wheel nut torque

Sure. The shop manual always has this information. Helm, Inc.

---Bob Gross---

Go here and d/l the pdf:

Or, go to your local library and look in a Chiltons, Haynes, Motors.

Probably listed right in your owner's manual also.

Thanks,,

I just had a look in the owners manual. It does indicate it at 100 pounds. I must be a standard weight for majority of cars.

Dan

89 Pontiac 6000 2.8 MPFI 90 Pontiac Grand Am 2.3 H.O Quad 4 89 Chevy Corvette 5.7 TPI

They tend to be in that range. I just got back from the independent shop with my Buick. When they rotated the tires, they torqued the nuts to 80. I asked them, and they said 80. Then I told them that the correct value is 100 for that car. They shrugged their shoulders, looked it up in the book, and then set them all again to 100.

I guess that is one of those things that would be hard to prove in court after the accident when the wheel fell off.

---Bob Gross---

Remember it varies with type of wheel -- steel vs. aluminum. Overtorquing can lead to brake disc warping

Sure. You don't need to tell me. I am the car owner who has to beat on the tire guy to get the correct torque setting.

---Bob Gross---

I should of beat on some of those tire guys like Bob G did. Then my lug nuts wouldn't of been driven through the steel wheels......

========= Harryface =========

1991 Pontiac Bonneville LE ~_~_~270,000 miles_~_~_

"Robertwgross" wrote

80 or 100 ft lbs would work quite fine on your car. The wheels won't be falling off even if they were torqued to 80 ft lbs. But I know you are a fussy guy......so it's best that they torque them to what you want....(grin)

Ian

There are many things about owning a car that I have no control over. However, for the many things that I do have control over, it is in my best interest to control them. On a previous car, one incompetent shop did a lousy job with brakes and wheels and then had to re-do the whole job a month later. Then they found that rotors were warped. Gee, I wonder how that could have happened?

So, when some auto technician is working on my car, I don't demand to be right by his elbow watching him and getting in his way. But I do favor the shop were I can stand about twenty feet away and watch him like a hawk.

One of my little quirks is to have the tires rotated every 5000 miles. So far, this one shop has gotten the torque setting wrong three out of five times, but I tell them "100" right after they finish setting them all to "80".

Ian, do you have any technical opinions about the use of a torque stick, as opposed to a torque wrench?

---Bob Gross---

"Robertwgross" wrote

There isn't anything wrong with that little "quirk" (rotating every

5000 miles). I think more people would get a lot more life out of their tires if they did that.

Not really. Torque sticks are approved for use by GM and I (and all the rest of the crew) use torque sticks. I've never really done any testing to see how accurate the torque sticks are....a lot will depend on your air line pressure, and the tech that is using the torque stick. But GM was big on the torque sticks years ago in an attempt to nip this whole "warped rotors" in the bud. Now that everyone uses torque sticks or wrenches.....they still have warping rotors (right from the factory even...) and so they are now going down the "runout" path. We have a lot of problems with certain models.....N-cars come to mind (Malibu, Grand Am .....etc) and we are required to measure runout after machining the front rotors on these vehicles. Any runout over .0015" has to be compensated for with special shims between the rotor and hub.

I often use a torque wrench on these vehicles as they seem to be very sensitive to either torque or runout. There could be more then meets the eye though.......these particular vehicles will "normally" wear out the inner pads to zero while the outer pads still have 70 percent left. This is hard to explain to customers....but it's just the nature of the beasts. I won't be surprised if there is some design defect in these brakes that causes both the inner pads to wear and the rotors to warp prematurely....but as yet, GM is making us run down all sorts of other rabbit trails.

Oh.....I always used a torque wrench on my wife's Audi, and never had any warping problems with it's rotors.

Ian