Tire shop trick?

[Kevin54]

doesn't anyone explain how in the hell a torque wrench works?

you are supposed to stop when it clicks

Tool Master: Yes, torque is reached when the wrench clicks.

When it just barely clicks. If you follow thru the click too hard, you will be over torquing, as after the tool clicks you now have a solid wrench. This is especially true on low torques. I had occasion to try this on calibration equipment, and at 40 lb/in I had to feel real lightly for the click and quit the second I felt it begin to break, if I followed thru the click even slightly, I was way past the set torque.

Charles

One needs to watch when a tire shop puts the tires back on. By law, they are supposed to torque the wheels. That is not the problem though. They will run the lug nuts up tight with an impact, then check them with a torque wrench. So if it clicks, they think they are torqued. The bad thing is that they are on the wrong side of the scale. The wheels may be OVER torqued before they ever brought the TW out. What should be standard practice among ALL shops is to have the setting on the impact set to about about 20 ft.lbs. LESS than what the average torque setting is.

I always make it a habit of checking mine when I get home or make the tire shop back the lugnuts off then retorque with the TW. I have actually found on a couple of occasions my wheels torqued 30-40 lbs. over before.

 

[KrisKustomPaint]

Thats a whole lota talk about using a torque wrench for a lug nut..... what ever happened to just getting 'em tight with a 4 way? Just seems a bit fastidious.

 

[therealwormey]

Thats a whole lota talk about using a torque wrench for a lug nut..... what ever happened to just getting 'em tight with a 4 way? Just seems a bit fastidious.

had to look up fastidious ,,,i didnt know till now that i am sometimes fastidious.
well i knew i was just didnt know there was a name for it. i knew i was fatasseous. i learned a new word ,now if i can ever get a chance to use it.i'm digging it.

 

[ket-tek]

Thats a whole lota talk about using a torque wrench for a lug nut..... what ever happened to just getting 'em tight with a 4 way? Just seems a bit fastidious.

The use of a four way and reasonable man force torque feel is still common at home, but this discussion is about shops. And no run of the mill shops these days will do anything like this by hand, spinning a wrench for 20 lugs.. The point is about over tightening and damaging the wheel, cross threading lugs, or ran so tight making it impossible for you to take off with a four way after you get home.

 

[ibedayank]

Thats a whole lota talk about using a torque wrench for a lug nut..... what ever happened to just getting 'em tight with a 4 way? Just seems a bit fastidious.

ask this question again when some ****** puts them on with a 750 ft of tourqe impact

 

[TOOL MASTER]

It was a rhetorical question.... Lol

 

[danfromsyr]

I've had a tire machine since I was in a 12x20 garage.
it was under $400 in 1995 dolalrs when I made $8/hr
they're out there time to time in the local Craigslist. an old Coats is a ncie unit and does most tires.
sure everyone wants a Rim Clamp to handle the 22s,
that's why these are cheap(er)

http://www.google.com/search?q=tire+machine+site:craigslist.org

Bingo!

Unfortunately tire changers and balancers are pretty rare for a homeowner garage.

I have always taken my rims/tires off the car and take them to get mounted or dismounted without the vehicle.. I won't let any shop touch any of my cars.

 

[SgtRauksauff]

I was keeping my buddy's tools for him when he was in the Army. He had a box of different torque sticks, and a big sheet on the inside door of a cabinet with torque specs for most cars.

I tested the torque stick vs my plastic craftsman tq. wrench, and my dad's nice all-steel one. the torque stick was within 2 lb-ft of what the wrenches read.

I remember growing up, changing millions of tires (so it seemed), and it was always really hard for me to get them as tight as my uncle wanted them to be. spin'em down with the 4-way, then rotate the tire backwards, and use its momentum to help increase the torque applied. a good solid YANK the opposite direction, with a squeak or two from the lug threads, then on to the next one.


--sarge

I generally run the nuts on with the impact on low (no torque stick) and then somewhere between an eighth to a quarter turn of the wrench to torque them. at track days and autoXes, I use a breaker bar to loosen them, and a makita cordless drill to run them down. It puts them at about the same tightness as the impact does.

I tend to run my air tools at 90psi, which tends to be recommended. I see different shops running almost to 150 at times. that'll directly affect the torque the wrench is applying.

I think it's odd that 3 out of the 4 tires were torqued fine, but then only one wasn't. Maybe they had a second guy help out? Usually, a guy has his routine that he follows, so it's kind of odd to have only one wheel different than the others.

 

[gesoffen]

While the OP may have found his "answer" by this point, I can't help but throw in one of my experiences with a national tire warehouse. I had a 1995 VW Passat that needed a new set of shoes. Took her in to this warehouse (we'll just abbreviate it as ntw) where I specifically asked the service writer to put a note on the work order "HAND TIGHTEN LUGS" and "USE ADHESIVE WEIGHTS ONLY".

