Quote:
Originally Posted by ckissick
I use a torque wrench. Also, the studs always break on the same wheel. 9 out of 9. If it was a torque issue, you'd think some studs would break on other wheels.
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When the first one broke, did you replace all five studs in the spacer? If not, maybe you are just dealing with "one problem" of defective studs originally installed on the spacer.
Let's say you had five defective studs originally and one broke. You notice it and replace the one broken stud. Now, if one of the remaining four defective studs break, it would put excessive stress on the other studs, quite possibly the "new" stud you had just replaced. The second stud breaking, could stress the "newly replaced" stud, so that it breaks too. If you replace those two, you still would have three defective studs on the spacer. If another of the original spacer studs break, it could again stress the wheel and break another of the newly replaced studs.
My point, you could get up to a total of "9" studs on one wheel needing replacement, because originally four or five of the studs on the spacer were defective and each time one broke it stressed the other studs and ended up breaking some of the other "newly replaced" studs.
The suggestion of shifting the position of the spacers is an option, but since you say "They always break on the same wheel: the left-front (driver side)," I'd still wonder about the stud strength in the spacers even if the same happens when you reposition a spacer to the left-front wheel.
Our roads -- with driving on the "right" side -- results in the most stress on a left front wheel when making right-hand turns. Left turns put stress on the right-front wheel, but our left turns tend to be more "sweeping," so stress on the wheel is lower than on most right-hand turns. If your set of spacers have weak studs on all of them, putting a spacer from another position onto the left-front wheel could result in broken studs, even though there is no problem with the car itself.
Additionally, have you saved the remainder of the broken studs? (I'll assume you don't have the outside broken off portions, as they have probably been thrown some distance and broken someone's windshield as they passed you
.) The metal of the remaining portion of stud could be examined to determine if there is a problem with the metal itself.