# 'Tommy Bar' (guidance tool for tire changing)



## blue01 (May 27, 2002)

*Wheel change bolt PN*

Hello,
I just saw Phaetons come equipped with this special tool
that helps when mounting wheels, so I'd like to get one,
so I ask you for the part number. Hope the pic owner
doesn't mind I used it for this post.
Thank you.


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## OEMplus.com (May 27, 2003)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (blue01)*

Great catch! I would assume this is the "Tommy Bar", but Michael can probably confirm. If it is, the p/n would be 893 012 223 and it's included in the Phaeton wheel change kit...


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## jimay (Aug 1, 2006)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (blue01)*

I'd get one if you are interested in keeping your car in museum condition with all original everything.
I would not get one if you actually want to use it. Mine is made of plastic. I have had to use it about three times. The threads don't fit well. The peg sags as you use it and usually falls out. Those tires and wheels are heavy. You'd be better off using anything else, a pencil, your finger, one of the bolts...
What I now do is eyeball align a bolt hole by rotating the wheel and adjusting the jack until I can get a bolt to catch and screw in straight. I don't tighten this bolt. I still need some maneuvering space. Then I jack the car up a little and finish the job as you would if the peg worked.


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## pirateat50 (Dec 10, 2005)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (blue01)*

It's pretty much a worthless piece of plastic that is totally incapable of supporting the weight of a rim and tire. Mine stripped out the first time I used it. 
Anyone want to have some turned and threaded from a decent metal? You'd have a market here.


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## henna gaijin (Jun 30, 2005)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (jimay)*


_Quote, originally posted by *pirateat50* »_It's pretty much a worthless piece of plastic that is totally incapable of supporting the weight of a rim and tire. Mine stripped out the first time I used it. 
Anyone want to have some turned and threaded from a decent metal? You'd have a market here.

If the Phaeton and Touareg bolts are the same thread, why not get the Touareg Tommy Bar - it is made of aluminum and stands up quite well to regular use. It is a very robust part.
VW part# for the Touareg "Tommy Bar" is 7L0012223.
HTH
ETA: The Touareg Wheel Bolt spec is M14X1,5X27 



_Modified by henna gaijin at 11:07 AM 10-21-2006_


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## OEMplus.com (May 27, 2003)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (OEMpl.us)*

Thanks Henna! I ordered one today and should have it in a few days. MSRP is $10, so no reason not to carry one all the time!


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## pirateat50 (Dec 10, 2005)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (henna gaijin)*


_Quote, originally posted by *henna gaijin* »_
If the Phaeton and Touareg bolts are the same thread, why not get the Touareg Tommy Bar - it is made of aluminum and stands up quite well to regular use. It is a very robust part.
VW part# for the Touareg "Tommy Bar" is 7L0012223.
HTH
ETA: The Touareg Wheel Bolt spec is M14X1,5X27 
Thanks, Henna! Will do!
_Modified by henna gaijin at 11:07 AM 10-21-2006_


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## PanEuropean (Nov 3, 2001)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (blue01)*

I didn't have any problems using the hard plastic 'wheel bolt guide' when I changed a tire on my Phaeton last summer. It was pretty obvious to me that the plastic device was meant as a guide only, to facilitate lining up the other bolts, and not as a 'hanger' that was intended to support the full weight of the wheel.
The original thread that shows where this part is, how it is used, etc. can be found here: How to change a flat tire on a Phaeton. The part number for the original Phaeton guide piece (called a 'Tommy Bar' for some unknown reason) is 893 012 223.
Michael


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## PanEuropean (Nov 3, 2001)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (henna gaijin)*


_Quote, originally posted by *henna gaijin* »_The Touareg Wheel Bolt spec is M14X1,5X27

That is the same as the wheel bolt specification for the Phaeton.
Michael


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## OEMplus.com (May 27, 2003)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (PanEuropean)*

The Touareg Tommy Bar arrived today and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with it. I tried it out on our new Eurovan and the thread pattern matched perfectly. Michael has confirmed above that the Phaeton is also M14x1.5, so there are no problems with them either!
We have it listed on the site now, but since it's only $10 at your local dealer I don't recommend buying it from us unless you're getting other products at the same time or just don't mind the shipping costs being added to that price.








