Lug Driller Tool Kit - CTA Manufacturing 1775

First, I'm a professional technician at an independent Euro shop. I bought this kit to remove locking lug bolts on an Audi after the customer lost the key. CTA claims that this kit can remove locking lugs in 8-13 minutes per lug. I spent roughly an hour removing one lug bolt, and 30-35 minutes of that was spent drilling. Can this kit be used to remove locking lugs? Yes. Does it make the job simple, quick and easy? Not in the slightest. Here's what they don't tell you: 1: This kit is not designed to handle over 110ft-lbs of torque. The OEM specification for this vehicle was 89ft-lbs. If the tire shop over-tightens your wheel bolts, you would be screwed. 2: The drill bits are supposed to be run at 300rpm max. My Milwaukee M18 drill runs 500rpm with the trigger all the way down, so you have to hold the trigger roughly half way to keep the speed low enough to prevent burning up these bits. In the video demo from CTA, they make it look like these will drill into the lug bolts quickly with little effort. That is not the case at all. It took a good 10-20 minute of careful drilling and applying cutting oil to get through the hardened part of the lug bolt, then another 10 minutes or so to drill deep enough to hammer in the extractor 3: The extractors are basically single use, so be ready to buy replacement parts (probably drill bits too). They do include a tool to remove them from the stud, but it didn't work at all in my case. I quickly came to the conclusion that I would be cheaper to order a new extractor than to fight with it. 4: The drill guides do not work for all applications. None of the included guides fit the OEM Audi locking bolts that I was removing. In conclusion: If you're in a jam and have absolutely no other way to get the lugs off, this kit could work, but be prepared to spend a lot of time and effort if you have to remove a whole set of lockers. I would recommend pricing it at an hour per wheel.