To cut a long story short our X5 went in for some problems and in the process I asked them to rebalance the wheels as a tyre fitter locally had put weights on that were falling off. BMW rebalanced but when I went and cleaned the wheels they had not taken old ones off so made them rebalance taking all the old tyre fitters weights off. We then drove to Austria and back and yesterday I decided to put the summer rims back on only I couldnt budge the studs! I managed to get 2 undone but when I tried the locking nut (im sure you can guess whats comming) the nut went "ping", I nearly broke my wrist, the brace took a chunk out of the wheel and the locking nut key broke.
Im no expert but these studs are supposed to be torqued to 140nm and I honestly couldnt budge most of them. What do people think an average man can torque a nut to with a standard sized wheel brace using hands only (no stepping on the wheel brace)?
Luckily the car went back in for the some warranty issues that have taken three atempts to put right up to now so as you can imagine I was not in the best of moods this morning. I was going to make them get the mechanic out and give him a wheel brace and ask him to remove the nuts but I lost the will to live with the traffic approaching Derby.

 

I assume it depends the length of the bar on the spanner.

 

Which is why I made reference to the below

"What do people think an average man can torque a nut to with a standard sized wheel brace using hands only (no stepping on the wheel brace)?"

 

Ahhh, I er must have missed that bit.

I'm going to suggest that they could probably get to around 200 if they really putting some effort in.

 

did you swear?

I sympathise, but I have no idea what the figure would be

Most alloys should be torqued of course, and I suspect most cannot be undone using the pathetic standard wrench

 

Have you ever listened to Derek and Clive? There is a sketch on I think its an album called Adnausium that goes something like "ffing hell, shit, tit, bum hole, ****" Well... my very good neighbour was out washing his car at the same time and he got a full re enactment of that very sketch!

 

I think the best track is 'Sir' (the one about an affectionate teacher anyway )

I take it the dealer got the wheel off?

 

The very thought of D & C has me chuckling to myself...

A std. bar goes to about 200 Lb-ft and a big one around 300.

I'd put money on some junior monkey with an air wrench farting away on your locknut. Even the Queen mum got to hear it...

 

Take it back to BMW and get them to sort it , I did read that they were the last to have the wheels off? They would have used a impact driver air or cordless.

My son is a truck mechanic and uses a lot more torque than 200, its a 4 ft long torque wrench and some serious red in the face lark. Hes after a snapon cordless impact wrench for doing these serious nuts.

Remeber Atlas said "Give me a big enough lever, and I will move the world" its al a matter of the length of the lever and the pivot point. Longer the lever the more torque. The old ft lbs were easier to visualise , being apply a lb at a radius of a ft and there you have a ft lb

 

The answer is a bloody lot.

I recently tried to take a wheel off my mums car because it had a flat. No matter what I did (stood on it, bounced up and down etc) it wouldn't budge. My stepbrother turned up later in the day and removed it in 5 mins

He must bench press >120kgs.