I bought a used 2020 Civic, 43k miles, ‘salvage title’. It had right front damage from an accident, totaled by insurance, then ‘rebuilt’.

I’ve been going through everything, yesterday was CVT(tranny) fluid change and brake inspection. Both went well, brakes ok.

The issue yesterday was the lug nuts were ‘super tight’. I could barely break them free with my breaker bar, almost needed the pipe extension. I was worried about breaking a stud. I think today I’ll just rotate all the tires to reset all the lug nuts.

There is no way one would be able to get the nuts off with the change kit in the trunk. I’m still very happy with the car, though now I see the horn doesn’t work. I checked fuses, think the switch(steering wheel) is fine. The actual horn is hard to get to, usually requires bumper removal.

Part of the rebuilt title and better price is I can’t run to the seller for minor things. I’ll get defects up to speed shortly. The car drives great.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:

....There is no way one would be able to get the nuts off with the change kit in the trunk.

....The car drives great.

Be thankful your's came with a spare, jack, and lug wrench because I had to buy all that plus the spare wheel/tire. Mine just came with a bottle of puncture sealer and small compressor that plugs into the car!

I agree Civics are pretty nice driving cars.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:

the horn doesn’t work.

Good thing you're not a NYC cab driver.

Horn relay?

I’m looking into the horn. I was able to take it off, after that I did see a guy say to swap out a like relay to try.

I’ll get to that eventually. I was able to rotate the 4 wheels, used my breaker bar with a cheater pipe extension.

The front brakes are fine, rear not so. I ordered pads & rotors from Rock Auto.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:

the horn doesn’t work.

Good thing you're not a NYC cab driver.

If he were, his finger is still good.

Lug nuts or bolts -

Typically put on with a pneumatic impact wrench at the shop when work is done. Especially when wheels are removed for brake inspection.
This work will get the lugs very tight - impossible to remove at the side of the road in case of a flat tire.
I make a point of checking, loosening and retightening lug nuts/bolts after every trip to the shop that might involve tires. I will retighten the lugs with the wrench provided. This way I don’t get them too tight.
Or you could be fanatical and carry a torque wrench to get them perfect.

Maybe I shouldn’t admit it here but my ‘shoulder’ has been my torque wrench for years. I can tell when things are too tight, or loose. I also don’t like rust on my studs, use a touch of preventative.

Yeah I know, I also know I haven’t had any adverse problems in a fair number of decades.

Two cars ago I tried to do a tire rotation. I could not get the lug bolts off. My impact wrench did nothing. Breaker bar did nothing. Took it to Monroe Tire and their impact wrench couldn't take it off.

A friend had an impact wrench he used on big trucks and we got them off. Put them back on and torqued them correctly.

first never let anyone else torque your lugnuts. Second if you violate rule 1 loosen them and retorque them yourself. In the comfort of your driveway/garage and daylight and not snowing/raining/hailing/etc.
Third carry a decent wrench and socket for them in the car. the factory wrench will suck and maybe not even get the job done at the correct torque.

^^^Solid advice.

I watched two guys at my local Sam’s Club miss two lug nuts with the torque wrench. The first guy torques them, the second guy is supposed to be a check on the first guy. I couldn’t believe they missed the same ones. I told them, they denied it, and wouldn’t recheck them. I was so pissed off, I bought a digital torque thing from Harbor Freight that’ll measure torque in either direction. This allowed me to measure the torque required to loosen the lug nuts:


You can’t tell me these were all torqued to the same 95 ft/lbs. Local Sam’s Club no longer has a place where you can watch them though, so I guess they fixed the problem.

That’s all over the board if the goal is 95.

I once let a shop mount a scope for me. When I got to the range it was all over the place before I figured it out. Since I didn’t have tools I went home & remounted the scope. After that, all was fine.

The screws were loose, scoped jumped around.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:





You can’t tell me these were all torqued to the same 95 ft/lbs.

That is a pretty wide disparity, and the ones that are very low or very high do look bad. Nevertheless, you have two misconceptions. First, it always takes more torque to initially break a fastener loose than what it was torqued to originally. This is because bolts actually stretch and pull back when tightened. A "torque-to-yield" fastener only does this one time; they are not supposed to be used a second time. Another factor is friction between the nut and wheel, as well as between the nut and stud threads. Cylinder head bolts, when installing, typically - if specified by the car maker - need a light lubrication on the threads as well as the underside of the bolt head, or both sides of the washer if one is used to reduce such friction and increase the stretching effect. This is not done with wheels (or spark plugs).

