The lug nuts were probably over-tightened by the shop, but if you waited 8 months to check the lug nut torque, it would normally take more force to move the nut after it has been sitting there and the wheels had gone through many heating and cooling cycles.
By the way, do you have steel or alloy wheels?
Tire rotation should be a fairly straightforward project, especially on a car with small light wheels like a Camry. I'm not sure why it was such a big deal. Because most people are not all that comfortable working with star and torque wrenches they are usually better off paying the tire shop the pittance they usually ask to do the job.
Did you have a question?
yes, but when you do it yourself, you know it's done right.
So do I, sometimes, but it co$ts. Sure, I could take it to the gas station down the street, but there are only a few shops that I really trust to do a good job. Usually the kind of things that I don't address myself are NVH issues, vibrations, etc. and the typical mechanic will just tell you he doesn't feel anything and charge you an hour's labor. Sad but true. The ones that DO take you seriously are $90/hr. or more. So I only take my car in when I really don't know what's wrong with it and/or it's something just too ambitious to tackle myself. (I figure, if someone doesn't notice that the steering wheel is shaking back and forth a half an inch at speed, do I really want him rotating my tires or changing my oil.)
If they're really good ones, sure!
nate
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In answer to your question, they are the car's factory wheels, so they're steel wheels on steel hubs.
I don't think 8 months should have allowed the phenomenon of embedment to result in a torque reading of greater than 120 foot-pounds if the dealer's technician had properly tightened the lugs to 76 foot-pounds. I waited 9 months between my
2 self-done tire rotations (not 8 months, but 9 months), and the torque reading last week was somewhere between 76 and 90 foot-pounds on the two wheels I tested. In other words, in my test with the torque wrench set at 76, the wrench clicked. And when I set the wrench to 90, the lugs rotated quite a bit in the tightening direction. So I think the tech at my dealer just tightened the lugs too much because he wasn't using a proper torque wrench :-)
even on jack stands, it's not "good practice" to fully torque the lug nuts until the car is on the ground, for fear of it not being as stable as you hope and knocking it loose. do them up reasonably tight while the car is up, but don't really lean on the wrench 80 ftlb worth until it's down. then, like the guy says, good practice is to retorque after some driving, i like to put a bit more than around the block on, to make sure any stickage gets unstuck. if weather gets in the way, i'm happy to wait a week or more to retorque, as i've never seen very much slack get taken up.
I don't trust the quickie lube places to get the job done right.
Once, I drove off with an oil leak due to the fact that they forgot to put a drain plug gasket on. Fortunately, I caught it before I lost all the oil.
Then, they stopped doing changes on my Porsche. I guess the corporate folks didn't want to pay for expensive screw-ups. So I do that one myself. Before they stopped doing these, I'd keep an eye on them. Once, it took the guy about 5 minutes of looking around before he admitted he couldn't find the oil fill (clearly labeled 'OEL'*). Then, they try to fill the engine through the screened cup under the cap. That'll take all day. Take the screen out and pour the oil in!
I took one of the Landcruisers in for a complete lube check once and spend
15 minutes listening to the guy in the grease pit grumble about having to remove skid plates to access the transfer case. That's a reasonable amount of time for the job. But more often than not, they come up from underneath the truck with a dirty sample after a few minutes, recommending a lube change. I'm pretty sure they haven't actually gotten to the fill plug that quickly, so its a con job.
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