Albert

Just the other day, I caught a nail in the sidewall of one of my rear S02's.

So I went and got my tire replaced at a tire shop. After a day of driving, I got home and checked the torque specs on the wheel that they removed for the tire replacement. They torqued it down to 100lbs., which was what I was afraid of. I went ahead and retorqued them down to the recommended 80lbs.

That got me wondering. Is the difference between 100lbs. and 80lbs. much of a concern? When it comes to overtorquing, which part of the car is the most stressed, and likely to be damaged?

Sorry in advance if this has been discussed already.

boiler

I think that the biggest worry would be the lug bolts and whether they were stretched or not. I would not expect them to be stretched, but I know that some people have had problems with them breaking.

Tireguy

It doesn't sound like there was a prolonged period of time when your wheels were overtorqued. They should be OK . 80 ft-lbs is the proper torque for Hondas.

xviper

90-100 ft #s is fairly typical of "most" lug nuts on 'merican cars. 80 seems to me to be a little on the light side but that's what the book says. I've changed a lot of wheels and when I remove the lug nuts from the S, it just seems too easy. Usually, I need an extension on my rachet handle to remove lug nuts but not on this car. My torque wrench has "tape guide" at the 80ft# mark AND at the 100ft# mark. I try to get the S's lug nuts "between" these two marks (so about 90). I don't think that an extra 20ft#s in this torque range will hurt anything. Those guys who had lugs break on their cars may not have had anywhere near the correct torque on those nuts. I don't remember reading in any of those threads if the nuts were torqued on properly. For all we know, they could have been "hammered" on with an impact wrench and, combined with track duties, was too much for those poor lugs.
I'm not saying there is any relationship, but remember the whole spark plug torque thing?

Albert

Thanks for the input guys. Yeah, I was a little suprised too that the recommended TQ was 80 ft. lbs.... since I was so used to using 100 ft. lbs. on my previous car (Chevy).

boiler

xviper, I think that the folks that I remember having problems had nuts that were way over torqued with an impact wrench.

I can not imagine any one having lug bolt trouble with 100 ft lbs of torque. I have stretched bolts before and you can not only feel it, but see it as well.

I'm of the same mind set as you, 80 ft lbs is kind of wimpy. I'm not used to that small amount of torque.

Bob

xviper

Just as I had suspected. Thanks for the confirmation. Another reason to pick a tire shop that will show you their torque wrench and torque "sticks" and promise that they'll use them.

Sideways

I know it is in a foreign language but the chart that came with my heptagon lug nuts recommends 88 to 118 Nm. Any physics buffs out there that can convert that newton meters to foot lbs for us common folks?

xviper

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sideways
[B]I know it is in a foreign language but the chart that came with my heptagon lug nuts recommends 88 to 118 Nm.

Tedster

I was just doing some work on my wife's classic Mini Cooper - 40 ft-lbs on those babies.