. A correctly sized socket broke it loose in under 20 seconds, destroying the socket's own points in the process, and an extractor socket took about 20 seconds and left deep tooth marks. It corroded noticeably less than the White Knight, Dorman and Tavaski. | ||||
| Tavaski | $21.00 | Search on Amazon | China | |
$21, machined from hardened steel with triple nickel-chromium plating. Like the McGard, the coating and the hardness are a real step up from the cheaper sets: on a factory wheel the locking pliers could not get a grip on it at all. Give the pliers 360 degrees of access on an open-rim wheel and the advantage disappears — under 30 seconds to break it loose, with only minor scratches to show for it. A 12-point socket had it turning in about 20 seconds without damaging the socket, and an extractor socket did the same in 20 seconds, leaving deep tooth marks. In the corrosion bath the damaged lock rusted about as much as the White Knight and the Dorman. | ||||
| Gorilla (Small Diameter) | $26.00 | Search on Amazon | Taiwan | |
$26 for the small-diameter Gorilla set, hardened steel with triple chrome plating. The narrow body is useful for wheels with tight lug pockets, but the locking pattern sits on the outside of the nut, and that is exactly what a removal tool wants: locking pliers found it the easiest lock in the group to grab and left quite a bit of damage. The socket method needed two attempts to find the right socket and then took about 20 seconds, with no damage to the socket and plenty to the lock — the metal is soft. An extractor socket had it off in about 20 seconds for the same reason. | ||||
| Gorilla (Free Spinning) | $36.00 | Search on Amazon | Taiwan | |
$36 for the two-stage Gorilla, whose upper stage spins freely to shield the lower stage from removal tools. It is the only set besides the $90 Advanced Wheel Lock that beat the purpose-made tools: an extractor socket had nothing to bite on, and a spiral screw extractor was equally useless. Inside a factory wheel the locking pliers could not reach the lower stage either. Its weakness is soft metal and an open wheel — on the open rim the pliers had it loose in about a minute and left clear teeth marks, and a 6-point socket driven deep enough to capture both stages took it off in 35 seconds rather than the usual 20. Only a welded-on nut finished it in the factory-wheel setup. | ||||
| Advanced Wheel Lock | $90.00 | Search on Amazon | USA | |
$90 a set, made in the USA from heat-treated alloy, with a patented key-plate system offered in a very large number of key configurations. No hand tool in this comparison removed it. Locking pliers could not find traction on the tapered profile on either the factory wheel or the open rim, and left almost no visible damage; no socket would drive onto that taper; the extractor socket could not gain a grip; the spiral screw extractor was a non-starter. It came off only after a nut was welded to it with a handheld inverter welder. Its plating was also the best of the group, showing no visible corrosion in the salt-and-acid bath. | ||||
Lower is better
Six of the seven sets fall between $15 and $36, and within that band price tracked plating quality more closely than it tracked security: the $15 White Knight and $18 Dorman corroded heavily once their finish was damaged, while the $19 McGard held up better. The $90 Advanced Wheel Lock sits on its own, two and a half times the next most expensive set, and it is the only one that no hand tool removed.
Seconds of work with locking pliers before the wheel lock broke loose; higher is better
The Dorman held out longest at 2 minutes 30 seconds, though nearly all of that was drilling out its spinning collar with a self-tapping screw — once the collar was gone the nut came off quickly. The White Knight fell in a minute on the factory wheel, while the Tavaski and the free-spinning Gorilla held on until an open-rim wheel gave the jaws a full 360 degrees of purchase, then went in 30 seconds and about a minute. The McGard and the Advanced Wheel Lock were the only two the pliers could not turn on either wheel, and both came away with barely a mark.
| Rank | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dorman | 150 |
| 2 | White Knight | 60 |
| 3 | Gorilla (Free Spinning) | 60 |
| 4 | Tavaski | 30 |
Seconds to hammer an undersized socket onto the lock and break it loose; higher is better
Driving an undersized socket on is the crudest method here and one of the most effective: everything it worked on was off in 35 seconds or less except the Dorman, whose collar pushed the total to about five minutes once a pair of nails had to be wedged between an oversized socket and the nut. The free-spinning Gorilla cost an extra 15 seconds because the socket had to be driven deep enough to capture both stages, and the McGard destroyed the points of the socket used against it and still came loose in under 20 seconds. Nothing in the socket drawer would turn the Advanced Wheel Lock, whose taper and hardness leave nothing to grip.
| Rank | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dorman | 300 |
| 2 | Gorilla (Free Spinning) | 35 |
| 3 | White Knight | 30 |
| 4 | McGard | 20 |
| 5 | Tavaski | 20 |
| 6 | Gorilla (Small Diameter) | 20 |
Seconds to remove the lock with a purpose-made wheel lock removal tool; higher is better
Purpose-made wheel lock removal tools are stocked over the counter at auto parts stores and sold as a set at Harbor Freight for around $40, and they take a lock off in seconds — steel hardness and plating quality counted for nothing here, with four sets off in about 20 seconds each. The reverse spiral flutes on the extractor bit into every one of them; the Dorman's 2 minutes 20 seconds is almost entirely the time taken to strip its collar first. The free-spinning Gorilla and the Advanced Wheel Lock were the two this tool could not turn: the Gorilla because its outer stage simply spins, and the Advanced because its taper gives the flutes no shoulder to grab.
| Rank | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dorman | 140 |
| 2 | White Knight | 20 |
| 3 | McGard | 20 |
| 4 | Tavaski | 20 |
| 5 | Gorilla (Small Diameter) | 20 |
The Advanced Wheel Lock system was the only set in the group that no hand tool removed. Locking pliers found no traction on its tapered profile on either wheel, no socket would drive onto it, the extractor socket could not bite, and the spiral screw extractor was a non-starter — it came off only after a nut was welded to it with a $140 inverter welder. Its plating also came through the corrosion bath with no visible rust. At $90 a set it costs two and a half times the next most expensive product here, and that is the whole of the argument against it.
The Gorilla (Free Spinning) at $36 is the value pick, and the only other set that stopped the purpose-made removal tools. Its upper stage spins freely, so the extractor socket and the spiral screw extractor had nothing to work against, and inside a factory wheel the pliers could not reach the lower stage either. Its weakness is soft metal on an open wheel: the pliers had it loose in about a minute there, and a 6-point socket driven deep enough to capture both stages took 35 seconds. For a low-cost set, the McGard at $19 is the pick — USA-made, with plating hard enough that it and the Advanced Wheel Lock were the only two the pliers could not turn on either wheel, and hard enough to destroy the points of the socket used against it.
The corrosion bath sorted the group along much the same lines. Where the plating had been chewed up by pliers and sockets, the White Knight, Dorman and Tavaski all rusted heavily within a day, the McGard noticeably less, and the Advanced Wheel Lock not at all. The broader point applies to every lock on this list: a $40 extractor socket will take four of these seven off in about 20 seconds, so none of them will stop someone who arrives prepared. What they do is cost a thief time and force a specific tool into their hands, and on a set of wheels worth thousands that is exactly what a deterrent is for.