Well after several cold frosty mornings I eventually decided that the time had come for the "Winters" to go on.  I had new pads/discs fitted earlier this year & the wheels hadn't been off since then.

 

Just as well that I had one of them extending wheel brace thingies. [ http://www.justoffbase.co.uk/17mm-19mm-Extending-Wheel-Nut-Wrench-19152-Draper-WM17-19?gclid=CJqi5rqB07oCFWTHtAodIVkAMg ]Even with the bar fully extended it was a struggle to loosen the wheel nuts. The wheel fitting gorilla obviously fitted the wheels with a large, long piece of scaffolding pole. Just as well that I didn't have a puncture as the normal supplied wheel brace wouldn't budge any of the nuts.    

Some time ago there was an investigation into tyre companies over tightening wheel nuts, usually over tightened because they are done up with an air gun. I Thought they all signed up to some sort of protocol where they would check them with a torque wrench.

I had new tyres fitted to a Mercedes and watched as the fitter air gunned the wheel nuts up and then checked them with a torque wrench, only trouble was he didn't tighten them up to the correct torque he just made sure they at least that torque, meaning they could have been over tightened. Now I just say nothing and tighten them up correctly when I get home.

Very diplomatic Octavia55.  On the (few) occasions I get work done at a tyre fitting depot on the car I'm tempted to do the same.  Normally though I take the wheels off myself and run them down there in another vehicle - for the same reasons. I like to know the bolts have been torqued accurately.

Come on folks name and shame these walts.!!!!!!!!!!

You can get the correct size socket that is about 20 cms in length that fits on an air gun and will torque the nut to a pre determined amount, no matter how ham fisted the gorilla is....

I watched my local tyre guy fit my winter wheels yesterday-snap on electric wrench followed by torque wrench which tightened a visible portion of a turn before clicking-from which I deduce the electric wrench is set to a lower torque than required.

Well after several cold frosty mornings I eventually decided that the time had come for the "Winters" to go on.  I had new pads/discs fitted earlier this year & the wheels hadn't been off since then.

 

Just as well that I had one of them extending wheel brace thingies. [ http://www.justoffbase.co.uk/17mm-19mm-Extending-Wheel-Nut-Wrench-19152-Draper-WM17-19?gclid=CJqi5rqB07oCFWTHtAodIVkAMg ]Even with the bar fully extended it was a struggle to loosen the wheel nuts. The wheel fitting gorilla obviously fitted the wheels with a large, long piece of scaffolding pole. Just as well that I didn't have a puncture as the normal supplied wheel brace wouldn't budge any of the nuts.    

 

 

I carry one of those extending thingies in the boot at all times.  They do them in Lidls sometimes for less than a fiver.

The lidl ones are ok, but the sockets are made of cheese: "dropped" rather then "drop forged". Throw the socket away and replace it with a long reach 17mm from halfrauds.

Are not air guns adjustable in the amount of torque they apply?

 

Fred

Correct Fred. But I guess the question being raised is does every fitter adjust the settings appropriately?  IMO there's an increasing number that do.

 

Wheel nuts do also tend to seize over time, partly due to corrosion along the threads. So its not always due to being gorilla'd.  (Speaking as someone who once gorilla'd a sump plug so it snapped off with just the threaded shank left holding the oil in the sump. I soon discovered that BMW sump plugs are deliberately engineered with a weak point to do exactly this - so as not to strip the allow sump threads. Local BMW parts dept. had a box full under the counter close to hand. "We get through 2-3 week like that in the workshop!")

 

So much for that - back to wheel nuts. the nuts on one side must surely have a slight tendency to tighten themselves over time, due to the rotation of the wheel. Don't they? MUCH less so than old sports car single-nut, centre-fix wheels would (which was why those always had a left hand thread on the "undo" side). But even with nuts/bolts arranged on a circle around the hub, there still has to be some effect doesn't there :wonder: - waits to be corrected by an engineer?  Trouble is I can never remember which is the tighten side and which is the loosen.  But emphasises why they need to be correctly torqued in the first place.

 

My point being it's not ALWAYS the fault of the gorilla if your nuts are too tight!   

(Where is Bobdog when you need him? Come back - all is forgiven!  Thinking of the guy in the Coors Light ads whose trousers were too tight!  )

Edited 8 November, 201312 yr by FlintstoneR1

At the centre of the wheel there are parts that don't move (bearing housings for example) and parts that do (axle, wheel etc) so anything screwed on the same centre line could conceivably be affected by the parts it's not attached to - e.g. if the gap is filled with thick grease. So a cap screwed onto a wheel centre would tend to unscrew if on the offside (needing a left-hand thread to be safe) but a nut screwed onto an axle would tend to unscrew if on the nearside and would hence be a left-hand thread, although in this case they are often normal threads fixed by some form of locking collar, split pin or lock-washer, etc. This doesn't apply to wheel nuts, where there are no forces trying to undo the nut.

Gorillas can still mis-use torque wrenches. I needed a wheel rebalanced and used Quackfit, and watched the fitter set the torque correctly on the wrench, do each nut up in the correct sequence until it clicked - and then add an extra 30 degrees of turn!

Edited 9 November, 201312 yr by Gnomeface