Do You Torque Your Car or Trucks Wheels Heres Why You Should

Oh, god, damn. My wheel fell off.

Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto. In today's video, I want to talk about some of the dangers of not torquing your wheels. Let's get into it. Now, obviously, auto manufacturers know exactly what their automobile is going to be used for, whether it's a larger truck like this one, a little bit more heavy-duty, or even a smaller passenger car like this. Essentially, they want to make sure that whatever they do, it's going to be the safest for you as a passenger driving down the road.

Now, a smaller passenger car like this is obviously going to have a lower torque rating than the heavy-duty truck like what I was saying before. Essentially, for our passenger car, typically, what you're going to find for a torque rating would be anywhere between 76, maybe even upwards of 100 or even 120 sometimes. And on a larger truck like this, typically, you're going to have a higher torque rating on this. Generally, never under 100 foot-pounds, but more than likely, it's going to be at least 100, even up to 165 in some instances.

So, now we should probably talk about what torque wrench to use. The most common type of torque wrench you're going to see is one that looks like this, which is essentially a twist type. I would just go ahead and twist this until it gets to the proper torque, and then that's where I'm going to torque my lug nuts to. They, of course, have a digital one as well, but that's going to be a little bit more expensive.

For somebody that's just doing brakes or something like that in their driveway once in a while, who's going to spend the extra money on digital when you can just go with something like this and it works perfectly? On something like this, typically, if you look at one side, you're going to see an area that has a gauge for foot-pounds.

And then if you were to go ahead and spin it around, generally, you're going to see something that says Newton meters. Those are going to be the two most common torque specifications for lug nuts. Now, this digital one right here is going to be able to do foot-pounds, is going to be able to do Newton meters, and even inch-pounds. Of course, something like this is really only going to go up to approximately 100 foot-pounds. So, to be able to do this car, yeah, I could probably do it. But to do this truck over here, it's pretty much useless.

And two things that you're never going to use for torquing your lug nuts would be an inch-pound torque wrench that looks like this. Obviously, that's not going to be able to torque anything except for maybe something under the hood or even under the dash if you had to, and, of course, a ratchet that looks like this. This is not going to be able to torque anything. Essentially, it would be able to tighten it up and it's probably going to be snug, but what's a torque do? I don't know.

Now, typically, when it comes time to either removing or installing your wheel, you're going to use one of three things to do it. Whether it's an air gun that looks like this, maybe you have an air compressor in your yard, or something like that, maybe in the shed. Maybe you have a nice, long ratchet. This is going to give you some leverage to make sure you can get those lug nuts off, and it's great.

Or, of course, if you were to get inside your automobile and be able to find your tire change kit, you're going to be able to find the wrench that actually fits on your lug nut directly. And any of these are going to be great for moving the lug nuts, but when it comes time to reinstalling them, you need to make sure you use a torque wrench.

And if you don't, there's a couple of different things that could happen. You can either under-torque your lug nuts or even you can over-torque your lug nuts. Both of them are going to have different effects, but essentially, it's not going to be good for your car overall. In most cases, when you're working on a heavier truck like this, it's a more probable situation where the lug nuts are going to be under-torqued. Because essentially, these should have a very high torque rating and, of course, if you're just using a ratchet or something like this, it's probably not going to get up to the proper torque.

Also, you can imagine behind here, if these lug nuts aren't torqued, the brake rotor is not going to be tightly held up against the hub. So, essentially, every time you're braking or even while you're driving down the road, that brake rotor could be moving around, essentially that's going to cause a brake pulsation, and it's not going to feel very good while you're inside your passenger compartment.

Something else to mention is if the lug nuts are left loose, it could potentially damage the studs, the lug nuts, or even the wheel itself. And, of course, if your lug nuts are severely under-torqued or even if a couple of them are under-torqued, there's a possibility that they could loosen up over time with road vibrations or anything like that. And if you can imagine any of these lug nuts coming off, what's going to be holding your wheel to the actual truck itself? And that's a very dangerous situation.

Now, we're going to talk about over-torquing lug nuts. Now, if you over-torque your lug nuts, you're going to be putting more than the required amount of pressure on your mounting points, such as your lug nuts, studs, wheels, hubs, or even brakes. Now, over-torqued lug nuts can have threading that looks like this, which is an extreme case, it's extremely mangled on the inside and it's definitely unusable, or essentially, you might find that the stud or the lug nut threads themselves are stretched.

If you over-torque something, you're going to be putting a lot of pressure on those contact points and it's going to cause damage. So, essentially, by over-torquing it, you could essentially stretch that stud so it's a little bit longer. It's not really perceivable to the eye, but it is something that's going to cause damage to the stud overall.

And, of course, if we're going to talk about the wheels or the brakes themselves, you could experience warping where essentially by putting extra torque on any of these lug nuts or even all of them, you're going to put extra pressure than what's required. So, of course, that's going to cause something where it can potentially warp the rim itself or even the brakes behind it.

Okay, friends, so that's pretty much what I've got for you on the importance on making sure that you torque your wheels anytime that you remove one of them. Like I said, this automobile right over here has a much lower torque specification than this one over here. You need to go by your manufacturer specifications. They know what's right for your particular application.

Okay, friends, well, I hope you liked the video, maybe you learned a little something along the way, or maybe you have a story to tell, either way, leave it in the comment section below because I always love to hear from you. And, of course, if you liked the video, make sure you smash on that like button for me, it would mean the world. While you're at it, go ahead and subscribe, ring the bell. That way, there, you can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.