_Pic is clickable..._



_Modified by OEMpl.us at 10:24 AM 2-22-2008_


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## PanEuropean (Nov 3, 2001)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (OEMpl.us)*


_Quote, originally posted by *OEMpl.us* »_...Michael has confirmed above that the Phaeton is also M14x1.5, so there are no problems with them either...

Well, no problems in the sense that the Touareg part (the metal one) fits into the Phaeton wheel hub perfectly, but a minor problem does exist - the Touareg one is considerably longer than the Phaeton one, and as a result, it does not fit into the recess provided for it in the foam liner that holds the tools in the spare tire well.
I bought one of these Touareg Tommy Bars (just ordered it from my VW dealer), and it is a neat little tool. Because I do my own wheel rotations and summer-winter tire changeovers, and because I am not an expert at doing this work, I am happy that I bought the metal part... I think it will last longer than the plastic part. But, for the average Phaeton owner, who will only use the tool when changing a flat tire, I don't think there is any real advantage in purchasing the metal one. The hard plastic one provided with the Phaeton will, I am sure, be good for a half dozen flat tire changes, at least...
Michael
*Phaeton vs. Touareg Tommy Bar*








*Tommy Bar Stowage in Phaeton*










_Modified by PanEuropean at 8:08 AM 2-22-2008_


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## jimay (Aug 1, 2006)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (PanEuropean)*

Now that there is a real tommy bar.


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## menace1930 (Jun 7, 2005)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (jimay)*

check out http://www.ecstuning.com I bought mine there for my Jetta


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## PanEuropean (Nov 3, 2001)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (menace1930)*

Photos re-hosted.


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## Zaphh (Jul 5, 2008)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (PanEuropean)*


_Quote, originally posted by *PanEuropean* »_
Well, no problems in the sense that the Touareg part (the metal one) fits into the Phaeton wheel hub perfectly, but a minor problem does exist - the Touareg one is considerably longer than the Phaeton one, and as a result, it does not fit into the recess provided for it in the foam liner that holds the tools in the spare tire well.
...


Err... I think it would only take a couple of seconds to shorten it to the correct length with a hacksaw. You can drill a hole before if you want to, then, cut it, and round the end off with a file...
That's really no big job...
P.


_Modified by Zaphh at 10:02 PM 4-13-2009_


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## Auzivision (Apr 19, 2007)

*Re: Wheel change bolt PN (Zaphh)*

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=4341754
It should be noted in this thread that at least a couple people found out the hard way that the threads on the Tommy tool can easily get cross threaded and strip out if too much wheel weight gets applied. While the intent is to act as a guide to help line up the holes, it's sometime difficult to not inadvertently let the weight hang on the peg. 
I've never really had that much difficulty line these up without the tool; just seemed like a handy addition to the tool box. After what I went through, I wouldn’t recommend this product.


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## rangsudh (Mar 20, 2013)

Just to second what everybody found out the hard way.

The very first time I used the plastic guide, it failed, even though I was aware of the possibility thanks to this thread.

As the wheel is quite heavy, it was difficult to remove it without accidentally putting a little weight on the plastic guide. The guide promptly *snapped off* with the threaded part left inside the hub. It was then a devil of a time (and money) to get that piece out.

It is absolutely imperative that ALL Phaeton owners replace their plastic guide with a metal one from ecstuning (Shwaben) or Amazon (Lisle) or VW (Touareg). The metal ones are a tad longer but it is easy to cut and extend the slot in the foam tray by a bit to accomodate it. I would request the moderators to make this thread part of the TOC so all Phaeton owners can get this $10 part and save themselves $100 and daus of aggravation.


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## 53PL-50AAA-VW611BAN (Feb 10, 2015)

rangsudh said:


> Just to second what everybody found out the hard way.
> 
> The very first time I used the plastic guide, it failed, even though I was aware of the possibility thanks to this thread.
> 
> ...


A member here has made aluminum ones in the past. I bought two from him. I don't know if he wants to make more. I'll let him decide.

I think the aftermarket companies should make them the same size as the one they are designed to replace, not longer so you have to carve out space for them. 

The pin is barely mentioned in the owner's manual. (It's called a pin on the page about tools.)

It's not supposed to support the weight of the wheel in the first place. It's just there to help locate the wheel when you put the spare on. The wheel is never supposed to hang from it. It could be made of cardboard to do its job but would probably turn to mush if you used it in the rain.

