I’ve always used a car jack to break nuts – just put the jack under the wheel wrench and jack up until the nut loosens.
Until the last time, when I was barefoot and didn’t have any extra tools in the car. When I discovered that the supplied wheel wrench - only about 14 inches long – was actually part of the supplied car jack, and no extender was supplied either.
And I didn’t have my phone with me.
My dad picked up the car from the tire shop, and, after driving a while, realized that the jangling noise was a loose wheel nut rattling inside the hub cap.
Not all wheel studs are easy to change. For my old 2002 Accord you either have to grind down one side and finagle it into the hub, which makes it a lousy repair, or you have to pull the wheel hub, which is such a cast-iron bitch that you essentially have to change the bearing, and by that point you may as well rebuild the entire steering knuckle.
I used to be very scornful of tire fitters who just whaled on the air wrench, but after doing my own winter/summer tire changes for a few years I find that quite often a correctly-torqued wheelnut is finger loose when re-torquing.
If a busy tire shop or tire hotel does thousands of wheel changes every season, and maybe 80-90% of them never see a wrench until the next season, torquing to the right spec would seem statistically certain to have a wheel come loose now and then.
So I can certainly understand why someone might choose to simultaneously cut down on the risk of that happening while also saving a couple of minutes per car, even if it means screwing up the odd nut, lug or bolt here and there. It will piss off the odd customer here and there, but having a wheel come loose at highway speed will likely generate a lot more negative word of mouth.
Decades ago a friend was driving across Canadia, when he got a flat tire. He put on his mini spare and bought a new tire at the next town. Miles later the wheel with the new tire fell off the car and rolled down a hill.
He hiked down the hill, retrieved his wheel, then put it back on the car, stealing a lug nut from each of the remaining three wheels. So, too loose is just as bad or even worse than too tight.
Also on that drive his windshield wiper motor died. He took the bootlaces off his and his wife’s boots, tied them all together, and fashioned a manual windshield wiping device.
The owner’s manual (generally sold with the car, kept in the glovebox) usually includes instructions for changing tires, including a tightening torque spec for the lug nuts.
If the last person to install the wheel was a professional mechanic who was out of your sight when he did it, then yes, it was probably tightened too tight using an impact wrench. Add in a couple of years in a northern climate for a bit of rust to set in, and those things can be a bear to remove.
I’ll note that WD-40 isn’t the best penetrating agent for loosening rusty nuts. A guy did a couple of YouTube videos with pretty solid tests of several penetrating agents and found that WD-40 was in the bottom half of the group in one test, and dead last in the other test. You can watch the entire videos if you want (they’re interesting and well-made), but the charts of results can be found as follows:
I typically interpret this as hand tighten it. Use it a few days. If it’s too loose then it’s under-tightened. So hand tighten it, then add a scosh more. Let it be used a few more days. If it doesn’t come loose then it’s good and forget about it.
>> Lug nuts
I put a very large wrench with a span of 1 or 2 feet onto these, then push like mad or even step on the end to loosen lug nuts. They’re supposed to be very tight, like 75 to 90 ft-lb. So standing on the end of a 1 ft wrench with about half your body weight in order to loosen the nut is indeed what this means.
I’ve done it on my 91 Ranger and a 2001 Hyundai Accent, both were easy. But my current daily driver is a 2001 Accord, which is one I haven’t had the pleasure of a stud replacement. Thanks for the warning, I’ll be careful.
That sounds like hard work, I bought a cheap 36-inch breaker bar for the initial quarter-turn on stubborn nuts, does them one-handed. Then the rest can be done with a speed brace or electric driver, and a torque wrench for the last tighten.
One conclusion from all this is that the little wrenches and 4-ways you normally get in OEM car kits are pretty worthless. My wife is 5ft nothing and she is supposed to pop the wheel loose with a 1 foot wrench-jack-handle thing? I don’t think so.
I got a reasonable quality extending wheel wrench with an appropriate socket for not much money and put it with the spare wheel.
There’s a certain conceit I think in that if all of the manufacturer’s instructions regarding maintenance, including tire rotation interval, published torque specs, proper lug nut and stud cleaning, and so on are followed exactly then the hand tools included in the spare tire kit will be sufficient for the average person. Despite there being no one place those are all called out as being essential to using the kit successfully.
A lot of late model cars have replaced the spare tire kit with an air pump and can of sealant, probably partially in recognition of consumer expectations regarding (in)ability to change a spare tire without add-on tools. The rest of the reason being cost and weight.
To be fair, WD-40 isn’t advertised as a penetrating agent, just a water displacing, general lubricant. In my experience of working on rusty, Maine cars, the best commercial product I’ve used is Mopar rust penetrant. Nobody knows rusty parts like Mopar.
If you’re feeling particularly handy, you can make your own solution using a 1:1 mix of ATF (automatic transmission fluid) and acetone. It’s a little more trouble and a bit messier, but very effective.
