When you just wanna screw

[ionbeam]

Factory spec for my car's lug nuts is 140 ft/lb, that'll bend most lug wrenches. Both rear wheels seize to the hubs and require repeated pounding with a dead-blow sledge. If I have a flat on the road the only tool that is likely to fix the flat is a tow truck.

I have an air powered impact wrench that is Undo, I never use it as a Todo. I've been impressed by battery powered impact wrenches recently, they whiz the nuts off my car quite nicely. I'd consider buying one to carry with my spare tire in place of a tire iron except for the price. They are priced at 4 - 6 tow jobs.

[Bounce]

Simple way of getting it working in the right direction. Insert the tool into the fastener and rap firmly... okay twice or three times. Check the fastener. Is the fastener now a half inch further into the hole? Yes..., then reverse the tool.

So like head studs. Tighten until it breaks and back off a quarter turn?

[Bounce]

I made it a point to teach both my daughters how to change tires (and other stuff). Still got a call once at 3am when oldest was coming home from work (living on her own by then). Seems she couldn't bounce on the lug wrench with enough force to break loose the nuts. I even had a hard time once I got there.

Then we talked about her choice of routes home after work. She was on a desolate "shortcut" with poor lighting and NO ONE who could come along to help. Not a good place for a stranded young woman.

Sadly, my 2017 cage didn't even offer a limited-service spare.

[FJRoss]

My wife had her winter tires put on and after 50 miles or so, I decided to check the torque as you are supposed to do with alloy wheels. Wrench clicked without moving the nut so they were torqued sufficiently. Thought I would make sure they hadn't been overly tightened. I had to STAND on a 30" breaker bar and bounce up and down on it to break them loose. (I weigh 220 lb)

Mechanic insisted that they never use an air impact wrench for installing wheels. Yeah, right!
If this had been at the roadside and I was changing a flat tire, I would have been out of luck. Not to mention warping/damage to alloy rims with an effective torque of several hundred ft-lb that I needed to remove the nuts.

[Toter]

My Ford Dually requires 165 ft/lbs. But those lug nuts have the washer made to the lug nut and they don't spin against the rim.

[gitbox]

Factory spec for my car's lug nuts is 140 ft/lb

Wow, what kind of car do you have?

[bungie4]

I don't have a floor jack so i had to use factory teeter-totter. But i do have an air impact and a pretty decent set of impact sockets. So other than chocking two wheels and being careful with the jack it's not much of an issue.

The funny bit was, the day before Line brought her RAV over to Costco for the tire swap. $40. That's a really good deal!

Anyway, a couple of years ago my eldest step daughter called her bonus dad because she had a flat. I have CAA (AAA) and could just make the call. Nope. Your gonna learn how to change a tire. In the snow. At -10.

She cussed me out, and still cusses me out over that. But, she did have a flat about 2m ago and bragged about changing it herself. My job here is done.

[ionbeam]

Factory spec for my car's lug nuts is 140 ft/lb

Wow, what kind of car do you have?

A Holden Commodore SSV masquerading as a Chevy SS. It's a four door grocery-getter that is made to run as a full-on track car. It comes fully setup for racing with almost no other options except for a sun roof and a full size spare. The wheel lugs are larger than normal to take track stresses.

[danh600]

We had a really old Jeep that was made into a hunting buggy. It had reverse thread studs on one side. That makes for fun when you have no idea why those dang nuts just will not loosen.

[Red]

A while back, I had a flat tire on my 4x4 on a mountain road. Got out the lug X-wrench, and started on the lugs. They resisted, and made me mad, so I padded one end of the wrench (for my knee) and pulled up on the other side. With a lot of force, the wrench turned half a turn, but the lug did not "release" as you might expect. I looked at the wrench, and I had put a 180 degree TWIST in the arm that fit the lugs. I could hardly believe it, but there was a casting line in that shank, and the twist was obvious. Luckily I had a small propane torch on board, so I heated each lug enough to get the lugs off. Tow trucks do not provide service on the rocky mountain roads, so it would have been a long story except for the luck of leaving that propane torch in the truck for that week.

I decided that I had "saved" a little too much money on my cheap X-wrench, so I went and bought a good one. The counter guy at the auto parts store had a hard time believing his eyes, when I showed him my old X-wrench.

After that, I only patronize tire shops that make a point of using a real torque wrench set at factory specs on the lugs, not impact guns set to full-force. Even the crappy tire shops really have no excuse now, because they can get torque-limited lug sockets that will do the job right, even when the impact gun is cranked too high.
.

[ionbeam]

We had a really old Jeep that was made into a hunting buggy. It had reverse thread studs on one side. That makes for fun when you have no idea why those dang nuts just will not loosen.

Chrysler used to do that too, I think they stopped that in the early 70's. My wife's 1968 Newport (383) had the reverse threaded lugs which befuddled many a mechanic. As did the engine that was chained in because it broke engine mounts. It also had sucky torsion bar front suspension.

