Really. I can count to 4 as well and I know that 4 is not equal to 5, but rather 1 less than 5. It’s the reason I became an accountant in stead of an engineer. All I have to do is count, add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

I gave the guy at Sam’s Club the benefit of the doubt when I thought he only checked 4 out of 5 lug nuts on the driver’s side front of my vehicle. I then paid close attention when he checked the rear: 1, 2, 3, 4, and done. Now I’m astounded, but surly the other guy checking the first guy’s work will do 5? 1, 2, 3, 4, and done. Same when he checks the front. They both had a rhythm going and did it quick. Looked like they had done it a 1,000 times before.

I didn’t have the right size socket to check with my own torque wrench before I left, but I did check the tire pressures: 44psi. Supposed to be 33psi. If the changing machine and balancer weren’t so expensive.

Discount Tire has always done it correctly for me.

quote:

Discount Tire has always done it correctly for me.

Same here. I swore I would never go back to Costco for tires again after a screwup. I left the tires at Costco & went across the street to Discount where I was treated with respect.

quote:

Originally posted by Anush:

quote:

Discount Tire has always done it correctly for me.

Same here. I swore I would never go back to Costco for tires again after a screwup. I left the tires at Costco & went across the street to Discount where I was treated with respect.

Something else to keep in mind, especially if you're traveling and have a tire problem that should be handled by warranty -- Discount Tire has a LOT more locations than Costco!

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Discount Tire has always done it correctly for me.

Two trucks ago, a non-repairable puncture on an out of stock tire became my excuse to buy a whole new set of wheels and tires. I went from 16" wheels to 20" wheels, and the entire drive home I thought I had made a very expensive mistake as the ride was brutal. I got home; got out the gauge to see if the tires were 36 psi; and found 39 to 51 psi (every tire different). Discount Tire had no accuracy and no precision.

I knocked them all back to 36 psi and the ride smoothness met expectations.

I have had tires installed from numerous places and for some reason, they all fuck up the PSI. I mean, the number is on the door.

I always hit my lugs with the torque wrench afterwards. I also rotate my tires every 5,000 miles when I do an oil change.

Ha! My usual excuse for not using Discount Tire, the nearest one is 90 miles away, is no longer valid. They opened two locations less than a year ago, one 35 miles north and the other 35 miles south of me. Wouldn’t have made a difference this time because there was a screw in the unrepairable zone, so Sam’s Club was on the hook for the warranty.

I check them myself as well, but this is the first time I witnessed a reason why at Sam’s Club.

I don’t get the tire pressure thing at all. We picked up my dad’s Corvette from the dealership after they had balanced tires and they all had 42psi. Supposed to be 30psi and they had 30 in them when I started the car in the morning. The car has a display that tells you what the pressure in each tire is even and it agreed with my gauge.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Something else to keep in mind, especially if you're traveling and have a tire problem that should be handled by warranty -- Discount Tire has a LOT more locations than Costco!

This is what pushed me when I was looking to buy new tires. My last purchases for like 10 years at least were at Big O Tires. But Discount Tires has much nicer facilities.

 
The "checking the torque" thing at tire dealers is a joke. If the lug nut is over torqued to start with, the torque wrench will click right away. "Yep, that one is good".

The wrenches did swing between an 1/8th and 1/4 turn, so either the lugs were not over-torqued to begin with or they really cranked them down, maybe both. I’ll find out today.

I’ve never torqued a lug nut in my life. Always German torque. Never had a problem.

Yes, but do you only gutentight 80% of your lug nuts?

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Yes, but do you only gutentight 80% of your lug nuts?

No, all of them. Should I be leaving some less than gutentight?

All of them should be tightened which is not what the guys at Sam’s Club did. They both hit 4 of the 5.

The vehicle in question is a Honda Odyssey which are notorious for warped rotors. After replacing the OEM rotors at 12,000 miles, I bought a torque wrench because:

“Uneven lug nut tightening is the No. 1 cause of warped rotors.” Chicago Tribune

I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I haven’t had a warped rotor on any vehicle since I started using a torque wrench on the lug nuts. That blurb I linked is actually about the same generation Odyssey I have.

quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Yes, but do you only gutentight 80% of your lug nuts?

No, all of them. Should I be leaving some less than gutentight?

No gutentight on aluminum wheels.

I bought a $50 gizmo from Harbor Freight that turns any rachet or breaker bar into a torque wrench: Link. The neat thing is it has memory for the last 50 torque readings. I checked it with my trusty Tekton split beam and they were within a ft-lb of each other on my wife's Explorer. Unfortunately, every lug nut on her Explorer was well under the 150 ft-lb called for in the manual. Dealer was the last one to rotate the tires.

Back to the Odyssey, I used my breaker bar and Harbor Freight gizmo to measure the amount of torque required to loosen each lug nut:

driver's
front - 123.6, 148.1 131.9, 109.4, 124.7
rear - 101.6, 91.9, 80.6, 130.1, 160.2

passenger's
front - 122.9, 120.1 122.2, 131.1 132.1
rear - 138.0, 129.7, 133.9, 121.4, 149.8

I only drove it home 5 miles from Sam's Club. I was smooth and even while loosening. The driver's side rear is the wheel I watched both guys torque and check 4 out of 5. The driver's side front is where I thought I saw the one guy only do 4 out of 5 in the first place, such that I really paid attention when he did the rear and the second guy checked it.

The 160 was fun. That's what my truck calls for and I was thinking it felt just like torqueing my truck's lug nuts as I was loosening it. When I went through the memory and saw that 160, I thought "Well shit, that explains why, doesn't it?"