2002 Cavalier wheel lug torque

You prefer to beleive me or someone else on the internet instead of the service manual ??????

What do you want to hear, 60/70/80/90 ft pounds ??? Be my guess and keep us posted !

Yes, get a deflection style torque wrench....watch the torque reading closely and see what it reads when you tighten one wheel nut tight enough to snap the wheel stud. Then, install a new wheel stud and nut and make sure you don't go that high the next time.

Ian

100 it is. I recall 90 as being the "standard" in high school, but my Jimmy, Beretta and Trans Am ALL call for 100 ft lbs. (owner's manual AND/OR shop manual.)

here's a question - are there any new GM's (or last 10 years) that DON'T call for 100 foot pounds on the lug nuts?

Ray

Yes. Cars with steel rims usually call for around 70 ft lbs.

Most of the cars that I work on have had aluminum wheels ant have torque up fine at 100. Recently, I worked on a Grand AM with steel wheels that also required 100. Using the three step method, the nuts tightened good at 80, but when I went to 100, the nuts kept turning and distorted the holes in the wheel.

Do you use a torque wrench, or do you use a torque stick?

---Bob Gross---

100 on a wrench is not the same as 100 on a stick? Now I'm confused...

A spec is a spec, whatever the type or shape of tool, a 100 is still a 100 in both cases, am I wrong?

I think he was implying the torque stick was not overly accurate compared to a torque wrench.

Kinda like the goobers at Crappy Tire (Canadian Tire) who put new tires on my Jimmy last winter. Took the tires off on the weekend to rotate and check the brakes/lube the front end - they musta used the biggest f'n impact they had to put them back on. Maybe the guy was dyslexic and saw 1000 ft pounds I dunno...

And people wonder why I fix all my own cars - I can save a lot of money and do it just as badly. ;)

Ray

Sure, 100 is 100, but a torque wrench is a lot more accurate than a torque stick, in my opinion. Torque sticks seem to be rather sloppy, or to put it differently, the mechanic who last rotated my car's tires did a sloppy job with a torque stick.

---Bob Gross---

Sure, 100 is 100, but a torque wrench is a lot more accurate than a torque stick, in my opinion. Torque sticks seem to be rather sloppy, or to put it differently, the mechanic who last rotated my car's tires did a sloppy job with a torque stick.

---Bob Gross--- ========================================================

You can be fooled by a dishonest mechanic with either torque wrench.

My motorhome lug nuts needed 105 Ft-Lb. After running them up by hand or with a speed wrench, a responsible mechanic would use a torque wrench for final tightening to the spec.

The tire department mechanics at Sears in Fairfield California found a way to do the final tightening in no time at all. They just used an air impact wrench to slam all the lug nuts to 150 Foot-Lbs, then made a big show of applying a torque wrench to each nut until it read 105 Ft-Lb. To the customer, this looked like the mechanic was applying the correct torque adjustment, but the mechanic was just quickly going through the motions, as every nut was already overtorqued.

I watched this, and didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. Later when I got to los Angeles, 3 of 8 studs on one wheel and 4 of 8 studs on the other wheel were broken off. It was an old motorhome, and maybe the studs should have survived 150 Ft-Lb, but now I am more diligent when any mechanical work is done on my vehicles.

Wendy & John. ___________________________________________________________