Realized I was tightening lug nuts way too hard for years

I was at a shop in Tulsa last month helping a buddy swap tires on his F-150, and I grabbed my torque wrench out of habit. He looked at me funny and said most people just ugga-dugga them on with an impact gun. But I checked the spec on his truck, 150 ft-lbs, and I bet half the cars I see on the road have them torqued to like 200 or more. Has anyone else noticed warped rotors from over-tightening?

2 comments

2 Comments

emerycarr1d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, I've totally done this too lol. Was wrenching on my old Civic and had the lugs torqued so tight I basically welded the wheel on, took a breaker bar and a lot of swearing to get them off.

morgan_butler1d ago

Over-tightening is a real problem for sure, but I see a lot of guys walking the other way and going too loose with a torque wrench. I had a customer last year bring his truck in after a tire rotation at a chain shop, three lug nuts fell off on the highway because they were barely hand-tight. Factory spec is there for a reason, and 150 on an F-150 sounds right, but honestly a good impact gun set on a low setting and a final check with a wrench beats guessing with a rusty torque wrench any day. Nothing worse than a wobbling wheel at 70 mph because someone was scared of warping a rotor.