Yesterday, I rotated and torqued the tires for the first time ever. ...And checked the brakes. Having the Camry up on 4 jack stands was neat to see. I did it all in a municipal public parking garage that had a very flat, smooth, concrete surface. The ground vibrations you feel inside some parking garages when a car drives by was minimal or nonexistent in this garage.
The car was rock-steady on those 4 stands. I tested the setup by pushing and rocking the car around a little bit before I went underneath. The car was very firm and steady.
The Sears Craftsman torque wrench (model 44595) worked wonderfully. I first torqued all lug nuts to 40 foot-pounds, then 60, and finally the specified torque of 76. Since the car appeared to be so steady on this flat parking garage surface, I tightened the rear wheels to their final torque of 76 while the car was still on stands. It was impossible to torque the front wheels while on stands because the front wheels freely moved forwards and backwards, I guess because the Camry is front-wheel drive. But the rear wheels didn't move, so torquing them was easy while on stands.
Instead of following the Camry manual's instruction of tightening the lug nuts finger-tight while the car is on stands, I followed _Auto Upkeep's_ instruction and snugged the front wheels just a little bit extra with a lug wrench. I also didn't lower the car commpletely before applying final torque with the torque wrench, like the Camry manual suggests. I decided to follow _Auto Upkeep's_ direction and lowered the car until the wheels were just barely touching the ground, then tightened the front wheels to final torque with the torque wrench. Again, I torqued each wheel's nuts gradually: first all 40, then 60, and finally 76. The click on the torquer sure is a wonderful feature.
To backtrack a bit to an earlier step, I felt that some of the lug nuts were on extra tight. It took some muscle to loosen some of 'em with the 20-inch-long, 4-way lug wrench. So I decided to check the torque on the last wheel before loosening its lug nuts. I first set the Craftsman at 76 and it clicked without allowing any easy tightening. So I next tried 84 foot-pounds, and it clicked. So I tried 92 and it clicked! Finally I set the wrench to 120 foot-pounds, and it still clicked without my tightening the lug nut at all! The manual's spec. is 76 foot-pounds of torque on the '06 Camry's lug nuts. So a couple nuts on the last wheel that I experimented with were on at least to 120 foot-pounds, and of course, possibly even tighter, since I stopped checking at 120.
I guess that's another reason to do your own work, if you can. The last person to tighten the car's nuts was the Toyota dealership's technician 5,000 miles ago. And you'll recall that he didn't use a proper torque wrench to do the tightening; he used some kind of automatic/electrical, small silver ratchet that didn't look like an impact wrench since it wasn't shaped like a drill, but instead shaped like a thin ratchet. It looked like it may have been attached to a possible extension bar (possibly a torque-limiting stick). Anyway, I guess it's a case of doing a job yourself if you want it done right. /Or is he not to blame?/ Is it possible that the lug nuts somehow tightened themselves from the specification of 76 to 120-plus foot-pounds during the last 5,000 miles of driving?
Some of those lug nuts let out a really loud screetch when I untightened them.
I guess I'll see after the next 5,000 miles if lug nuts can tighten themselves, because I carefully torqued each one yesterday to 76.