Center Cap Installation

Well, it's clear I've gone senile when it comes to cars. I may have once taken apart and put together MG-TD's with little more than a crescent wrench, a screwdriver, and a couple of whitworth wrenches. And replaced the engine on my '61 chevy ...

But having just put an extra set of OEM 15" Toyota wheels with new snow tires on my car, I cannot for the life of me get the center caps to go on without damaging them and having them not be all the way on. I tried lining them up and hitting with hand ... result, one bent plastic hook. Tried another way, same result.

So, who can kindly tell me what the #^@@# I'm doing wrong and how to get them on in one piece.

Thanks!

 

I looked at the back of the center caps on the oem wheels (2009 Touring), and they look different than the ones I bought to have a set for the snow tires wheels. I don't see, on back of the oem touring center caps, the protruding plastic hooks with a circular wire inside their slots. Instead, they look like press fit full plastic circular structure sized to slip inside the the hole in the rim.

My snow tires are on oem 15" wheels, not touring tires if that makes a difference.

Each time I've tried to press-fit the center caps with plastic hooks, they refuse to go in, and one of the hooks gets bent.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong or whether I have the wrong caps?

Thanks.