Removing the wheel without the pin is easy. Once the lug bolts are removed, the wheel can come off. You don't need to locate a wheel to remove it. 

You use it when putting a wheel on the car so you can aim it properly the first time. If you have ever changed tires on a VW without the locating pin you would realize how much of a royal pain in the rear that is. Some have even converted their lug bolts to American style lugs and lug nuts. 

The wheel can stay put on the hub on my other VWs without the locating pin but it's a bit(h to line the holes up. If the Phaeton is like other VWs I own, you can hang the wheel on the hub no problem and it will stay there. I have no reason to believe that the hub is any different on a Phaeton.

I don't know why it was expensive to remove the remnants. It should have been the easiest broken-off fastener ever extracted.


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## DugSms (Apr 23, 2018)

53PL-50AAA-VW611BAN said:


> ...
> 
> I don't know why it was expensive to remove the remnants. It should have been the easiest broken-off fastener ever extracted.


Of course, you don't really even have to extract it. There's nothing behind the hub, so just threading in the lug bolt will push out the plastic left in the hole and it will fall out the back.

Not to mention, you can drive the car with only 4 lug bolts in the wheel with no adverse effects.

Edit to add:
I've removed the wheels on my phaeton at least 6 times since I've owned it (less than 2 months) and I've never used a guide pin to reinstall the wheel. As mentioned above, you just hang the wheel on the hub and rotate it around until you line up with the holes. However, I did find out that these stupid, heavy wheels will fall off quite easily, so I've debated using a guide pin, but haven't been bothered to fish it out of the trunk while I'm working. (I'm not changing the tires, just working on things so I wasn't in the trunk to begin with.)


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## n968412L (Apr 23, 2009)

DugSms said:


> Of course, you don't really even have to extract it. There's nothing behind the hub, so just threading in the lug bolt will push out the plastic left in the hole and it will fall out the back.
> 
> Not to mention, you can drive the car with only 4 lug bolts in the wheel with no adverse effects.
> 
> ...


You might well have thought so, but it broke off flush with the hub, so not possible to get the wheel bolt started. So the plastic remains needed to be extracted. And of course you can drive with only four out of the five bolts installed - probably forever - but it won't pass the UK's annual MOT test like that.

As you say, the wheels don't sit nicely on the hub. When I used to do landrover trials I was forever swapping between road and off-road tyres - and they had nice wheel studs to hang the wheel on. Wheel bolts are an abomination. I find the mandrel much much easier than trying to hold the wheel on the hub and line up the holes.


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## rangsudh (Mar 20, 2013)

Some comments:

1) Yes, I have always changed wheels without using the guide pin. When the wheel is close to the ground, it is quite possible to lift it and align it with the hub while threading in the first wheel bolt. I've done that dozens of times. However, in this particular case, the car was jacked up (not by me) such that the wheel was quite high in the air. At that point, it makes sense to use the guide pin as it is quite tricky to support the heavy wheel while also threading in the first wheel bolt. The guide pin is supplied for a reason. It exists on most VW/Audi (I have never used it on my Audi) because VAG have determined that it has a good reason to exist.

2) Yes, the guide pin is not supposed to ever have the weight of the wheel on it. It merely helps to locate the hub/bearing and wheel together. Nevertheless, the heavier the wheel, the harder it is to not inadvertently rest some weight on the pin. The situation is exacerbated when the wheel must be lifted high off the ground -- which is precisely when the pin would be most useful yet simultaneously most likely to fail. Given it is plastic, even a slight tilting of the wheel can exert great torque and snap it off. It's not just weight, the whole point of having a guide pin is so that the wheel can be rotated to the right orientation -- but that is a blind operation as one is trying to align the wheel hole with the pin which is behind the wheel. Hence any sideways movement or rotation of the wheel can also snap the pin.

3) When it snapped, it did not snap flush, it broke off with a concave surface. Hence nothing protruding to grip. The plastic is also rather soft, so getting a tool in there to torque it back out merely damages the plastic.

4) The threads on the plastic tool are not cut, they are formed as part of the molding of the pin. Hence, as usually happens, they are of poor tolerance and are a tight fit into the metal threads. Not at all easy to get out once snapped. If anybody has any doubts, I suggest snapping it off on your own car and then proving how easy it is to extract the stuck piece  It would have been much easier to get it out had it been metal.

