To Torque or Not to Torque?

i don't measure... just good and snug. with that said, there have been members reporting breaking off the "soft" studs.

 

I have never torqued a wheel lug nut before joining this forum. Like spiderman I have done the good and snug. Just for curiosity I checked myself with a torque wrench and found I was very close to the specified torque for the Prius.

 

I began torquing lug nuts after a previous car suffered repeated warped brake rotors. Several coworkers with the same problem on the same car model indicated that it was more susceptible to warping from uneven lug torques than any previous cars they had. Once I began using a torque wrench, the problem did not repeat, so I've been doing that ever since.

 

I also had a previous car that suffered from the repeated warped brake rotors. I typically buy my tires from Sam's Club and have them rotate and balance. After a couple of trips to Sam's and repeated warped rotors I complained, along with others, to the Service Manager. Sam's has since changed from air wrenches to Torque Sticks for mounting the tires. I have never had a problem since.

On this same car, when I would change brake pads or rotors and and replace the tires and wheel nuts I would never have a problem with the rotors warping. Sam's was using that air wrench with the torque set too high.

 

I've never had any bad experience with torquing down the lug nuts without a torque wrench. But it doesn't hurt to get the same torque specs on each lug nut to prevent any future problems. Torque wrenches are inexpensive and a great tool for us who are worried about over torquing.

 

I've always torqued lug nuts. And anything else with a torque value, and accesable to the torque wrench. Well, except for the little M6 bolts (10 mm socket), light duty fasteners.

Lug nuts on our Honda's were always 80 ft/lb's. The current Prius is 75. Our daughter's Pilot is something like 95. They vary, and I don't trust myself to have "perfect pitch", LOL.

 

If 75 foot pounds feels about right to you, then by all means just go with your feelings. If you're a gorilla who thinks 150 foot pounds feels right... better use a torque wrench.

 

I'm going to go check mine now.

 

I rotate my own tires and always use a torque wrench, simply to make sure that I can actually change a flat tire on the road with a lug wrench if the need arises. If you let a tire dealer or car dealer use an impact wrench, torques may approach 200 ft-lbs and you'll never get the wheel off with a lug wrench. Once (just once) I let my local Toyota dealer rotate my tires. Some time later I had a flat (luckily in my garage) and I had to use a 3/4" drive breaker bar with a pipe over it to loosen the lug nuts. After changing the flat tire, I loosened and re-torqued all the other wheels.

 

Between an aging body, and the region's new-found love of salt, I'm more frequently running into even properly torqued nuts becoming frozen on the older rigs, straining my arms with the standard lug wrench. Keeping an extension pipe (or crosstube of an old roof rack) handy to slip over the lug wrench makes a world of difference.

After snapping several lugs off an old car and some of dad's farm equipment, I'm also using the long extension, plus some counterforce at the lug, to minimize the non-torque force component applied to the lug. I'm hoping this will reduce the rate of broken lugs, but have no data to support this hope.

 

To torque or not to torque is a decades-old, already-been-answered question. When rotors changed from heavy to lightweight, front rotor warping became a common problem. Car manufacturers found that the primary cause of warped rotors is unequal torque of the wheel nuts most often caused by impact wrenches. You can get them close enough by hand but the easier and more fool proof method is to use a torque wrench. You don't need an expensive torque wrench. Harbor Freight has a 1/2" torque wrench for $21.99 that is good enough for this task. I rotate my tires myself and always use a torque wrench to tighten the wheel nuts. Whenever the dealer or another shop removes/reinstalls my wheels, which I avoid, I always check the wheel nut torque. A good indicator of the competency and quality of a repair shop is whether they accurately and evenly torque the wheel nuts.

 

I check mine when I get back from the dealer just for peace of mind. Never have had a problem.

My wife how ever had a tire almost fall of after 25 miles from a tire shop. They had two guy's working on rotating the tires and they both thought the other guy tighten the wheel only neither did so all five studs were just finger tight. Need less to say they worked loose. Lucky for her she grew up on the farm, She jacked up the car and tightened the wheel and drove to the tire shop and chewed some ***! They were very nice to her after that!

 

Yeah I know, you qualify that with "may".

Not all pros ignore torque values, though: I've seen a couple of tire shops, where one guy goes around with a torque wrench, at the end of the process, and hand-torques them all.

OTOH, after a body shop repair where a wheel had to be removed, the next time I took that wheel off, yes, it was breaker bar time.

 

To Torque or Not to Torque?

On my trucks?
I don't need to.
They have rotors that are thicker than a Busch beer can, and I use anti-sieze on the lugs....and I've gotten pretty good at hand-torquing within about 10 percent.
Back when I was an active-duty-booty I regularly had access to a "break-away" torque wrench. Now I just use a beam-type occasionally to check.

It's simple.
On a small car it's pretty important that all the lugs be torqued about the same. If you're really anal, you also use a torquing pattern 1,3,5,2,4,6...etc.
"They" also say that you should re-torque allot rims after a certain number of miles, although I've never seen any problem with whatever malevolent forces are supposed to be loosening lug nutz that the dealer has torqued to 256 foot/pounds with the air wrench!

If I have to get my wheels worked on?
I usually loosen them when I get home and anti-sieze and either tighten to German torque specs (Goodentight) if it's on the truck, and if I get a Prius of my own I'll probably use a torque wrench just to be sure.

Number of rotors that I've bought in 40 years: Zero.
Number of broken or self-loosened lugs: Zero.

I'll keep doing it my way!

 

To Torque or Not to Torque?

On my trucks?
I don't need to.
They have rotors that are thicker than a Busch beer can, and I use anti-sieze on the lugs....and I've gotten pretty good at hand-torquing within about 10 percent.
Back when I was an active-duty-booty I regularly had access to a "break-away" torque wrench. Now I just use a beam-type occasionally to check.

It's simple.
On a small car it's pretty important that all the lugs be torqued about the same. If you're really anal, you also use a torquing pattern 1,3,5,2,4,6...etc.
"They" (you know....."Them!") also say that you should re-torque alloy rims after a certain number of miles, although I've never seen any problem with whatever malevolent forces are supposed to be loosening lug nutz that the dealer has torqued to 256 foot/pounds with the air wrench!
I think that it's MUCH more important that you check to see if the 16-year-old "helper/washer" that they have doing all of the scutt work in the maintenance bay actually gets all of the nutz installed and (over)tightened!

If I have to get my wheels worked on?
I usually loosen them when I get home and anti-sieze and either tighten to German torque specs (Goodentight) if it's on the truck, and if I get a Prius of my own I'll probably use a torque wrench just to be sure.

Number of rotors that I've bought in 40 years: Zero.
Number of broken or self-loosened lugs: Zero.

I'll keep doing it my way!