Wow...

[moribundman]

What's the required torque on the MB wheel bolts? All my VW and Audis require 120 Nm (89 ft-lbs), which is good hand-tight. I clean the wheel bolts with a soft wire brush when I rotate my wheels. If the bolts are not clean, they tend to squeal a bit when tightened. I retorque after 50-60 miles. The bolts always come out without having to use force.

 

[oddball]

In my experience off and on for the past few years working in a tire shop, I have always said screw The Man. I don't care what shop policies are. I like a very small dab of anti-seize on each stud/bolt, touch them down lightly with an impact wrench, and finish with a torque wrench. If I do not make at least 1/8 of a turn with the torque wrench before clicking, I start over as the chance of being over-tightened is too great otherwise. The shop I moonlight in now forbids the use of anti-seize. They say in one breath that the libricating proerties of anti-seize will allow you to over-stretch the wheel studs with the same torque setting. The next breath they say that the nuts come off too easy and the tire will fall off. The statements are contradictory to me. I have never, ever in all the years I have been wrenching on cars/trucks/semi's/tractors, I have never lost a tire or had to replace a lugnut or wheel stud/bolt when properly tightened. The real, underlying reason they forbid the use of anti-seize in my opinion is so that they can make some money on stud replacements even when it is the technician's fault.

 

[Kestas]

Our company recommends using TWO drops of oil on every stud before torquing the nuts down. This is for the heavy truck hub bearing units we sell.

 

[Black Thunder]

quote:

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Originally posted by surfstar: JK I remember this being brought up in a thread last year about torquing lug nuts and then "rechecking" the torque. Say the torque stick is off (or the wrong one was used) and the torque got set to 200 ft lbs, and then the person who manually checks them checks them to ensure they are tight enough - and sure enough they meet the factory 85 ft lb spec. How do you ensure that they are not overtorqued without torquing them manually originally? Hope that made sense.

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Usually when we go to torque the nuts manually the nut will move slightly before the wrench clicks. when i tighten the nuts with a torque-stick i just snug them up, i don't go all out holding the trigger down on each nut, i just zip through the star pattern and then manually torque them.