I'm not sure why, but it seems that people are completely oblivious to torque specs, what they should be for each part and what that torque should feel like if using a wrench vice torque wrench. Why people think they need 100+ ft-lbs for a drain plug, 50+ ft-lbs for oil filters and anything other than snug for covers and non-load-bearing parts is beyond me.
I called up the tire change place where my gf recently had her tires replaced to give them a piece of my mind. I went to replace her brakes in her driveway, thinking it would be an easy job, and I could not, with all my weight on the crowbar - I forgot my tools and jack at my place, so I had to use what came with the car, unfortunately - get ANY of the lugs to budge.
When I called the salesman to ask why they torqued the lugs so tightly he was nonplussed, say that they use a "torque stick" for every vehicle. I told him how I thought he was full of [censored] (in nicer terms, mind you,) and that my gf would have been stuck on the side of the road with a flat, forced to tow the car, even if a good samaritan who worked out 7 days/week happened to stop to help. He didn't know what to say, other than to bring it in and have them check it out.
I showed up an hour later to have them re-torque the lugs to spec (and replace two studs that were barely engaging the random nuts they'd decided to use vice lug nuts, since the studs were sheared off several threads down.) Walking from the parking lot and past the bays on the way to their office I noticed two different cars having their lugs tightened with 5+ seconds of impact-wrench goodness.
To their credit, they replaced the lug studs, free of charge, and retorqued the lugs so that I was able to easily remove the wheels the following day to replace her brake pads.
I'm glad that when I replaced her plugs after 120k, it was an easy job. The reason? They were probably never replaced before, so the plugs, while very tight, came out as expected, with out any cross-threading nor any excessive torque needed to remove them.
