I squashed a disc doing my dads wheels a couple of months ago

Rule 1 from now on is stand on the nut wrench bar, do not lift under any circumstances

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU SEE A MECHANIC OR TYRE FITTER USE A TORQUE WRENCH on a wheel nut or stud ? It is proper practice to do so, and could be considered a legal requirement !!!! A vehicle I have responsibillity for has 64 wheel nuts, all done to torque !! Many supplied wheel nut wrenches would not have taken the load and just bent ! A socket and a long or telescopic breaker bar is worth it's weight in gold for this job.

The OPs vehicle must have been an older model – IT HAD A SPARE WHEEL ! Best wishes Noel

Noel My 3 year old Vauxhall Corsa came with a spare wheel

Roy

Edited By roy entwistle on 06/09/2021 14:59:16

Can a Mod remove the two blanks please

Roy

Lost the will to read this post

H

You had enough will to reply!

The manufacturer may specify a torque but that does not mean that a fitter will use a torque wrench.

The wheel bolts on our daughter's car were visibly necked through overtightening.

Presumably an air impact wrench was quicker than a torque wrench!

Needless to say, any damaged bolt was replaced and torque tightened. Another three lost customers!

I have seen the same thing happen with 7/.8 BSF wheel nuts and studs. And they were supposed tom be tightened to 400 Lb ft. Never happened with a fitter on the end of a 6 foot wheel bar, only with a 3/4 drive air impact gun!

The worst involved fitting all four hubs, six new wheels, and rebuilding the brake gear where the studs had moved inside and done further damage..

A triumph of speed over quality!

Howard

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU SEE A MECHANIC OR TYRE FITTER USE A TORQUE WRENCH

Every time I have had tyres fitted at my local National tyres branch for the last several years.

I buy tyres online from Tyreshopper, who give the option of having them fitted at National Tyres branches. They use rechargeable torque guns (have not seen an air gun used for many years) to snug up the nuts, then go round all of them with a click type toque wrench.

How often the much-used torque wrench is calibrated is another matter ! I have never had to struggle to remove a wheel that they have fitted, though, & use my (uncalibrated ! ) torque wrench on re-assembly.

Nigel B.

Even with a torque wrench you can have trouble. Once had a wheel refitted after a wheel rebalance by the mechanic using a digital readout Snap On. Checked it when I got home using my click type torque wrench. No could undo.

Drove back and had to have same mechanic do it again.

It might have a digital readou or click but a gorilla can simply pull it past the set point whatever they use.

I thought wheel fitters were supposed to use those colour coded "torque stick" extension bar thingies to limit the impact wrench drive torque to something adequately close to the specifications.

That said I've never seen a set in use.

Although my tyre guys have them.

They use a low set windy gun to spin the bolts / nuts on and finish with a standard torque wrench. But I still loosen and re-do them properly when I get home! Usually pretty close. But on other folks cars I've had to dig out the 6 ft scaffold pole with 3/4 drive welded across the ends to shift them.

I have a set of 1/4 hex to socket square drive adapters to use with my Makita 18 V impact screwdriver. Just the ticket for spinning nuts and bolts into place ready for the torque wrench. Final torque on the Makita is related to rattle time, within limits. I can usually judge the time for 25 ft lb or so pretty well. Which is agood start.

Come to think of it how the heck do those torque limiting extension thingies work to deliver the calibrated torque?

Clive

Hi, as far as I'm aware, recovery is only used if they cannot get your vehicle going at the roadside, I've had that once when the oil pump drive sprocket failed and could not be fixed at the roadside, the only other times I've needed them is when my car wouldn't start, although the last time that happened, I was still in my works car park and the guy said that I wasn't technically covered but he did get me started and he said if it happens again, get it pushed out onto the road.

Regards Nick.