1/2 a day wasted

This little booger lodged in my rear driver side tire yesterday. It sucked. But no big deal. Patched up. Good to go. The part that sucked were the lugs. The tire place that I have free tire rotations with tightened them so freaking tight. I had to use all 270 pounds standing on the tire iron to break them. If I was at home I would have used my impact wrench. Then, I find out that they cross threaded one of the lugs. I was pissed. I put it back on with the spare. I probably shouldn't have. Oh well. Then the stud broke when I took off the spare. So now I'm at the tire place getting that fixed since it was their fault. I guess it could have been worse, like a blowout. Just had to vent.

 

Been there, done that. Told SWMBO to avoid letting tire shops change tires when possible. She had one patched (a good samaritan helped her change the tire in the Wally World parking lot) and let the shop put the patched tire back on. The owner's manual (Honda CRV) states 80 ft-lb is adequate for the lug nuts. I had to stand on the lug wrench to loosen the nuts to remove them. Another shop misthreaded one of the lug nuts a year or so ago. I had to replace the lug bolt--it wasn't worth the 300 mile round trip to make the shop do it.

 

That's why I always make sure to tighten them to 90-100 ft-lbs.

 

Sucks so much of your time was wasted for their mishandling of the work. Unfortunately all these tire shops are tired of being sued for wheels falling off so they over-compensate by having an 800 pound (or kg) gorilla do the lug installs. The only time a shop touches my lugs is for tire replacement, and I demand they torque them by hand to the specs. If the shops refuse to torque by hand, I ask them to provide a guarantee that if/when I cannot loosen the lug on the side of the road they will pay for a tow truck to come get me. That pisses them off but has never failed to work. I hate humans.

 

Love my battery powered impact wrench with the torque sticks work awesome

 

Factory spec is 85 ft-lbs, should anyone be curious.

 

I always use 85 ft/lbs when working on my truck. I watched them put the tire on and over tourque the lugs again. This tire shop is getting a little over confident with the amount of business they have and letting quality suffer. I've been going there for 15 years. They were great. I just got my wife's tires there and they had the lugs so tight that the studs were breaking thru the tip of the lug. It might be time for a change.

 

OMFG were they using the impact gun from a Navy warship?!?

 

When I got my rims on I watched the local Discount Tire techs put my lugs on with an impact and then check after with a torque wrench. Made me cringe watching it...

Not sure if they have a torque limiter on the impact or not. I undid a few lugs when I got home and re-torqued and they didn't seem too far off.

 

I used to work for Discount Tire and their policy was to use a torque stick to get it close and then use a torque wrench. Whether they do that it not, who knows. I know the torque if my impact and can get pretty close to the exact amount even without a torque stick or wrench. But I have also been using the same impact for the last 6 years. And always use my torque wrench at the end. I have seen what happens with loose wheels. And fully well aware what happens if you over torque. Not a pretty sight.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx5ToW0G9d4

Maybe he was using the wrench from this.

 

My son is a Discount tech. Company policy is as quoted by @marinetaco. (As with any organization, however, adherence to policy is local management's responsibility.) Thankfully, our local manager is a stickler for this kind of stuff. I've bought all my tires from him since long before my son was old enough to work there. His staff always uses torque sticks and properly adjusted torque wrenches.

 

True video, never thought about that when I saw the center lock lug. I worked at AAA for 6 years taking roadside assistance calls, I've got a 401k to bet against any GT3 (or Ferrari, Lambo, Maserati, et al), owner changing their tire, shit they don't even want to have it changed at all! The only option to them is a tow. God forbid someone from the country club see their car with 1 mismatched wheel!

 

Now of course the tire sensor doesn't work. Wondering if it was damaged during the repair. Or a just coincidence.

 

Did you reset it after taking the tire off? There's a small button under the steering column on the '16 that does it. I'd imagine there would be one for the '09 somewhere around there. Consult your owner manual.

 

Thankfully not position specific on 2nd gen.

 

When I did my front wheel bearings a while back, one wheel was almost impossible to remove. Three studs were cross-threaded, but I got the lugs off of two but a third one snapped. The next time I went to Toyota Knoxville, I mentioned it to the service manager, since as far as I could remember, they were the only ones to ever rotate the tires. I didn't accuse their guy of doing it, just mentioned it and asked that the tech be careful when reinstalling the wheel. They replaced all 3 bad studs, plus threw in a cabin air filter change and an air cleaner filter for free just for the trouble, even though I couldn't prove they did it!
Maybe not ALL dealerships are rotters...

 

Tried resetting it. Went back in and had one the techs with a hand held meter. No signal was coming from that sensor.

 

After a while, the battery in the sensor will go out. I have had to replace one without having done anything like changing a tire or rotating them. The sensor just stopped sending data to the head unit and the tech told me the battery was dead.