Question about people who don't torque lug nuts by hand

I watched a guy at my shop in Tucson last week use an impact gun to slam all five lug nuts on a Honda Civic without ever touching a torque wrench, and then he wondered why the rotor warped after 50 miles, has anyone else run into this kind of shortcut in a pro shop?

2 comments

2 Comments

kaip1111d ago

Man I swear I read somewhere that impacts can overtorque by like 50 ft-lbs easy, and now that Civic's rotor is toast because some guy was in a hurry.

benlewis11d ago

Yeah, 'read somewhere' gets me every time. My buddy swore he read that ugga dugga counts were foolproof, so he hit his Ford Focus lugs with an impact and snapped two studs clean off. Turns out the '50 ft-lbs over' thing is real, but it depends on the gun and how long you hold the trigger. I've seen guys just tap it and it's fine, but then the next guy leans on it for five seconds and the rotor cracks before you even pull the tire. Your mileage will vary a ton with different impacts too, some of the cheap ones hit way harder than you'd expect.