How to tighten your lug nuts may seem like a really silly topic. However, you may find it suprising, how many drivers don’t even know how to take a wheel off of a car. There’s nothing really wrong with this. Nowadays, people take their vehicles into a shop or have roadside service. So, we live in a spoiled and catered society and skills are disappearing by the day.
We also live in times where more and more people have to do their own car repairs. Garages hourly rates are climbing and car prices keep soaring. Doesn’t leave to much money left to pay a shop. You would think that tightening lugs nuts would be the simplest thing to do. But you would be wrong, not knowing how to tighten your lug nuts can be a big problem.
How Serious Can Lug Nuts Be
There are many theories on how to tighten your lug nuts, it may be suprising how many of them are wrong. You may hear that you have to tighten a lug nut with all of your might. Another idea is that you just snug them up. Both of those methods are wrong, you kind of need to be in the middle.
Even if you have some mechanical experience and have changed a tire or two. You may not know the correct procedure of tightening lug nuts and the importance of doing it correctly.
If lug nuts are not tightened properly, there are a few things that can happen. The obvious is that the wheel can come off going down the road. However, there are other damaging things that can occur from not knowing how to tighten your lug nuts properly.
If your lug nuts are not tightened evenly, this can warp the wheel, or the brake rotor. The same goes with over tightening them. With the lug nut not tightened enough, you can start losing them while driving. Your wheel can come off as well, which can be highly dangerous to you and others.
By over tightening your lug nuts, can also have a problem if you need to change the tire. I have seen lug nuts that were so tight, even my impact gun couldn’t remove them. Imagine if you were on the side of the road with lug nut that wouldn’t budge loose. Over tightening your lug nuts can also damage the wheel itself. The lug nuts can start rounding out the holes or even crack the wheel.
Issues Caused by Improper Lug Nut Tightening
- Wheel warpage
- Brake rotor warpage
- Damage to the stud holes in the wheel, rounding out the holes
- Cracking the wheel
- Making it impossible to get the lug nut loose
- Losing lug nuts while driving
- Wheel coming off while driving
How To Tighten Your Lug Nuts
The first thing you need to pay attention to is how many holes does your wheel have. This is important because there is a sequence to tightening them based on how many holes.
It is best to tighten at least two lug nuts by hand to help center the wheel and hold it in place. This makes it easier to put the other lug nuts on so you are not constantly fighting the tire movement.
Do not get the lug nut started and then use an impact gun to run them up. This can affect getting the lug nuts evenly tightened in the end.
Once you have all the lug nuts snug, you will need a torque wrench to apply proper torque to each nut. Knowing how to tighten your lug nuts doesn’t mean you have to have a torque wrench. I will explain the other method later.
To use a torque wench, you will need the torque specs. You will also need to know the torque pattern sequence. If your wheel had 5 lugs, then you do what is known as the star pattern. This is the most common.
Go to the Tighten Your Lug Nuts page to get sequence patterns and torque specs.
On a side note: Always ensure you have the Proper Spare Tire Tools in your car. This can help on tightening your lug nuts more efficiently without having a torque wrench.
How To Tighten Your Lug Nuts Video
If you do not find your torque spec for your lug nuts, contact me and I will get your specification and add it to my chart.
Click the button below to be able to view or download, the complete wheel lug torque chart. You will also find the wheel lug torque pattern sequence illustration on this how to page. Additionally, any necessary tools you might need to make tightening your lug nuts or even jacking up the car are added.
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