Do you work on your car without a torque wrench? Most bolts have a torque spec, and too tight can be just as bad or worse than too loose.
Case in point: Guy takes car to Walmart for tire. Guys gets tire and gets back on interstate. 10 minutes later guy feels vibration. Pulls in parking lot to investigate. Wheel lug nuts are held in by 3 threads and wheel is about to fall off. Guy had child in car. Walmart didn’t tighten lug nuts properly. True story.
Improperly torquing bolts can be a huge headache. Over-torquing lug nuts can cause the rim to bend, and the brake rotor to crack. Modern engines have many aluminum components, including the cylinder heads and the engine block, and aluminum is a very soft metal. Over torquing can cause the threads to break and then you’re hosed, or the next owner is hosed. It can also cause pulley bearings to fail sooner, gaskets to leak, and hundreds of other problems.
Under torquing is obvious, things can come loose if you don’t tighten them down enough!
The solution: Get a torque wrench. They are super-duper easy to use. Check out this quick video of torque wrench basics, and get yourself one!
LEFTLANEBRAIN
One Response
Brianna
It actually happened to me years ago – got a new tire on back driver side, and before i got home i turned a corner and heard / felt something awful. (my one yr old daughter was in car with me too). The lug nuts hadn’t been tightened and the amount of damage was shocking – the wheel, the tire, the lug nut holes, the thingys the lug nuts attach to, the entire back quarter panel. All of it was destroyed.
And like you said over-tightening is just about as bad … ever have a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and can’t change it because some power-wrench-happy car jock over tightened the lug nuts? …(yep, been there too)