Rant: overheard a young guy say torque specs are just suggestions

I was grabbing parts at the supply house and some kid told his buddy he never bothers with a torque wrench on lug nuts because 'close enough works fine.' Has anyone else noticed new guys treating manuals like optional reading?

3 comments

3 Comments

riley436d ago

And sure, real talk, the other side of this nobody brings up is that skipping torque specs on something like a wheel bearing can cook the bearing in a month. I've seen it twice now where a kid just ugga-duggas the lug nuts on with an impact and the bearing starts humming at 60 mph. That close enough attitude turns a 50 dollar part into a 500 dollar knuckle and hub job real fast when it seizes up.

faith_king5d agoTop Commenter

This also completely ignores how aftermarket parts factor into the equation. Nobody ever mentions that some cheap bearings come with the wrong grease from the factory, so even with perfect torque you're still gambling on failure. That "close enough" mentality with parts AND torque is a double whammy that kills the job fast.

wesley1816d agoMost Upvoted

Hyundai tech here, @riley43. One thing I gotta correct though - it's not the lug nut torque that kills the bearing, it's the impact wrench on the axle nut itself. I've seen a kid put a 3/4" impact on a Honda axle nut and hammer it until it stopped, then wonder why the new bearing had play in it a week later. The axle nut sets the bearing preload, and overtorquing that by 100 ft-lbs crushes the rollers and creates a hot spot that burns the grease in like 500 miles. Lug nut torque matters for warping rotors and snapping studs, but the real bearing killer is that axle nut being cranked to "German torque" - gudntite.