I noticed that on firm braking from higher speeds that my front shimmied. OK, Warped rotors. Then I remembered that I had the tires rotated recently and Lexus has thin rotors. I loosened the lugs and re torqued them to 76 ft lbs and the shimmy went away.

Cheep fix.

 

this may sound ****. but i always re-torque my wheels after state inspection,or having new tires put on etc. they almost always have them way too tight. and probably not torqued evenly either.

 

I thought the standard torque is 80 ft lb?

 

It is 80. Toyota, Honda and Nissan are all 80 ft-lbs.

I never touch my lug nuts without the torque wrench by the side. All the warped rotors in my life was probably related to over torquing.

 

The book calls for 76 lbs, but as long as they are all the same, 4 lbs won't make a difference.

Where did these weird ad's that are added to our post come from?

 

Were you logged in? They show for the "unsubscribed."

 

And, recheck the air pressure afterwards as well.

 

Last week I had a minor maintenance and tire rotation done the local Toyota Dealership. Like you Lexus114 I re-torque the lugs after every rotation.. They had torqued them a 83 ft-lbs, even though I asked them to use 76 ft-lbs. Going through the wheels I came upon a lug that my 21mm deep well socket would not work on. The dealership had rounded off a lug bolt reinstalling the wheels. I took the car back today and it was fixed. The tech said this is very common. The lug bolts are chrome plated and it doesn't take much (especially with an impact wrench) to roll up that plating. He used an oversized 22mm socket to remove the problem lug. He also said that sometimes he has to use a chisel to remove the plating from the lug in order to get the wheel off. Toyota and Lexus use common lugs, so they had the part. He also said that sometimes they have to replace several lugs (I bet they do this and certainly don't tell the customer).

 

and why they use an impact on aluminum wheels is another question. it really pays to check everything after service was done. (hence the saying if you want it done right,do it yourself) and sometimes we just dont have the time,or the means for some of it. example, i will never try and rotate my tires again in my garage,ever since the jack slipped of the back rear diff. and slammed on my rear drive shaft! it put a dent in the damn thing, but it`s been okay so far.

 

Quite a few vehicles are "speed limited", not only due to tire speed ratings, but also rotating mass (Ex:drive shaft and half shafts). If your rear drive shaft is damaged, get it checked soon. Even in front wheel drive, the rear wheels spin the shaft and if it's out of balance, it will vibrate. You may not notice it at slow speeds, but at high speed freeway driving, it could start to vibrate and come loose real fast.