It is a common practice of tire shops to ream the lugnuts on with air
wrenches. I sell a lot of lugnuts because of that, and quite a few studs.
While the practice of overtightening the lugnuts may prevent the tire from
loosening and falling off (this time), the nuts may well be unusable
another time, and the hapless owner may well be unable to change a flat.
Just another service call and more $$ for a tire shop.
To prevent this, you must usually insist on being present while your wheels
are mounted and the lugs tightened by hand with a torque wrench. If that
is not possible, ask them to loosen a lugnut with the car's lugwrench
before you pay your bill.
It would be wise to check the tightness of your lugnuts before venturing
far, if you don't know that they have been tightened properly. And to
check them periodically anyway, because when properly tightened they may
loosen.
BTW, new lugnuts for alloy wheels are now $8.00 each, or $108.00 if they
ruin all the lugnuts on your car (check for cracks in the first few
threads).
Brian Holm
At 11:44 AM 9/3/1999 -0400, Katz, Gene S wrote:
>The only thing worse than a flat tire on a brutally hot day is the laughter
>of the AAA guy when he sees the Peugeot jack that you have and the tire iron
>(so called) you have bent trying to take off the lug nuts. The jack handle
>must have been designed by some Frenchman who really hates Americans. Have a
>nice and safe Labor Day weekend.
>
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