[DaveNP]

With the number of people saying how they have a set of nice alloys for their summer tyres and a set of steel wheels for their winters I think it's worth sharing this story.
My wife went to visit her mother and brother at the weekend and he told her about something that happened while he was out walking the dog. As he was walking through the village he heard a crunch which didn't sound too healthy, as he continued walking with the dog he could hear a woman crying loudly, there obviously was a problem so he went to find out what was happening, rounding a corner he found the woman standing by her car sobbing and quite hysterical because the wheel(s) had fallen off of her car. Being a small village he tends to know a lot of people so he took her to a nearby house where she could go in and calm down then returned to her car, he is a trained mechanic. It turned out that the ladies husband had swapped the summer alloys for a set of winter steel wheels but had not realised that on that car the wheel bolts/nuts had to be changed too, the poor woman had driven it round the M25 earlier in the day but fortunately was going relatively slowly when the bolts had failed.
The tale having been relayed to me by my wife has lost a bit of detail such as make of car and quite how many wheels had fallen off and the nature of the failure of the bolts, and as far as I'm aware Volvo use the same bolts for alloys and steel wheels (whereas my son's Peugeot uses different shaped ones, about £64 for a set from the main dealers), but if you're thinking of getting a second set of wheels do check that you don't need another set of bolts too.