Moonlightblue

Can anyone tell me what the OE specs are for torquing the lug nuts on our wheels? I'm switching winter tires/rims with summer tires/rims and want to make sure that wherever I take it does it correctly. I had a bad experience once when the place I took my BMW E46 to over-tightened the lug nuts and I had a hell of a time getting them off.

uberwgn

You car requires 88 ft*lbs.

Nakedhoof

No mechanic I've ever seen has ever used a torque wrench to tighten lug nuts. I tighten them by hand, and make sure that they're on good. I don't use a torque wrench anymore, either.

Nakedhoof

Make sure that the Flux Capacitor is working at full tilt.

50pascals

I just torqued mine to 100.

"Having a hard time getting them off" is not nearly as expensive as if they leave them too loose.

Nakedhoof

Over-torque your fasteners, and you may damage the threads, and the seats. Your logic is faulty.

50pascals

Sorry, I wasn't trying to make a logical argument. let me rephrase.

I just torqued mine to 100 ft-lbs last weekend when I swapped summer tires on. That is a 220 pound guy leaning on a torque wrench and nudging it an inch or two. Final tightening by hand. I didn't go out of my way to try and tighten it. I just leaned, it hit 100 or so. All good.

100 is well below what most shops torque them to with an impact gun. And also well below the yield strength of the lug bolt. You really can't strip the threads on a lug nut (or lug bolt) with hand tools, unless you add a length of pipe.



To the OP - "Hard to remove" is not an indicator that they were overtorqued on installation. Removal torque is always higher. Now factor in rain, salt, heat cycling, etc. The removal torque can be substantially higher than the application torque.

The only downside of "hard to remove" is inconvenience. Having the lugs too loose leads to destruction of the wheel at a minimum. And if it falls off, you generally always damage the fender and rotor too. And have a towing bill to boot.

Also "Hard to remove" is a relative term. if the OP has a short 3/8 breaker bar and a 12 point socket, many lug nuts will present a challenge. if you have a 1/2" drive cordless impact and a 6 point socket, very few will be even slightly challenging.

We get about 1 car a month at the shop that had a wheel that is loose. From other shops, not from ours.

Getting way off topic now, but for the record, if you have the 20V Dewalt 3/8" drive impact gun it will tighten the lugs to 75 to 80 ft-lbs. Much higher than I expected.

I never use a big impact to tighten lug nuts.

19hole

The real danger of over-torqueing the wheels bolts/nuts is not damaging the threads, although that can happen, but damaging the wheel itself. You have not added surface stress to the wheel and that can lead to a premature failure. If the specified tighten torque is 88 lb-ft then that is what should be applied.

FWIW, Every tech I have seen work on tires/wheels uses an impact wrench to remove the bolts/nuts but uses a hand torque wrench to put them back on. The best techs also use a small bit of anti-seize compound when putting the bolt/nut back on.

morski

OE 120NM

gk1

Anti-seize on lug bolts is usually a no-no. Any lube changes the load and the 120Nm spec is for "clean, dry threads only". So anti-seize treated threads would be basically overtightened when torqued to 120Nm. Since this thread is technically about lug bolt torque.

That being said and as many here have seen and pointed out that even grossly over tightening dry lug bolts may have negligible ill effects so likely doesn't matter anyway and is probably outweighed by the advantage of avoiding seized bolts for people who don't frequently remove lug bolts.

The biggest issue I had regarding overtightening was that the shop made them so tight I needed a 4 foot pipe on a breaker bar just to free them. Luckily I checked when I got home, I would have been massively pissed if I was on the side of the road.