Hi again folks. I hope everyone has been doing very well. It's great to see that car masters Ray O, Tegger, Hachiroku, Bruce, and others are still with us. You all provide so much helpful information to so many people. We are all grateful :-)
Well, I rotated the tires yesterday for my second time ever. Damn, that's a bear, one helluva strenuous exercise. It works out your whole body, arms, legs, core. My muscles are aching a day later. I went to bed early at 9 PM, and actually woke up in the middle of the night at 3 AM to eat more food--that's how exhausting tire rotating can be on your body. I never, ever have to wake up in the middle of the night needing to eat. Just lots of aches and total exhaustion {chuckle}
I had no trouble loosening the lug nuts with a 4-way lug wrench, unlike the first time when I rotated the tires last year, when I had to loosen the *super tight* lug nuts screwed on by my Toyota dealer's tech who used some kind of automatic device, instead of a proper torque wrench.
If I ever again have my dealer rotate my tires in the future, I'm going to insist on a torque wrench. As we've mentioned before, Walmart uses torque wrenches, so does Big O Tires, Sears, and others. Inexcusable that my Toyota dealer doesn't. Of course, he's the only Toyota dealer in Columbia, Missouri. Does your Toyota dealer use torque wrenches?
Before untightening the lug nuts on 2 wheels (the front passenger and rear driver-side wheels), I tested their torque reading by setting my torque wrench to 76 and then 90 foot-pounds. The wrench immediately clicked and the lug nuts didn't budge at 76, which is a good sign since 76 foot-pounds is the proper torque for the
2006 Camry's wheels.With the torque wrench set at 90 foot-pounds, the lug nuts rotated quite a bit, tightening to 90. When I performed this test last year, the wrench still clicked at 90 and the lug nuts didn't move, indicating the lugs were super-tight, possibly because my dealer's tech "guesstimated" torque by using an electrical or pneumatic device, instead of a proper torque wrench. Of course, the lugs may have also "tightened" on their own (gripped the studs with greater force because of temperature, slight rusting, and what not), but I tend not to think this is what happened in this case. The tech should have used a proper torque wrench.
I did the tire rotation yesterday with 21,270 miles on the odometer, which is 380 miles short of 6,000 miles since the last rotation I did.
Of the 20 lug nuts, about a third of them (7) let out a loud screech when I untightened them with the 4-way lug wrench, indicating some rust. Tegger taught me that last year.
Speaking of rust, the hubs showed significantly more rust during this tire rotation, than my first. So Ray O's suggestion to apply a very thin layer of anti-seize on the hubs alone, is a great idea. I will use anti-seize on the hubs next time I rotate the tires. The wheels also stuck a little to the hubs when I tried removing the wheels. Thankfully, the wheels only stuck a little bit, nothing a medium budge couldn't remedy. But I'll definitely use anti-seize next time. Wish I had already had it on hand yesterday.
There was no problem torquing the Camry's rear wheels to 76 foot pounds while the car was on jack stands because I had applied the emergency brake to prevent the rear wheels from moving freely. However, since nobody was around when I wanted to torque the front wheels, I used a 40-pound concrete block to hold down the brake pedal. This prevented the front wheels from rotating freely while torquing them. I must have had that 40-pound concrete block applying pressure to the brake pedal for an entire 30 minutes. Is that wise to do? Could any damage occur to the braking system by holding down the brake pedal for 30 whole minutes?
I didn't want to do the final torquing to 76 foot-pounds while the wheels were just barely touching the ground, because last time when I did that some of the front lugs nuts loosened after a few days and I had to retorque the front wheels. But I noticed the rear wheels were fine last time, and I had torqued them while the rear wheels were still in the air. So this time I used the heavy concrete block to hold down the brake pedal (and engage the front brakes) while the car was still on the jack stands. I hope it was okay to hold down the brake pedal for 30 long minutes while I torqued the front wheels.