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A veteran tech in Detroit told me to stop using my impact on lug nuts, and the reason caught me off guard
I was at a shop in Detroit helping a buddy swap a transmission when an older tech named Ray watched me zip a lug nut back on with my impact. He said 'you're not tightening it, you're stretching the stud' and then showed me a bin of broken studs he'd saved over 20 years. He explained that every time you hammer a lug with an impact you're fatiguing the metal, and it won't snap today but it will snap on some customer doing 80 on I-75. I'd been doing it this way for 12 years and never had a comeback, so I figured it was fine. Now I'm second guessing every wheel I've sent out the door. How many of you actually use a torque wrench on every lug or is that just what we tell the new guys?
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richardharris1d ago
Ray's not wrong but the impact isn't the whole story, it's hammering them on dry with no torque stick or going way past spec that kills studs. Get yourself a torque stick for the gun and finish every wheel with a click wrench set to spec, it takes an extra 30 seconds per wheel and saves you from being the guy who put a wheel through someone's windshield. Twelve years without a comeback just means you got lucky longer than most.
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