+200 foot pounds of torque on my lug nuts?! Bad?

Here's a question for you all. I live in Ottawa Canada and I brought
my 2001 Prelude SE into a local Honda dealer to get the 50,000 km
service done. (I won't mention which dealer as I was ultimately happy
with the resolution of my issue...so far.)

So, they did their things and that was that. The next day, I decided
to put snow tires on my car (all four wheels). If I'd been smart, I
would have just brought them to the dealer and told them to change
them when they had the wheels off checking the breaks etc, but I was
in a rush and didn't have time to organize.

Anyhow, there I am in my driveway the very next day and I start with
the first wheel. I'm using a lug wrench to get the lugnuts off
(duh!?!) and I am finding it close to impossible to get them off. The
first one alone, I am standing on the lugwrench bouncing up and down,
trying to get it to budge. I weight about 185 pounds. So, there I
am, jumping up and down on the lugwrench and the nut finally starts to
budge. Now, I know coming-off torque is supposed to be greater than
going-on torque, but the next day after they were removed/
reinstalled? And to that extent???!

So then get this.... I pull out a guaged torque wrench which tops out
at 220 foot pounds. I literally am off the scale pulling with the
next lug nut, so that the needle is buried at the end of the scale.
So here I am wailing on the torque wrench and, you're not going to
believe this, the male part of torque stick comes off the bar and
stays in the socket which is still on the lugnut on the rim??!! I
flipped it over (double sided) and tried a few more nuts (I didn't go
past 220 foot pounds this time) just to see and none of them would
budge. I then removed everyone of them with the lug wrench, each one
of them with me standing on the wrench, bouncing up and down trying to
get them to come off. It took about an hour and a half.

In the end, I went back to the dealer the next day and told them my
story. They gave me a free oil change and noted on the computer file
that my lugnuts had been over tightened. My question to all of you
is, what if anything would that have done to my car. My mechanic
neighbour said that it may have warped my rotors? Could it have
happened that fast? Is there anything else that could have happened?
What kind of recourse will I have with Honda if something does happen?
Ideas? Thanks,

Rob

 

It can stretch the bolts and bend the rims. Make sure the lugnuts still
go on smoothly and you don't have any new wheel vibration.

Now lets see if you can get your oil filter off after their free oil
change

 

==============

Rob,

A search in the 'groups' section of Google.ca would find you lots of
hits about the terms: honda rotor warped.

I even posted to the group when I found that my Honda dealer torqued all
my wheels perfectly (Millwoods Honda Edmonton)

I don't have much of an opinion about the warping myself, but if you
have ANY problem with oscillation when stopping, make sure you print out
some of the articles you find, so you can demand new rotors all the way
around. :-(

You should have had a video of yourself jumping like a gorilla on the
wrench. Serious error.

'Curly'

 

===============

Rob,

I thought of something else. Maybe it's worth your while to inspect the
bolts on the microscopic level to be sure the threads aren't 'leaning'
outward. That's a heck of a lot of torque.

'Curly'

==============

 

Rob B wrote:

(real mess snipped)

A free oil change - call out the Guinness team!

I'm pretty certain you won't/don't have a valid claim against Honda
(unless Canadian law differs from US in this respect). You surely have a
claim against the dealer, however.

I have retorqued the lug nuts on all my cars for > 25 years (going back
to my Porsche 911 days) precisely because of this problem, i.e., the
dealers/tire people/etc. use pneumatic tools. I bought a good (Snap-On)
torque wrench last summer after I bought my Accord because my old torque
wrench didn't go high enough for Honda's spec ("Snap-On's expensive" I
hear many say, but it's professional quality and will last a lifetime -
bad idea to skimp on tools).

HTH

 

LOL - good point! :-D

 

Try Plus 1 Performance
Honda & Acura specialists in Bell's Corners
behind Eastside Marios.

 

Hmm.
Stopped in there one day when I was working in the area, looking for a
stainless steel cat-back exhaust for my Accord.

The gave me a look like a cow looking at a new fence.
They couldn't even get a price on one.

"Performance"? I don't think so.

 

I do the same as Gus. Take everything apart and re-torque it to
avoid rotor warp. If I don't there's eventual hell to pay every time.
BUT, after a rotation a few months ago I realized that they actually
had everything done right. It was truly a shame to disassemble a
professional job. First time I can remember in quite a few years.

If the torque was applied EVENLY, then there is less chance that the
rotors were warped.

