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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.
I know what you mean. This is my anti theft key. Broken pieces of it are in the bag.
I got my A7 in November 2015 and the set of snow tires were delivered before I bought the car. The car had a set of 20" summer tires. Three of the four anti theft bolts came off without much fuss. The last lug wouldn't come off using my impact gun, a breaker bar or the bar with an extension handle. I took it to the local shop and they couldn't remove it with their 1000 pneumatic impact gun. I had an appointment for a 35K service so I loaded the snows in the hatch and took it in.
The Audi mechanic charged a half hour labor, broke his own bolt extractor and had to borrow one to get the lug off. He said he used a four foot bar to break it free. Brought the car home and removed each bolt and put a dab of marine grade anti seize on each lug. I've been using it on lugs for over thirty years.
Thanks, I'm the OP. I don't really do any work on my car myself, and I have no tools, or motivation (with a hernia I try not to lift rims with mounted tires too often). I just bought dedicated rims/snow tires, because I thought it would be cheaper to have the dealer service dept switch these out with my summer rims/tires. But they're charging me $150 just to switch out wheels with tires already mounted on them. To remove a set of wheels, and switch out tires and balance on that same set, would be $160 they're telling me now. So, I want to take them to my local gas station to have them do it for a fraction of that price. But as I mentioned, when I did this last with my BMW E46, I was later told that they were over-tightened - the threading was almost stripped, and they almost had to be drilled out to be taken off. I just want to be sure to know to check with whomever I bring it to so that they do it correctly..
I just bought dedicated rims/snow tires, because I thought it would be cheaper to have the dealer service dept switch these out with my summer rims/tires. But they're charging me $150 just to switch out wheels with tires already mounted on them.
My local Audi service department charged $35 and reset the TMPS.
When I had a tire replaced for picking up a screw in the sidewall, the Sears center I purchased the tire from last fall rotated all the tires for me and overtightened one of them, multiple lugnuts. Ticked me off last week when I rotated to summer. I think I used a hammer and the aluminum lug wrench from the trunk on one of them.
Outside of that experience, I do my own rotations, twice a year (hey it's great exercise ) and have my torque wrench set at 90ft lbs. I love hearing the "click" when the exact torque is reached.
Always cracks me up when people think they are smarter than the engineers that designed the fasteners and the car.
A torque wrench is a cheap tool that is well worth buying.
The metallurgy (and variations during production) does drive the spec, hence my redneck joke. Any who, if it was a hard spec say like head bolts there would be a lot of problems on the road today.
BTW, you have to calibrate a torque wrench yearly and most "cheap" ones have +-4% variation when new. Calibration is $35 cheapest I've found. It's easily one of the most expensive tools in my box.
04-20-2017, 09:03 PM
) and have my torque wrench set at 90ft lbs. I love hearing the "click" when the exact torque is reached.
