Watched a guy use a torque wrench on lug nuts at a tire shop in Pittsburgh and it made me question everything I knew about tire rotations

Ive been doing my own tire rotations for years just cranking them down with a cross wrench til they felt tight. Never had an issue but this mechanic at Pep Boys last Saturday was using a torque wrench on every single lug nut. He said most people overtorque by at least 30 ft-lbs and it warps rotors over time. I went home and checked mine with a borrowed torque wrench and I had 4 out of 5 way over spec. Anyone else bother with torque specs for basic stuff or am I just paranoid now?

2 comments

2 Comments

robert_lopez645d ago

Tightening lug nuts by feel is how tons of people do it and it works fine for years. Warped rotors are more often from cheap parts or heat than a few extra ft-lbs. Unless you're tracking the car or have paper thin rotors, that Pep Boys guy was probably just covering himself.

verawhite4d agoTop Commenter

Yeah, "by feel" is how my uncle taught me back in high school and I never thought twice about it lol. But one time I was helping a buddy swap wheels on his old Jeep and we got a little too carried away with the impact gun. Drove it maybe 3 miles and heard this weird scraping noise. Turns out one of the lugs had snapped clean off. We were lucky it didn't happen at highway speed. So I get what @robert_lopez64 is saying about cheap parts being the real culprit, but honestly I've seen both sides screw things up. That Pep Boys guy probably just didn't want the comeback if something went wrong later.