Puddingheads at the tire shop

Weather forecast for Tuesday is 78 degree, so I decided I'd pull the snow tires off my truck and car today. Was partway through the car and decided I'd save some time and drop my truck at the local tire shop that's a mile from my house.

Stupid move.

Went pear-shaped when I picked it up. First guy at the counter handed me my key and asked for $117. My response of "For putting on an already balanced set of wheels??" was met with "Oh, must have picked the wrong line off the price list." and re-ran it for $22.

Took the truck out on the highway (right by the shop) and ran it up to 80 to check for vibrations. Nothing. Great. Slid over to the ramp, pressed on the brake, and tried to keep my fillings from rattling out of my head. Wheel was shaking, truck was shaking, I was shaking.

Clearly, someone had torqued something down to the point of pulling a rotor out of plane. No problem, I've got my wrenches out, I'll crack the nuts and set them correctly.

Nope. Couldn't break them at all by hand. Damn. OK, pull out the impact wrench.

Nope. Granted, it's an electric model and only good to 250 lb*ft, but it couldn't move a single lug on the front wheel I tried. Chucklehead must have run the wheels on with an air gun and hammered them all the way home.

Back to the shop. Leave the truck. Come back 4 hours later. Still not done, but they suggest I drive it for a few days to let everything seat. Uh, no. I'll wait. Let's crack the nuts, shall we?

Sitting in the shop, I can hear the tech trying to get them off with his impact wrench. 10 - 15 seconds or so of hammering on just about every stud.

Got it back 20 minutes later, back on the highway, and the brake pulse is gone. I'm going to crack and reset every nut tomorrow anyway, just on general principles. And I know what's not happening in the fall when the snows need to go back on.

 

Cool story

 

'Murica

 

Sounds like the guys you dealt with were maybe flipping burgers the week before...hard to find good help these days.

 

You should invest in a torque wrench (click-type)

 

I have one and was using it when I was changing the tires out on my car. I check and reset the nuts anytime someone other than me changes a tire. That's one of the ways I knew the truck was off.

 

I assume you'll no longer be using their services? Being a mile from your house, are you a regular customer?

 

And you still couldn't undo them? This shop clearly had no regard for torquing to spec. Good plan on never going there again.

 

Put some anti-seize in those lug nuts while youre at it.

 

Yeah, they're off the list. I've only used them for tire services (my go-to mechanic is a 20 minute drive away) since they screwed up an oil change one time ("forgot" to change the filter), but now they're fallen off all the way.

No big loss, according to my wife.

Yeah, they just ran them on as hard as they could.