Rear Wheel Stud Replacement
 

So, I snapped a wheel stud and wondered if there were any tricks to it before I dive in. I've done this on other cars without issue but this stud snapped before it reached torque spec. I tried to search but apparently I'm either not allowed to search or it is horribly broken. Google comes up with older cars and/or stuff that isn't related.

So, any short cuts or gotchas to know about?

BTW, splash guards are on.

The butt end of the lug nut did not seat properly in the rim. If it keeps turning when it should be tight it's not seated properly. I alway hand tight the lug nuts prior to using a torque wrench. Or you probably overtorqued it or somehow crossed the threads. It takes quite a bit of force to break these studs.

I always found the acorn shaped lugs on my previous Honda to be very easy to install compared to the mag style Toyota ones.

Let us know how it goes.

Here is a DIY guide I found for a 2007 GS, same procedure applies.

I'm going to have to disagree. I've been doing this for 40 years, first at my dad's garage and with my own personal fleet of between 3-6 vehicles. First stud ever to break on me and I most certainly didn't over torque it. I ran all of them down by finger (not an easy thing) and used a socket alone to get them snugged down where the wheel was flat against the rotor and no wiggle. None where cross threaded, guaranteed. I never put them on with air tools, only take them off.

It took a considerable amount of force to remove these lug nuts. I will guarantee whoever put them on did not torque them to spec. To boot, it will take considerably more than 76lb/ft to seat that lug into the hub if that is the only way to do so. When doing this on other vehicles, you will destroy the lug nut before the lug stud.

A 12mm - 1.5 stud should not snap at 76lb/ft. I could feel it stretching just before it snapped. Once snapped, the broken stud was removed from the lug nut by hand.

It was either defective or previously damaged, probably by some impact wielding moron.

As a matter of fact, I recently rotated the tires on my daughter's old 99 Civic. Someone at a Florida tire shop had spun them down to 185lb/ft! Not a one of them snapped at more than twice the spec. I can't believe a Lexus stud would break before spec. These lugs are much larger than Civic ones.

It only takes hand tight to seat the the lug nut properly and when you torque it you feel it getting tighter until it hits 76lb/ft.

The Lexus/Toyota studs are thicker/stronger but seating the nut can be tricky because the shape of the butt end of it.

Your post is the first on the 4GS forum for a broken wheel stud.

Well, it doesn't really need further explanation beyond that. They were obviously damaged the last time they were installed but just on the threshold of failure. Doesn't matter that they happened to fail when you were hand torquing them down because the damage has already been done by the previous moron and there were probably fractures on the stud which were waiting to fail.

The rest of your studs may also be damaged/stretched/fractured assuming they slammed them all down the same way.

I would check the rest of them.

Maybe, maybe not. If they torque to spec and show no obvious damage, I'm going to leave them alone for now. The other side was fine to spec. This was a northeast car so I was wondering if some level of corrosion played a part but the broken end of the stud doesn't look very corroded. I do notice a slight reduction in size immediately before the breaking point. It also shows a differing color of metal in the center than in the outer. Perhaps the metallurgy or heat treating failed?

Clearly the stud's been stretched from overtorquing.

That's why I do my own swaps between winter and summer tires. I pay the shop to do the mount and balancing obviously but I take them home and put them on the car myself. It's the only way I know they're torqued properly and if I ever find myself at the side of the road with a flat, I don't have to worry about overtightened nuts that I can't break even with a 2' breaker and my entire weight on it.

Did you buy your car new, OP?

Haha, heck no! Even though I grew up and worked in a dealership and drove a lot of new cars, I have only owned one new car in my life and this one wasn't it. I got it cheap last month, fully aware of what might be involved.

"I installed my splash guards but I had one lug nut that wouldn't torque down.
I was afraid of this and it snapped off. "
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...l#post10111370
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.clu...443e5b3424.png


This is exactly what I was talking about before. When the lug nut keeps turning and will not torque down that means the base of the nut is not seated properly. I bet instead of going through the wheel completely it was caught against the wheel and eventually snapped off.

I had this same thing happen to me before but instead of continuing to turn it I just loosened all the nuts reseated/retightened all of them by hand before torquing.

You are getting off topic focusing on something that was not the problem. I've already addressed all of this. There is NO WAY this stud should fail at less than 76lb/ft and still hand back out of the lug nut after breaking.

The point I'm making is when the nut keeps turning and the torque is not going up, it's not seated properly. When it happened to me before the torque would not go past 40-50 ft/lb's, it was obviously hung up on something, but able to spin freely. Had I kept turning it I was afraid of slowly stretching the stud to the point that it snaps off.