Note: This has turned out to be kind of a long story, but there is a question at the end.

I'm driving near downtown on Saturday afternoon, when the driver of the car next to me rolls down his window and says "your back right wheel's kind of wobbly, you might want to check it out". I said thank you, and took it into Canadian Tire later in the day (normally I'd avoid crappy tire like the plague, but it was late on Saturday and it was the only place open). I explained the situation to the service manager, and surprisingly, the guy says he'll check it out for me free of charge and just put it down as a "free tire repair".

Turns out that when the wheel shop where I had my new rims and winter tires put on three weeks ago did their work, they screwed up. The new wheels (SSR GT-7) had a little metal ring that went around the inside hub (not sure of the terminology) and when they were installing the wheels, the little ring on both back wheels snapped open and got trapped between the hub and the wheel. So one side of the wheel was ever so slightly pushed out by this metal half-ring, which was only about 2 mm in diameter. I guess that was enough to create in instability that caused the lug nuts to work themselves loose. The guy at Crappy Tire said if I'd gone much longer, the nuts could have come right off and the wheels might have fallen off. !!!!!

Needless to say, I was both a) extremely grateful for the guy that pointed it out to me on the road, and b) furious at the wheel shop for doing such a sloppy job. The metal half-ring was clearly visible if you were looking closely enough from the outside of the wheel, which they should have been doing since they were installing them!

The service tech at Crappy Tire was really nice, let me in the bay to watch while he was doing everything, and I was asking for advice on properly tightening the lock nuts, etc. He indicated that he doesn't like to torque the lock nuts too tight, since they tend to be rather fragile, so he just tightens them enough to be firmly gripped. Seemed to make sense at the time, but a couple days later I went down to the garage to test fit my new torque wrench and socket to the lock nut - and it was gone! The one he'd left only partly tightened had completely fallen off at some point.

Sorry for the long rambling rant, but my question is this:

How tightly do you guys put on your wheel lock nuts on the wheels? Do you torque them to the full 80 ft-lbs of pressure as recommended or something less? And what about your main lug nuts - 80 ft-lbs as recommended? More? Less?

 

I go full torque on all lugs including the lock. I use 85 ft/lbs. you want to get all of the lugs equally torqued down or you could warp the rotor from the uneven pressure.

 

80-90 ft-lbs is where you want to be. The shop that did my wheels put god knows what, I can't get them off and broke a few adapters while trying. Waiting for my next oil change to get them removed and put on my new lugs.

Also did you check to see if they removed the nuts from the rear hubs? Those are there to keep you from putting your OEM fronts on the rear. They should be removed when installing aftermarket wheels.

 

This is why whenever I need new tires mounted on my Work wheels, I don't bother bringing the car into the tire shop... I put my car on jackstands in my garage, and I hand-roll the wheels into the tire shop, to have new tires mounted... Then I roll them back to my other car, and install them myself in my garage.

I noticed when I do this, they pay EXTRA attention to detail when they mount the tires, cause they probably know that only an ****-freak would hand-roll 4 wheels into the tire shop to have tires mounted, rather than bringing the car in.

 

Glad you figured it out before anything happened. I always tighten to 85 ft/lbs

 

Your torque wrench is your friend. Get in the habit of using one. Torque specs are usually published in Nissan Owner Manuals. Check under 'Tightening.' The FSM lists the torque value next to the fastener in the illustrations. I use a highlighter and look them up each time.

 

Thanks for the advice, guys.

Yes, the nuts were in a little baggie they gave me when I had the new wheels installed.

I put on the new lock nut this morning and torqued it to 85lbs. Although the manual says 80lbs, I like the idea of going a few lbs over and a couple of you seem to use 85 as well. This weekend I'm going to jack the car up and retorque ALL the nuts to 85, since god knows what the wheel shop tightened them to, and I know the guy at Canadian Tire did the standard lug nuts at 100lbs.

 

Always carry a personal torque limiter [colored torque stick ~~$30] for those places/times that don't have a torque wrench.

http://www.torquestick.com/

 

Lol, that's why I carry a torque wrench in the trunk. I bring my G35's wheels in the trunk, and roll em' into the shop... But with my other cars where I bring the car, to have the tires replaced... I'm the fool that parks the car in the parknig lot after I pick it up, and I re-torque all the lugs by hand with my torque wrench to spec.