Back in the late 60s when I was a kid my dad drove a 1959 VW bug as his daily driver. He noticed a nail sticking out of the tire and while in uniform stopped at a convenient gas station and had them put on the spare. He was in a hurry and said he would pick up the fixed tire in the afternoon. He figured my brother and I could put the tire on for him. After dinner he asked us to put the regular tire back on.

It was the passenger rear tire so we put it in gear and pulled the emergency brake. My brother put the lug wrench on and could not budge it. Soon we were both jumping up and down on the wrench. Nothing. We found a piece of pipe and made a cheater bar. It was three foot long bar and we were both jumping on it. Nothing. Other neighborhood kids were watching so we had 4 boys all jumping on it. The wheel would start to rotate so we put one kid behind the wheel and had him stand on the brakes. We finally got enough boys jumping on the bar the the front tires would almost come off the ground. My dad came out about then and he got at the end and the largest boys stood next to him and we watched as the front end lifted a foot.

We had to give up. He was not happy when he went back to that gas station. They used an impact and after a lot of hammering got the bolts off. All of them were torqued to the point the 3/4 inch impact gun could not tighten them up anymore. :eek:

Waaaay to tight..........
 

Had the same problem on my Jag XJS. A tire store mounted a set of tires and then proceeded to over tighten the lug nuts. I tried to loosen one with a regular cross wrench with no luck. I also tried my air wrench that will generate about 600 ftlbs of torque in reverse, no luck. I finally used a long breaker bar with a pipe extension and put all my weight on it to break the lug loose! Once I got them all loose, I re-torqued them with my torque wrench. If I had had a flat out on the road somewhere, there would have been no way that I or anyone else could have gotten the wheel off!

I was stuck at the side of the road with a flat tire once. The Volvo factory wrench is decent, but there was no way I could get ANY of the studs loosened.

I had a friend bring a 3' cheater bar to me. If it had been the middle of the night or the middle of nowhere I would have been screwed.

I have never let a shop put tires on my car since that incident. They never use a torque wrench, they use those stupid 'wiggle' extensions (or nothing).

Girly men.... Just quit your whining and pull on the damn wrench already....

That sucks, but could be worse. I had some new tires installed at Discount last year. Checked them a couple days later, and 1 wheel (rear passenger) was missing 2 lug nuts.

I grew up in North Jersey and it sounds about right. Now, can I fill up your Porch for you? Sorry to hear it..

Some places have no idea what torques numbers are for wheel mounting.

You're not alone.

The car sat outside waiting on a "tune-up" for 14 weeks at one place and got monetarily screwed by another...

Found a place I really like and last time the car comes back with a 1.5" paint chip on the driver's door jam. Like a tool or seat belt connector were slammed in the door. Best I got was "that's a shame, it must have been like that when it got here because my guys don't know what happened."

I don't know why there are such issues with attention to detail and integrity, almost everywhere you go. Porsche shop or not:confused:

Life's too short to read his thread

LOL.

Life's too short to pay other people for a premium service and have it not be 100%, 100% of the time.

Do those torque stick things really work? I'm suspicious of them. Could they be the reason for over-torqued wheels and such.

In theory they twist and absorb some of the impact limiting the maximum torque. I wouldn't trust them.

Stop to help a good looking coed change a tire in University of Texas student parking one afternoon. After breaking her lug wrench and then mine by jumping up and down on it, I sheepishly suggested it was time for her to call AAA.

Gary

Hey you guys as a public service I just want to remind you it's "lefty loosey." You're welcome.

Beyond just being a general pain in the ass, there is a very real safety issue at play when a fastener is torqued well beyond specification. The bolt itself may have exceed its "plastic" yield limit, which seriously compromises its strength. When torqued properly, the bolt is stretched somewhere in its range of "elastic" yield, wherein it stretches to provide the clamping force. It will always want to return to nominal from an "elastic" yield state, like a spring. It will not do that from a "plastic" yield state - think of a piece of silly putty you just stretched. So now it's not only no longer providing any clamping force, its tensile strength has been greatly dimished.

What this means to you is that you need to go back and demand they replace all of the lug bolts and nuts. Mention things like "liability" or, worse yet "lawyer" if the refuse (and you know they will). Don't take "no" for an answer.

Damn. That sucks.

Your left? Or my left?

At the Euro shops where I worked a good click-style torque wrench was the only tool the tech could use when tightening the lug bolts / nuts. Of course when mounting the wheel we would use 3/8" battery impact guns to seat the bolts / nuts as they had very little torque.

Then once on the ground it was finished by hand every time. For reference BMW cars were 80 ftlbs and the X5 was 100

I offered to rotate the tires of my mom's coworker's car many moons ago. Was completely stymied trying to take off the wheels on the left. So tight, could almost budge them but then no more.

Turns out they were left hand threads on that side.

Early Dodge cars were like that.

Dave