[Red]

We had a really old Jeep that was made into a hunting buggy. It had reverse thread studs on one side. That makes for fun when you have no idea why those dang nuts just will not loosen.

Chrysler used to do that too, I think they stopped that in the early 70's. My wife's 1968 Newport (383) had the reverse threaded lugs which befuddled many a mechanic. As did the engine that was chained in because it broke engine mounts. It also had sucky torsion bar front suspension.

Ionbeam,

They used left-threaded lugs on one side of the car so that any loose lug nuts will self-tighten as the car rolls forward. The left-threaded lugs had an "L" stamped into the end, so you could tell, if you looked. My old Triumph TR-6 had real knock-offs, same deal there, and you never had to worry if you got the knock-offs tight enough on a wheel swap; they would get tight enough just by driving.

At the Triumph/MGB dealership where I worked, one day the mechanic in the next stall removed the front hubs from a Triumph, but got them switched left-for-right when he re-assembled the wheel hubs to the car. When the car left the dealership, it got eight miles down the road before both front wheels left the car at 50 mph (80 kph). One wheel went into the ditch, but the other wheel crossed three lanes of oncoming traffic before going off the road on the other side.

Luckily, oncoming traffic dodged the rolling wheel, so the only damage was on the Triumph, from sliding to a stop on the wheel-less front end. The driver was unhurt, but as you may imagine, he was seriously PISSED.
.

[ionbeam]

I understand the reverse threaded lug nuts. Because my wife drove her car to horse shows it saw lots of mud, water and dirt so I put acorn lug nuts on to keep the nuts from freezing on. The L didn't show up too well like that

[HotRodZilla]

Factory spec for my car's lug nuts is 140 ft/lb, that'll bend most lug wrenches. Both rear wheels seize to the hubs and require repeated pounding with a dead-blow sledge. If I have a flat on the road the only tool that is likely to fix the flat is a tow truck.

I have an air powered impact wrench that is Undo, I never use it as a Todo. I've been impressed by battery powered impact wrenches recently, they whiz the nuts off my car quite nicely. I'd consider buying one to carry with my spare tire in place of a tire iron except for the price. They are priced at 4 - 6 tow jobs.

Wow, the torque values for my 3/4 ton truck are 135-140 lbs. I have two Ryobi Impact Wrenches and LOVE them. They remove those lug nuts easily and the batteries are well made. If you have never had the fun of putting a piece of shit sissor jack under a car and using an impact wrench to lift the car, you're missing out. It is almost fun. I carry one in my unit and one in my truck. I have two sets of the Husky impact sets that are reversible impact sockets and fit everything I've needed so far. I have a larger set I keep in my unit.

I have changed a BUNCH of my guy's tires and other's tires using that wrench. It is fast and works well. Any asshole mechanic over torquing lug nuts needs his ass kicked. Torque sticks are cheap and a good tool to keep from snapping lugs and damaging rims.

I know Ryobi is not a professionally rated tool. I'm sure Milwaukee or Snap-On are better, but for a garage mechanic with how often I use them, they are priced right and perfect for what I do. They are relatively cheap at Home Depot and if you find a sale on a kit that includes a battery, charger and bag, you save a bunch of money. They are reversible and run up to 300 ft/lbs of torque. Honestly one of my most useful and favorite tools. They're especially handy when we go camping.

Here's a short video of my youngest helping me rotate the tires on my truck. This was the first rotation at 10k miles, so the bolts were torqued to spec by Discount Tire when they put the tires on, the 2nd day we owned the truck:

https://youtu.be/TW-ZF4JByfE

[Powerman]

A lot of people just don't care anymore. "Not possible we overtightened your wheel, we use torque sticks". Tell me how that works, and what torque value you used? Well.....
Please get the manager. You owe me five lugs and lug nuts for the ones that broke when I just checked your work. I be back after I get a sandwich next door.

Wife won't go with me when I get pissed. Kid thinks it's funny until it's time to not be nice anymore, old dude you're pretty mellow in your old age.

I always clean the lugs, anti seize, torque with correction factor.

[raYzerman]

I had enough of seized lug nuts in the old days... just think how you're gonna change that tire on your trailer one day...... I do the Powerman lesson, clean, anti-seize and torque correction.
Back in the pre-retirement days, the quality auditors would check wheel nut torques... installed with a 5-gang big-ass DC controlled gun that hung on a balancer..... torque spec for aluminum wheels 229 Nm. (168 ft. lbs.). I kept asking the engineers if they could take the standard jack tool and loosen one, and if they thought the bi-metal corrosion eventually might act as loctite.

[Powerman]

Also a big fan of the fake, chrome plated cover over a steel lug nut? WTF

[raYzerman]

Also a big fan of the fake, chrome plated cover over a steel lug nut? WTF

They were OK until you used a pneumatic impact on them... newer ones are much better. They even plate the steel part with zinc dichromate. Get OEM's if you want the best. I'd still use anti-seize on 'em.
Another fun job is replacing twisted off studs.... even more fun when you have one of those wheel lock kits with the keyed socket. If you remember not to lose the keyed socket.