beware of tyre shops overtightening wheel nuts!

breadbin

my wheel was creaking the other night so the following morning i decided to take it off and have a looksee, 2 of the studs snapped quite easily when i tried to loosen them. apparently they get very weak if they are overtightened. lucky they didn't break on the road somewhere;-) my lucky day i suppose

blackbox

Wow - never heard of them being so tight that the studs broke, but there is a real danger of damaging alloy wheels.

I hope you didn't have too much trouble getting the remaining parts of the studs out.

Run_to_da_hills

breadbin wrote: »

my wheel was creaking the other night so the following morning i decided to take it off and have a looksee, 2 of the studs snapped quite easily when i tried to loosen them. apparently they get very weak if they are overtightened. lucky they didn't break on the road somewhere;-) my lucky day I suppose

How long ago was it since the tyre was repaired? Some cars / vans (such as the Toyota Hiace) are renouned for snapping wheel studs if the wheel has not being removed for some time more so the drivers side as they would tighten in the direction of travel. (Larger commercial vehicles use left hand threads on the passenger side).

fletch

Whenever I get my tyres changed and a garage tightens the wheel nuts, first thing I do is drive home, loosen them all and tighten them to the correct torque setting. You'd be surprised at how untight they're actually meant to be.

niceirishfella

When i was in the car rental game, the guys in the workshop used to put all the wheel nuts back on with the air gun.
Some Clients who hired cars and got a puncture used to find it hard on occasion to get the nuts of resulting in complaints. Never heard of them snapping off tho'.

Run_to_da_hills

fletch wrote: »

Whenever I get my tyres changed and a garage tightens the wheel nuts, first thing I do is drive home, loosen them all and tighten them to the correct torque setting. You'd be surprised at how untight they're actually meant to be.

Would it not be better just to torque them yourself at the garage as the damage could already have be done. Nearly all fast fit garages use 1/2' or 3/4" drive air impact "rattle" guns with no regard for torque settings.

fletch

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Would it not be better just to torque them yourself at the garage as the damage could already have be done. Nearly all fast fit garages use 1/2' or 3/4" drive air impact "rattle" guns with no regard for torque settings.

Yeh it probably would but then I don't want to look sad
The garage I buy my new tyres from uses a torque wrench, however for puncture repairs I just go wherever is handiest.

listermint

Torn a fair few studs in my time. suprisingly not that difficult to do. Just be careful you can get tend to overtighten just to be safe.

Run_to_da_hills

fletch wrote: »

Yeh it probably would but then I don't want to look sad
The garage I buy my new tyres from uses a torque wrench, however for puncture repairs I just go wherever is handiest.

They probably only use the torque wrench when you are watching them

Alun

My local Fastfit uses a torque wrench (I've seen them use it on two separate occasions). They do use an air gun to do the bulk of the work but would appear to have it set relatively low, seeing as when they use the torque wrench you can see that it actually turns a small amount before clicking.

ejmaztec

Once had some new tyres fitted by some UK tyre fitters, where they got a bit carried away with the air-gun. A couple of hours after being fitted, one of the tyres deflated on a busy roundabout. No matter how much force I used, the wheel-nuts wouldn't budge. I ended up being towed to a garage to get the wheel off. The most expensive puncture I ever had!

prospect

One tyre repair shop used an airgun on my car, but the nut was mis-threaded. I had to get the hub re-bored and a new wheel nut....

breadbin

funny you should say that run_to_da_hills, it is a japanese corolla van, and it was the drivers side too that was the problem. maybe they tightened themselves whilele driving somehow. would the left hand threads not make the wheels come off so? lol

its not that long since it was off before, maybe 6 months? alot of rain and salty water etc over here on the west coast though - probably had something to do with it!

Seth Brundle

Alun wrote: »

My local Fastfit uses a torque wrench (I've seen them use it on two separate occasions).

HTF do they know what the max torque to use is?

prospect wrote: »

One tyre repair shop used an airgun on my car, but the nut was mis-threaded. I had to get the hub re-bored and a new wheel nut....

I do hope that you didn't pay for it!

crosstownk

Most tyre fitting centres just blast the nuts/studs home with an air gun. No concern for torque whatsoever. In fact, every Advance invoice will state that "the wheel nuts have been correctly tightened, but should be rechecked after X mileage". Depending on manufacturer, wheel torque can vary between 80NM to 120NM.