Technical Wheel Nuts

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Technical Wheel Nuts

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Apr 1, 2015
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Slightly off topic for Punto....although my Punto gets a mention :p
Anyone know why it is Garages over tighten wheel nuts so it's impossible to undo them ?
Needed to take the wheel off the missus Corsa this morning to sort a minor brake issue...total job should have taken about 30 mins, ( One of the pistons is sticking slightly)
1 Broken 4 way wheel brace..2 broken sockets and a broken torque wrench later there is one wheel bolt that i can't get to budge....the fact that it broke tools tells me it's way over tightened, and they weren't cheap tools either.
Now i'm dreading ever having to undo the ones on my Punto as same garage replaced my front brake pads on that.
 
Slightly off topic for Punto....although my Punto gets a mention :p
Anyone know why it is Garages over tighten wheel nuts so it's impossible to undo them ?
Needed to take the wheel off the missus Corsa this morning to sort a minor brake issue...total job should have taken about 30 mins, ( One of the pistons is sticking slightly)
1 Broken 4 way wheel brace..2 broken sockets and a broken torque wrench later there is one wheel bolt that i can't get to budge....the fact that it broke tools tells me it's way over tightened, and they weren't cheap tools either.
Now i'm dreading ever having to undo the ones on my Punto as same garage replaced my front brake pads on that.

sheer laziness..!! and it's dangerous, :(
they SHOULD use the windy tool to run them-up , THEN use a "TORQUE WRENCH" to the specification..,

not just wazz it up with the windytool..:bang:

go to the garage that did the work and complain..!!

Charlie
 
Bring it back. Windy guns for opening, brace to spin it snug and torque wrench to finish and owner retorques after an hour or so of driving. This last step is almost never done and is probably responsible for some garages and tyre fitting shops tightening them too much.
One thing I advise people to do when the get a new to them car or before setting off on a trip is to make sure they can open all the screws with what they have in the boot. Otherwise a flat is an AA callout.
 
Just had front tyres replaced on the V70. Not a windy in sight. Torque wrenches everywhere - place littered with them and the guy doing the alignment took the car into the yard and did three or four figure eights to set the wheels and retorqued again before going on the machine and retorqued again before I left.
There are good ones out there.
 
Just had front tyres replaced on the V70. Not a windy in sight. Torque wrenches everywhere - place littered with them and the guy doing the alignment took the car into the yard and did three or four figure eights to set the wheels and retorqued again before going on the machine and retorqued again before I left.
There are good ones out there.

There are numatic air torque bars

These get the wheels tight and dont over tighten them so you cant get them off

Vital really

When I do work I torque wrench and then drive and retorque

But id go back and get them to impact them back off, or you've gotta get a breaker bar to give them some stick

Ziggy
 
what makes it worse.....
The Garage that over tightened them, did it when they replaced the wheel bolts, after having to drill out and remove a wheel bolt that another garage had actually sheared when they over tightened it...
Unfortunately i couldn't actually go to the garage that sheared the wheel bolt, daughter had borrowed the car for a few weeks and took it to have a puncture fixed...Garage sheared the wheel bolt and kept quiet about it. By the time we got the car back a few weeks later daughter couldn't remember where she had the puncture fixed :bang:
So it is a little annoying that the garage that sorted that out...over tightened them again (n)
 
what makes it worse.....
The Garage that over tightened them, did it when they replaced the wheel bolts, after having to drill out and remove a wheel bolt that another garage had actually sheared when they over tightened it...
Unfortunately i couldn't actually go to the garage that sheared the wheel bolt, daughter had borrowed the car for a few weeks and took it to have a puncture fixed...Garage sheared the wheel bolt and kept quiet about it. By the time we got the car back a few weeks later daughter couldn't remember where she had the puncture fixed :bang:
So it is a little annoying that the garage that sorted that out...over tightened them again (n)

Air torque bars are a must

You get the benifit of the impact to help them go on tight first time
But since they are designed to twist after a certain twist - it wont let you tighten any further

The garage im at swears by them - then can still be removed afterwards with a wheel brace at side of the road and you know there on tight

But you have to be careful though, some cars want a higher torque vs bog standard sized bolts

for example a corsa on 17mm bolts wants 110nm iirc
Where as a punto wants 86nm
So using a 17mm 90nm torque shaft is fine for punto - but NOT corsa

Ziggy
 
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