5) Yes, the car can be driven with 4 bolts. That's what we ultimately did, after multiple approaches failed to extract it. It was taken to an extremely competent wheel/tire/alignment shop (Custom Alignment in Mountain View, CA), who had a devil of a time getting it out and said so the instant they saw it. Charged extra labor to get it out.

6) Supplying this part in plastic was a poor decision on VW's part. It is not the aftermarket's responsibility to craft this in metal with the exact same length to fit the Phaeton foam slot. Clearly, the fact that this same part is made in metal and equipped as such in the Touareg means there is a clear benefit to using metal.

7) The Touareg OEM part seems to be a good bit longer and made of aluminum. The steel one I recommend and purchased (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HZNTDN0/) is about a centimeter longer than the plastic pin, it literally takes seconds to extend the foam cutout to accomodate it perfectly. There are also aluminum versions that are about the same length.

8) Much as I love my Phaeton, and speaking as a hardware engineer, I keep finding things like this that could have been avoided. It is NOT satisfactory to say that "Oh, well, other cars have similar issues with backed up sunroof drains; it is not reasonable to expect perfection from such an advanced 10-year old car etc.". We expect more from the Phaeton -- what use is the super air-conditioning system if other corners have been cut that keep many of these cars on a perennial repair schedule?

9) Again, speaking as an engineer, I have absolutely no problems with things like the air suspension struts failing (new technology for VAG, only implemented once before on the Audi allroad, which I also own) or coil pack failures from a new supplier. Wires degrade, injectors clog up, fluids congeal. Many things cannot be designed/tested for up front and running fixes due to field feedback are unavoidable. But it boggles me to find relatively simple things failing that have nothing to do with any special Phaeton features that have not been ironed out from experience on other cars that preceded the Phaeton.

10) As another example, the parts catalog is a little spotty and difficult to navigate for all VAG cars, including the Phaeton. Visited the dealership this morning who had the latest catalog (owner drives a Phaeton) but struggled to determine the part number of the clip I needed. (In other news, one of the parts specialists mentioned that they have yanked it now, but the original Phaeton parts listing had two front bumper rail parts listed -- one with machine gun mounts (for the Vatican) and the regular one without.)

11) If we have an article by PanEuropean about how to change a Phaeton tire, which describes the guide pin, we should also have an article warning everyone about the dangers of using said plastic pin.


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## rangsudh (Mar 20, 2013)

Just noticed that my initial post talked about snapping the pin when *removing* the wheel. Can't think why I wrote that. Obviously no pin is needed or was used to remove a wheel. The pin snapped flush when installing a wheel. Apologies for the confusion -- late at night and all that.


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## n968412L (Apr 23, 2009)

I had no trouble with my plastic pin...until the car fell off the jack when I was changing a wheel... the wheel was just flush with the hub, not started to put the first bolt in... and the damn car moved and slipped off the jack.

No excuse here. Thirty years of experience ignored in a rush... and did I pay the price. Amazing the wheel folded under the car and it came to rest with no damage at all to the car... save for the snapped pin.

Putting the stupidity of all that aside... I now have a pin bought on ebay aftermarket for an A8. It is steel and about 30mm longer than the plastic one... so I've extended the cut in the foam insert in the boot to accommodate it.

Regards

M

ps - it's not a tommy bar in the UK... that's a device for applying torque.


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## 53PL-50AAA-VW611BAN (Feb 10, 2015)

n968412L said:


> ps - it's not a tommy bar in the UK... that's a device for applying torque.


Same here in the U.S. 










Or this:














The owner's manual calls the thing in the Phaeton tool set a pin.


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## n968412L (Apr 23, 2009)

53PL-50AAA-VW611BAN said:


> Same here in the U.S.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Your first picture I think would be a crow bar or jemmy in the UK - I can see its seller calls it a tommy bar. Agree the second picture unequivocally. I wonder what the etymology is...


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## 53PL-50AAA-VW611BAN (Feb 10, 2015)

n968412L said:


> Your first picture I think would be a crow bar or jemmy in the UK - I can see its seller calls it a tommy bar. Agree the second picture unequivocally. I wonder what the etymology is...


We call it a crow bar also. 

I think it depends on the region in the U.S. as to what some common things are called. I always called the storage boxes in dashboards "glove boxes" but my uncle who is from the same state called it a "jockey box". I had to ask if he meant that thing with the door on it in the dashboard.


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