[Val Walkinshaw]

GM recommends wheel nut torque to be be 140 lb ft.
Had new wheels and tires put on with a touchless machine at a tire place yesterday. I vocalized said torque and it was on my work order at the top. Swapping out the lugnuts today and finding all are set at 70 with 2 being finger tight. Not looking to bash said tire place, am genuinely curious what is considered to be safe vs acceptable.

[Yellow Beast]

Most tire shops will or should tell you to come back after 25 miles to re torque the wheels after new wheels are put on. You wouldn't think they would be finger tight either way.

[Altered Carbon]

I can say finger tight isn't acceptable for a vehicle that is actually driven. 70 is too low in my opinion. Safe for me would be 110-130lbs. But I would go 140 if they were stock lugs.

[ember1205]

I always ask them to torque manually and don't accept the "we have the pre-set torque tools that don't allow our air wrenches to over-tighten." If they won't oblige, they won't get my business - it's pretty simple.

IMHO, it's completely reasonable to ask a shop to take three extra minutes on a $1,000 tire replacement job, especially where they already have to be careful of the rims. And any shop that's used to working on performance vehicles would possibly hand-torque by default anyhow.

[wwiiavfan]

The torque values are there for a reason. Too low of a torque and you aren’t stretching the studs enough to maintain clamping force in all conditions. Too high and you risk permanently stretching the studs and premature failure. That said, all measurements have tolerances, but myself I stay +/- 5% on the torque, so 133 - 147 ft lbs.
Remember, they consider these to be track cars, so they didn’t just guess at that torque value.
But you can do what you want, it’s your car.

[Val Walkinshaw]

Originally Posted by Yellow Beast

Most tire shops will or should tell you to come back after 25 miles to re torque the wheels after new wheels are put on. You wouldn't think they would be finger tight either way.

Agreed. I'm glad I live 7.1 miles from that shop. I'm also glad I planned on putting on black lug nuts to match the wheels instead of using the OEM bright silver ones.

[ember1205]

Originally Posted by wwiiavfan

The torque values are there for a reason. Too low of a torque and you aren’t stretching the studs enough to maintain clamping force in all conditions. Too high and you risk permanently stretching the studs and premature failure. That said, all measurements have tolerances, but myself I stay +/- 5% on the torque, so 133 - 147 ft lbs.
Remember, they consider these to be track cars, so they didn’t just guess at that torque value.
But you can do what you want, it’s your car.

Don't forget that improper clamping force via torque can cause vibrations in the wheel, pulsing in the brakes, warping of rotors, and a whole host of other problems. Torque values should be measure when everything is cold and there should be no debris or lubricant of any kind on the threads of the studs or lug nuts.

I follow the Price is Right method... I come as close as I can without going over. I do a first pass just randomly tightening. Second pass to get within about 10-15%, then final pass to come as close as I can to the final value (140 in this case) without exceeding.

[dpevans]

You really expect mechanics to work at tire shops. I do all my own tire rotations. On my wife's Camry they stripped out lugs using the wrong size impact and too often the torque values were all over the place.

[Yellow Beast]

Originally Posted by dpevans

You really expect mechanics to work at tire shops. I do all my own tire rotations. On my wife's Camry they stripped out lugs using the wrong size impact and too often the torque values were all over the place.

The OP had new tires and wheels put on. I don't know anyone with a tire and wheel removal machine in their garage. He had to take it to the tire shop. Unfortunately it wasn't a very good one.

[Val Walkinshaw]

Originally Posted by Yellow Beast

The OP had new tires and wheels put on. I don't know anyone with a tire and wheel removal machine in their garage. He had to take it to the tire shop. Unfortunately it wasn't a very good one.

Sadly. With a 4.8 rating, 300+ reviews on Google in a higher end neighborhood I expected more. Especially since there was a Maserati, Acura NSX and Nissan GTR being serviced. I'm guessing I got the one tech who didn't have a clue....

Surprisingly the wheels were not marred or scratched.

[Chutzpah]

I’d pull my own tires and wheels (off the car and bring to shop), just me... with all of the boneheads out there, there’s a good chance of collateral damage, (incorrectly lifted, oil dirt or scratch somewhere). Never mind torquing...I’m sure some places will do it, but it’s not the norm.

Example: Just went for a State inspection on the Z, brought my mag pad and some rubber spacers and asked the guy to use for lifting / inspection. Says sure thing, brings car in the bay, grabs the pad and spacers, then look perplexed on where to place them. I step in and insert the mag pad for him... he looks under the car with a scared look and says, it only has 2000 miles, I’m sure your front end is fine. Personally, that made my day, no lifting... I KNOW he was going to lift it wrong without a mag pad or me watching him. He did manage to leave some type residue on my steering wheel, door and near inspection sticker..

Anyway, back to the OP / finger tight lug nuts. Total BS, shoddy work. I can see them loosen up a bit over a week or so, but not finger tight.

[Hops]

in the past, i've encounter over torqued lug nuts way more than under torqued. Once they were so tight i really had to strain to loosen them with a breaker bar. Since then, i always loosen and tighten them with with a torque wrench so as i get home. Amazing something so simple and important is often not done right!

[Val Walkinshaw]

Originally Posted by Chutzpah

I’d pull my own tires and wheels (off the car and bring to shop), just me... with all of the boneheads out there, there’s a good chance of collateral damage, (incorrectly lifted, oil dirt or scratch somewhere). Never mind torquing...I’m sure some places will do it, but it’s not the norm.

Example: Just went for a State inspection on the Z, brought my mag pad and some rubber spacers and asked the guy to use for lifting / inspection. Says sure thing, brings car in the bay, grabs the pad and spacers, then look perplexed on where to place them. I step in and insert the mag pad for him... he looks under the car with a scared look and says, it only has 2000 miles, I’m sure your front end is fine. Personally, that made my day, no lifting... I KNOW he was going to lift it wrong without a mag pad or me watching him. He did manage to leave some type residue on my steering wheel, door and near inspection sticker..

Anyway, back to the OP / finger tight lug nuts. Total BS, shoddy work. I can see them loosen up a bit over a week or so, but not finger tight.

I brought them the wheels in the unopened boxes and tires still wrapped in plastic. I was tempted to do exactly what you said but I also needed them to take out the sensors from the OEM tires. Those also needed to be calibrated as the right side read left and vice versa.

I had the car home for an evening. 7 miles.

[Fraxum]

Originally Posted by wwiiavfan

The torque values are there for a reason. Too low of a torque and you aren’t stretching the studs enough to maintain clamping force in all conditions. Too high and you risk permanently stretching the studs and premature failure. That said, all measurements have tolerances, but myself I stay +/- 5% on the torque, so 133 - 147 ft lbs.
Remember, they consider these to be track cars, so they didn’t just guess at that torque value.
But you can do what you want, it’s your car.

Thanks! I always wondered why the torque limit was as high. So if we are using 3rd party tuner lugs should we back it off a bit? I hope my DR lugs I bought from Drag star can hold the stock torque recommendation.

Now I am feeling like I should go out and re-torque all my cars to the recommended limits instead of my good enough arm torque.