It was a relatively slow day and I could see my car from the waiting area so I felt comfortable not hovering like a hawk over the tire jockey while he was working on the swap. Off course heard/saw them zip off the lugs, watched for a few minutes as they started swapping rubber (mainly to see how they were handling the bare wheel) and then decided I was happy with what I saw and got comfortable with my book in the waiting room.

About 30-45 minute later, my car is done. I pay, go out to the lot and pop the trunk to grab my torque wrench (I'd learned my lesson already) when I realized I'd brought the empty case and the wrench was back home on the bench. I take a quick look at the wheels and see they did use adhesive weights - they surely hand tightened the lugs!

Got home, busted out the torque wrench to check/retighten. Found 3 out of 4 wheels that had 1x-2x loose lug studs (as in hand tight only) and 1 wheel where the studs wouldn't turn with my mini breaker bar. At this point I was curious so busted out my big torque wrench (250 ft-lb), eventually dialed it up to max and couldn't get the lugs off. After tightening the other wheels, took the car straight back to that ntw and spoke directly to the manager about the situation. The previous tire jockey gets the call to fix his problem, puts the car up on the lift, zips all the lugs off except the one wheel where he can't get them to budge. I ask what the max torque of his impact is - 400 ft/lb! The manager, clearly embarrassed, gets another mechanics 3/4" impact with a max of 750ft/lb and hammers away. The lugs eventually give and spin out. Tire jockey, no working on the other side of the car from the manager, proceeds to use the impact to run them back on. As I am on the manager's side of the car, I immediately ask him "WTF is he doing?". Making it around to the other side, I look at his torque wrench - yup still set to the max of 400ft/lbs. Manager proceeds to put his boot up the tire jockey's ***, and instructs him on how to use a torque wrench.

Now that I run a winter and summer wheel set up on our DDs, I refuse to let any tire store actually touch the car. I just bring wheels in for any tire work. After our annual state safety inspections, I usually get dirty looks from the inspector as I check/retighten the lugs on the cars after the inspection - about 80% of the time they are WAY off spec.

 

[bw77]

I think it's odd that 3 out of the 4 tires were torqued fine, but then only one wasn't. Maybe they had a second guy help out? Usually, a guy has his routine that he follows, so it's kind of odd to have only one wheel different than the others.

I'm the OP.
I think that's what happened. 2 guys worked on it, one did it wrong, not
a ploy to get me back in for the alignment.

 

[ptschram]

Several years ago, I took my truck to a Sears to have the rear brakes done as I didn't have time before leaving for a trip.

I got a call from the service advisor indicating that I needed rear shoes, rear drums, hardware, etc. AND, I also needed new rotors, pads and both front calipers.

I calmly told him I only asked to have the rears done and that's all I wanted. He told me it was unsafe as the pads were worn down below safe, the rotors were well below minimums and both calipers were hanging up. I asked him to look again because I had just replaced all those parts three days before and still had the receipts.

Because of the "unsafe vehicle law" (Which no one has yet been able to provide me a regulatory cite to) he claimed they couldn't do anything.

I got the truck back on Sunday. Wednesday evening, my right rear tire fell off, three studs stripped, two sheared. Saturday, the left rear wheel fell off.

Now that I run a shop and drive Rovers, I have great fun with alignment guys. Your truck has to have both the caster and camber adjusted and it's gonna cost big bucks. Well, I'll bet it's gonna cost big bucks as the only thing one can do on my trucks is adjust the toe!

 

[TheGrooveking]

A few years back I had a Goodyear dealer install tires on my wife's car on a Saturday morning, I noticed after he mounted the tires on the car that the manager walked up to me and told me that two of the studs on the front right broke because they were old. I told him ********, that was the first tire the kid took off the car and I bet he had his impact running in the wrong direction and that I knew the torque an IR231 generated. He argued with me and told me that it would be $35 a stud for replacement and that he couldn't let the car leave. I took the keys, backed the car out into the parking lot, called my buddy. We drove to the parts store, I bought two studs for $4.56, stopped by my place grabbed my jack, jack stand, a ratchet, socket, a hammer and a punch. With in 15 minutes I had two studs replaced and tire back on.

I walked into the showroom where three other people were talking to saleman and I tore into the manager right there. He told me to leave or he would call the police, I told him to call the police. The police came and asked what was going on, I explained the scam they were trying to pull and showed him the studs which you could tell had been twisted off in a right hand direction. The policeman told the manager that he found that they were doing this to any other people that he would see to it that his business license would be canceled. He then told me to leave.

I sent the two broken studs to Goodyear's headquarters with a letter. Never heard back from them, but they did close that Goodyear store about 6 months later, so at least they are not scamming people at that location. But I'll tell you what, no more Goodyear tires on any of my vehicles, trucks get Generals and cars get Michelin's.

TheGrooveking