Second, maybe yours is different, but no manufacturer I have ever used, known or known about recommends using their torque wrenches, no matter the type, to break a fastener loose. What does the owner's manual say about this?

on some vehicles the specification does require lubrication as part of wheel assembly torque specification. Check for your vehicle.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
Nevertheless, you have two misconceptions. First, it always takes more torque to initially break a fastener loose than what it was torqued to originally.

I’m aware of that and at no point indicated otherwise.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
Second, maybe yours is different, but no manufacturer I have ever used, known or known about recommends using their torque wrenches, no matter the type, to break a fastener loose. What does the owner's manual say about this?

The manual says what I said:

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I bought a digital torque thing from Harbor Freight that’ll measure torque in either direction.

Harbor Freight digital torque adapter

I used the above on a breaker bar and did not exceed the digital torque adapter’s range. It’s a slick device with 50 memory spots. I just loosened every lugnut and it automatically saved the peak torque, in this case the torque required to break the nut loose, in a memory spot.

Those are your misconceptions, not mine.

Clearly, the two Sam’s Club guys missed two lugnuts. I was half watching the first guy and thought I saw him only check three in that wheel. I figured no problem, that’s why they have the second guy checking. I watched the second guy closely and couldn’t believe that he only check three as well and knew at least one of them was one the first guy did not torque. I told them this and they dismissed it as not possible.

The other thing my chart shows is that even the ones that were torqued, they weren’t torqued to the same number. If they had been, then the amount of torque required to loosen them should have been about the same for all the lugnuts. More than what they were tightened to of course.

The front rotors on my Odyssey don’t like when the lug nuts are not torqued evenly. I replaced two sets of rotors until learned this, started torquing them myself, and haven’t had a problem since.

The main point being, torque your own lug nuts, it’s the only way to be sure.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: trapper189,

Back in 2023 I had to have a new Slave Cylinder for the clutch in my Fiesta put into replace the Chinesium original under warranty. Car had only 32,000 miles when that happened and apparently it's a common failure for the 2.0 Ecosport 4 in the Mustang. Anyhow getting that done was a 5 week ordeal, because their Transmission Tech was sick about 4 days of a 5 day week.

During that time I was stuck driving a rental Nissan Kicks, a really massively underpowered sack of shit. Had a flat on the WV turnpike going to visit my sister and thank heavens I had the forethought to pull the standard tool kit out of my Monte Carlo SS and throw it in the back of that Kicks. The tire change kit that was supplied with the car had a "L" wrench that was all of 8 inches long. For nuts with a torque specification of 100 foot lbs. Good news is that I have always kept a 1 1/4 inch Craftsman (USA) wrench in the bottom of that box to add additional torque to my Breaker bar by looping the box end on the end of the breaker bar. In this case the item missing from that tool kit was a 22mm socket and the Metric/SAE combo socket set in that tool kit only went to 3/4 inch. I put that kit together to minimize weight and size because it got transferred to my boat whenever I took it out. It's complete enough that I built a 400 HP 350 for the Monte Carlo with this kit. So I had to use the combination wrench on the the supplied L wrench but was a bit inconvenienced by not having a socket that fit the screw jack because I had taken one of my Milwaukee impact wrenches with me. Lesson learned, that kit now has 7/8 short and long sockets in it. BTW the 7/8 socket is roughly 0.01 inch larger than 22mm so flank drives sockets function perfectly for this size. I'll also note that when that tire took a nail I did manage to nurse into the Beckley toll plaza and one of their people came back to see if I needed help. He was a bit shocked to see a 68 year old jacking the car up and changing the tire for myself. I guess when you get this old your not supposed to do anything physical. I happen to enjoy exercise do I still cut my grass with an an unpowered walk behind and shovel/blow my own snow. Not only keep myself fit I also save a bit of money that can add up to a new lens or handgun.

BTW lenses today are getting Fine Shotgun Expensive, Nikon has two long lenses that are the cost for the base DT11 or a DT11 with premium grade furniture. Good news for me I'm happy on my beer budget have no interest at all in a 14,000 dollar lens or shotgun.

@ Scooter, my Sienna has one of those shorty lug wrenches. The garage which mounted my new tires zapped them to over 150 foot pounds with air impact. Add to that, the damn Toyota lug nuts have a stainless steel skin over a steel nut. Water gets between them and they swell to where the 21mm impact socket must be drivin on by heavy mallet. I've replaced the front 10 and will do the rears soon. It's my understanding that a bit of anti seize helps when applied to the bolt threads but, do not get it on the lug nuts tapered surface as that will effect torque.

Consider a torque stick made to deliver the torque specified. Not as accurate as a real wrench but convenient.

Thread lubricants may be of value for preventing the frozen fasteners. However if used you should seek to torque slowly with a real wrench to achieve the desired clamp load.