If you have alloy wheels, especially cast instead of forged, there is
a chance that they are now cracked.

You will probably have spalling on the stud threads which will give
problems in the future as the nuts start sticking.

I had the same experience 2 years ago. At least 250 ft-lbs, the max
that the air tool could produce. Clearly the tech didn't give a
damn.* Took a year before I had to replace the studs and nuts. This
is not inexpensive, by the way.

*If he really doesn't like you, he won't start the nut by hand, but
will just jam it all the way down missing most of the threads. Nice
and secure, and will result in having to break off every stud at your
next rotation.

JM

 

In the end, I went back to the dealer the next day and told them my

It sounds like they let 'er rip with the air wrench putting your wheels back
on.

Check the mating surface of the rims closely where the lug nut contacts the
rim. They may have distorted or even stress cracked them.

I would be very reluctant to let a shop like that work on my vehicles.

John

 

You will probably have spalling on the stud threads which will give

More properly, I should have said "galling" of the threads. Spalling
is what the bricks on my last house did, which is to lose large chunks
right off the surface. Concrete and sacrificial tank armor systems
can do this too.

JM

 

I hate it when that happens to my tank armor.

 

I used a long pipe to loosen overtorqued lug nuts once and broke all four of
them. So, there is a high chance that these lug bolts could have been
weaken during this overtorque and untorque process. Just don't know how you
can address this issue with the dealer.

 

This past Sunday I managed to break off all 4 lug nuts on the front
left of a 2000 Civic. Now it's up on a jackstand with way to put a
wheel on it to take it to a shop, other than yanking the entire
halfshaft, caliper, rotor, and spindle off the car.

I've managed to split breaker bars in half while attempting to loosen
CV halfshaft nuts before, but having all these lug nuts sieze and
break on just 1 hub is a new HONDA trick for me.

Appears as if they had metal filings loose inside just enough to bind
and make taking off a closed-nut impossible without breaking it off.

Now.....if Honda had invented the open-end lug nut we wouldn't have
these problems.


One lug bolt broke off on the other side as well. All front end, no
problems out back. I'm thinking the amount of heat dissipation and
brakes being suspect to these lug nut problems.

 

I'm a little puzzled. Is this the first time the wheels were removed
from this car? They should have been removed and reinstalled at least
a couple times for brake inspections, tire rotations, etc. If they are
now breaking the studs off, I would be looking at the last person who
put the wheels on, not Honda.

Also, I'm not sure how open end nuts would have helped you remove
them. Any filings that you could remove would not be the ones binding
the threads. I suspect any filings present were the result of the nut
being cross-threaded and/or over-torqued by the last installer.

 

I would be looking at the last person who

Exactly.

JM

 

The problem is that everyone will claim that they had tighten the lugs to
specification. In my case which happened 10 years ago, I was the last
person putting on the wheels 6 months prior. I think that sometimes the
nuts will seize and they get stuck for good. It would be impossible to
have 4 nuts crossed thread and not know about it because the wheels would
have been quite wobbly. Since my last experience, I had been putting on a
dab of grease on the lugs before putting on the nuts, and that made the job
much easier (don't worry, the nuts won't fly off).

 

It would be impossible to

Depends on how they got that way.

I had 20 (twenty) lug nuts completely frozen on an Oldsmobile when the
Firestone dealer tried to rotate the tires under warranty. Turned out
that their recently departed tire man had been upset for a few months,
and was not starting the nuts by hand. He was just jamming them
against the stud and letting the air tool rip. That will get them
very tight, and very cross-threaded.

They had to replace all of them. On a lot of cars.

JM

 

In your case, you are right. Brute force will definitely make things
possible! You really need to have a powerful pneumatic driver to tighten a
crossed thread nut down to hold the wheel in place.

 

Since my last experience, I had been putting on a dab of grease on the
lugs before putting on the nuts, and that made the job

I've had to deal with rusted lug nuts on cars over 20-25 years old
before, but this was the first time I had to deal with broken studs on
an almost new car.


For the person who was inquiring about open ended lug nuts as opposed
to the closed end "acorn" variety, the difference is that open end lug
nuts offer the opportunity to coat the exposed stud with oil
penetrant, grease, whatever..so after getting the frozen/stuck nut
loose after the initial torque pull..there is less friction resistance
from that point on by using lubricants. The "acorns" don't offer
that opportunity to lubricate the stud...and the person is basically
stuck with the condition of the threads and has to work the nut off
without the benefit of first tossing some grease or oil on the stud.