RCsGX

Got my GX back this afternoon and everything is installed correctly. If I take my cars anywhere to get serviced I always remove the locks so they don't go hog wild w/ their impacts. I went out and put them all on, hit them w/ 30lbs. w/ the cordless impact then hand torqued them to 80ftlb. I thought while I was there I might as well check the torques on all of the lug nuts, damn if they didn't use a 200ftlb + impact to tighten them down!!??

I cranked on it w/ the impact set to 200ftlb. for 20secs and it didn't budge, the wheels are supposed to be torqued down to 80ftlbs. I've had no problem using the impact to do all of the suspension work etc. I ended up using a 36" 1/2" breaker bar with a 4" extension and 1/2" to 3/8" adapter and it felt like the extension was going to snap so I used the adapter on the breaker bar. I got 3 lugs loose and on the 4th lug the adapter broke off at the head and got stuck in the socket...and this is Snapon stuff not China stuff!!? WTF are wrong w/ these shops!!?? Discount tire use to do the same shh*t. I always told them to tighten them down by hand and I'll torque them down in the parking lot myself. Glad I checked because I'd hate to have needed to change a flat and couldn't because these idiots torqued them down to 200ftlb. +. This is prime example of WHY I like doing my own work!

burny

Amen brother. I think the bastards do it on purpose a lot of the time.

chiph9

I had a shop use their air wrench on my wheel locks one time. They were able to get 2 of them back off, but broke the key on #3. It took them a couple of hours to drill the remaining ones off. They complained the whole time, but cry me a river - they're the ones that did it wrong.

People don't understand what 80 ft-lbs is. Take the wrench that comes with the truck, and apply your upper body weight to the end of it. That's all you need. Half of a 160-200 pound adult, applied to the end of a 1 foot long lever gives you torque in the desired range.

Chip H.

RCsGX

I got them off fine w/ a 1/2" socket afterwards but man doesn't anyone use their brain!?? Why would anyone torque lugs down more than 200ftlb. on a passenger vehicle? Maybe they serviced a Porsche Carrera GT before mine, it's lug are 407 ftlb.

skifanatic

I was at a tire shop a couple of years ago watching the techs putting wheels back on.
They would run the air wrench untill it stalled then pick up a torque wrench and "torque" the lug nuts to the proper setting.
Of course the torque wrench clicked right away.
Some techs are not trained and do not understand the proper use of a torque wrench.

shadowmite

Sounds more like they didn't understand the proper pre-torque wrench procedure... Sometimes they just have no damn clue how high the impact is set because they crank it to break troublesome lugs and then forget to back it down.

Jeeparn

RCsGX--- I owe you big time. This thread and tip on the twine was a life safer. Well, a sizable stack of cash saver at the least. Thanks again. If you're ever in Indy let me know, I owe you lunch.

gxman1

RC,

As usual thanks for putting up a solution. I was wondering did you change the pads, caliper and rotor? Why all 3. I am assuming why not just cut the rotor and put new pad on? Why change the caliper since they are rarely used and have enough meat on them?

I had the tire rotated and noticed my pads are on a thin side. Recently I did my front rotors and pads, I thought this would be a decent project, but confused on changing all 3 parts.

Thanks

RCsGX

I only changed the back passenger side caliper. That was because the caliper piston was badly damaged from grinding on the backside of the rotor. Somehow my inner passenger side brake pad fell out so the caliper piston was pushing / grinding on the backside of the rotor face because there was no pad to push against the rotor when I pressed the brake pedal. There was no saving the one rotor it was too badly scored so I just replaced both rotors, along w/ new pads and a new passenger side rear caliper.

I could've rebuilt the caliper but I didn't have time and didn't want to fool around doing that because I had family coming in from out of town and we needed to use my GX.

As long as your rotors are within specs after you turn them you're fine and all you would need to do is turn the rotors and install new rear pads.

New rotor thickness: 18.0 mm (0.709 in.)
Minimum rotor thickness: 16.0 mm (0.630 in.)

gxman1

RC,

Did you change your Parking break pads as well?

RCsGX

Nope, the pads had plenty of meat left.