Changing tires - check yours ahead of time
 

Hi all, just a quick bit of info. I attempted to rotate my tires today, only to find out that the lug nuts are significantly over-tightened. As in, I stood on the end of the wrench (that's 175 lbs) and started jumping, and some of them didn't budge. I took it in to the local service department and asked my service advisor to help me get them loosened, he said the first ones the gun almost jumped out of his hands because they were so much tighter than they should be.

So if you have a spare tire and actually expect that you might have to change it yourself, check the lug nut tightness. It doesn't help to have a spare tire if the flat is impossible to remove.

Thanks for the heads up. That could definatly make someones bad day even worse if they cant end up changing his or her tire.

I pulled one of mine off to check the clearance of an after market wheel, and they were perfectly to spec eg: just a little tighter than hand tight. I used the wrench in the trunk to remove them, and the tightness that you are talking about is seriously over torqued. Weird.

I make it a habit to re-torque lug nuts by hand anytime they've been done at a shop. Last time I had tires replaced it was at a shop that advertised "hand tightening" of lug nuts. I happened to walk outside while they were putting mine on with an air-powered impact wrench. Like all good service managers, this one blew smoke up my arse with something about a "special attachment" on the impact wrench. I didn't bother arguing since I'd go ahead and re-torque no matter how they did it.

Just makes good sense -- if you can't get 'em loose in your garage you can't get 'em loose on the road.

What is the reccomended torque?

The lug nuts are supposed to be torqued to 180 ft/lbs. I pretty sure I read that somewhere. I'll try to find it.

The spec is 65 to 87 ft.lbf from the owners manual. The 180 in the above note would require standing on the lug wrench,

Agreed.

Use a torque wrench on the lug nuts to keep from warping your brake rotors.

I wanted to pull my wheels to clean them and had to get a 2 foot length of steel pipe to slide over the end of the lug wrench that came with the car. The were overtight for sure. On the other had I think the lug wrench with the car is too short. If I had needed to change a tire on the road without the additional length I would have been stuck. The pipe now stays in the back of the car.

Why not get a breaker bar from Sears and the proper MM socket?

field expedient for loosening lug nuts
 

If you ever have to loosen a stuck lug nut "in the field" snug down the non-stuck nuts, put the car back on the ground, and then put the jack under the lug wrench handle (check rotation first!) and jack the stuck nut(s) loose.

What a geat idea, i have never thought of that before.

It's weird you guys are posting about the lugs being too tight because I just rotated my tires the other night for the first time, and I thought mine were extremely loose.

I always use a long breaker bar, and considering how damn tight that oil filter was cranked on at the factory, I assumed that the lug nuts would be the same.

I barely had to put any pressure on the bar at all to crack them loose.

brute force works for me.

Ya i bent the bar when i tried.

LOL I'm not quite that strong. Love the idea of using the jack though...

Re: field expedient for loosening lug nuts
 

This is actually a great way to break a bolt. When confronted with a truly stuck nut, the best thing to do is to use sharp hard "impacts" on the wrench like jumping up and down on it. Slow steady loading up of the bolt increases the risk of not loosening the nut, but breaking the bolt.

Wife just brought the RX8 back from the Mazda dealer last week to have a wheel replaced. She told them what the torque spec was and warned them that I would check their torque job. Well, one was at 140, two at 120 one at 100 and one at 85 ft lbs. Called to complain and was told they use torque sticks and the tolerance isn't that great. When I reminded them of the Mazda torque spec the shop manager said " I think you have to get up to 200 ft lbs before you run into trouble." BS!!! I have had two cars warp rotors due to over tight lug nuts. The moral?... Always double check, although you wonder what else isn't important to those guys.
Tom

Re: Re: field expedient for loosening lug nuts
 

Agreed, but this will get the wheel off when everything else has failed. It may break the lug bolt, but you will be able to put the spare on minus one bolt and then get it to a shop where it can be repaired properly. As I said, this is a "field expedient" and not a recommended procedure.

Agreed, and if it came down to it, i would probably do it too, but I thought that some people might like to know the risk there, and of course it is just a RISK. Doesn't mean that it won't work.

I have had bolts tightened so hard in cars by shops that they have either broken the bolt or in other cases stretched the threads. I have never understood why anyone would put more than 90 PSI on any lug bolt much less anything beyond spec, but dear God do they. I have stood on freshly torqued bolts, just to retorque them and jumped and jumped and jumped. It's ridiculous. I actually had one guy give me the car back, and I took it home, pulled the hubcap off to find two bolt heads broken off by the shop, and he had proudly told me that he had used the "torque head" on the impact gun. I took it back, and he complained about the hours that it took him to fix. This is definitely a constant battle with lazy shops.