Sorry Rob, twelveteen isn't a number, but elevendy is!!! AND, it's a magic number!!!
..Morons.
lol. Yall are enough to drive somebody to drink. Some more.
Reading that Moron post I was already wondering about if you were still drinking from last night.
For all you "experts". READ under DESIGN.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lug_nut
And I quote:
"The lug's taper is normally 60 degrees (although 45 is common for wheels designed for racing applications), and is designed to center the wheel accurately on the axle, AND TO REDUCE THE TENDENCY FOR THE NUT TO LOOSEN, due to fretting induced precession, as the car is driven."
Lemmie tell you something, and then I am OUT of this ridiculous thread of complete and total misinformation. I changed my first tire in 1973. I was eight. By the time I was 19 I was an alignment man at a local tire store. I have been to so many different seminars through the years regarding tire/wheel/lugnut safety that it ran out of my ears. Some of yall come on here with so much BULLSHIT spewing out of your ignorant assed mouths and you have ZERO real world experience. You really oughtta stay on the couch with your bottle of lotion. You do no one any good with your argumentative attitude and know it all bullshit. Sorry, some of yall are good at makin yourselves sound smart, but you're just plain STUPID when you argue with FACTS.
Now, there's yall something to argue about for the next twelveteen pages......even though the FACTS have been presented. Morons.
I should have clarified, I'll give you that: The conical seat centers the wheel on the stud. The register centers the wheel on the hub.The conical seat serves more to locate the wheel and distribute the load than it does to hold the nut in.
Think: Trucks. The old Jeep and truck rims still sought a 5-lug pattern but they spread the studs out even further. Why? Because trucks and jeeps see higher loads. Your GVWR isn't increasing dramatically, but you are side-loading the wheels more, and you're more likely to push the load rating of the wheels and tires to the max.
The 5 on 4.5" was clearly strong enough for trucks! Proof? It was used into the 80's! (And not just by Dodge...Fords also used it on vans & RWD trucks, though I think 4x4's used a larger circle.)
For Jeeps (and 4x4's in general): one reason they tended to use larger bolt circles is simple--the front axle needs room to put a locking hub!
Also note: some trucks used LH thread wheel lugs until at least the late 1990's!