Jimmy W1

One day, I am going to need some new tires, which raises the question about impact wrenches. So, when you go to the tire dealer to get new tires, do you let them use an impact wrench on your lug nuts? Does it do any damage? Or do you suggest I take the tires off of the car myself with a ratchet wrench and take them to the dealer myself?.......

ohmy

Ratchet wrench??? hhmmm....

They should only use an impact wrench if they have a torque bar on it, it's still not the best way to go but I doubt you'll get any service shop to not use an impact wrench....so if you go to the tire shop, INSIST on a torque bar and you should be OK...

but with that said, I prefer to take the wheels off myself

Jimmy W1

My ratchet wrench is 1/2" drive and with an extension it is pretty good for taking off a wheel. I haven't had anything but regular tires put on an old car for so long and I always let them use the air impact on them. But with my new cars that I have just recently purchased, I don't want a tire dealer's air impact beating on them. So, I thought about doing it the way you suggested by taking them off myself. That's probably the way I'll go. I just wondered if anyone else did this to keep their lug nuts from being damaged. Thanks.

BEZ06

First of all, I always take off my wheels and take them to the tire shop.

Even Chevy dealerships that don't work on Vettes much bust rocker panels regularly (do a search and you'll find a LOT of threads about this!!!).

A tire shop that only rarely works on a Vette is much more likely to scrape up or bust your front fascia/air dam/splitter (depending on model) when driving onto their lift, and they will probably just throw the arms of their lift under you rocker panels and bust them too!!

Second of all, the OE lug nuts on a Vette have a cheapo sheet metal covering over the steel nut, and an impact wrench is not friendly to them!!

Here's a picture of an OE lug nut, and you can see where the yellow line is pointing to the edge of the sheet metal covering. Also, they are in a McGard package because I replace my cheapo OE lug nuts with nice solid McGard or Gorilla lug nuts:



So....I strongly recommend to take the wheels off yourself and take them to the tire shop so they don't bust up your rocker panels, and they don't use an impact wrench that might damage your wheels or lug nuts, and no telling what they're actually torqued to after they impact them on.

If you don't take your wheels on/off regularly, then the OE lug nuts are okay. However, I am taking them on/off all the time when swapping to track wheels, and if you're doing that then get some well made McGard or Gorilla lug nuts - especially if you want some nice chrome ones, or black ones like I have on my Comp Gray wheels.

Just MHO, YMMV!!

Bob

JerryC5

I take a 1/2" torque wrench , which I have set to the desired torque, and ask them to use it when re-installing the wheels.

yeller z06

Any decent shop is going to have a torque wrench and will use it at your request.

PaulB

Thats one thing I have never worried about and thats the tire place putting the wheels back on. Years ago, I heard that we ere supposed to check all the lug nuts a hundred or a couple hundred miles after installation. This is where I pay attention to the torque setting...

TxPres

If at all possible, I take the tire off and take the loose wheels to the tires shop. I would never let the tire shop work on my tires while on my corvette unless an emergency.
I have had shops overtorque lug nuts where I had to replace the stud.

Just the other day I needed new tires on my truck. Since I don't have another vehicle capable of transporting the truck tires, I left the wheels on the truck and went to the tires shop.

When I got home, I checked the torque settngs .
The proper torque setting for my LX470 is 75 ft-#.
Here is what I measured when I got home.
one @ 36 ft-#
two @ 54 ft-#
all the rest varied between 90 and 120 ft-#
None at the proper setting.

Not a very good job by the tire shop.

FloydSummerOf68

I couldn't care less about how pretty my lugnuts are

goatts

Same here but I pull the wheels myself, that way I can replace and torque them the way I want it done.

LEAVINU

For removal I don't care so much about an impact gun as long as they don't let the thing slip and scratch my wheel.

For re-install a torq wrench is a must on any car in my opinion. All these tire shops use 300ft lb impact guns then when a person gets a flat they can't get the damn wheel off the thing.

When I R&R wheels at my house I use my 1/2" impact gun to remove carefully then re-install with the gun set to the lowest setting, seems to be around 90ish ft lb, then I hand torq with 1/2" torq wrench to 100ft lbs.

obone

I always ask for them to hand torque them and I recheck it when I get home.

BEZ06

I don't care what they look like on my track wheels. Lighter would be better, but I just never have felt like spending a couple hundred $$$ on a set of titanium ones - I run stock wheels anyway, and I just run HPDE's, so I'm not looking for every 1/10th sec.

However, on my street wheels, I do care what they look like. When I got my Comp Gray wheels for my Cyber Gray car I thought the silver lug nuts looked out of place - i wanted something more subdued. I looked for some gray lug nuts but couldn't find any I liked, so I settled for black and they look good on the car.

Butt.....the main issue is that I take the wheels on/off a lot when swapping to track wheels and then back to street wheels. When a lug nut starts to get bunged up like this it's more than a cosmetic issue. The pic below shows an OE nut with the sheet metal covering coming loose and starting to slip and twist on the steel nut underneath it. An impact wrench could probably make short work of totally destroying that sheet metal sheath!!:



I like a nice solid lug nut so I don't have to be concerned with that crappy sheet metal cover coming loose and giving me a problem getting the lug nut off.

My cars are drivers, not waxers. I'm not **** about the cars at all - I wash them every couple weeks, run stock wheels, and DD the cars, but I do care what they look like, and I like the nice solid aftermarket lug nuts much better than the sheet metal covered OE ones.

Bob

hiperfman

I have not been to a tire shop that does not use a torque wrench to final tighten the nuts in at least 10-15 years, you need better dealers.

Bill Dearborn

This is one of my main gripes with Vette Lug Nuts. Since the 01 or 02 model year GM started supplying the cheap stainless covered nuts they put on all their other cars for the previous 20 years. Before that all C4 and C5s came with a heavy duty lug nut that had a plastic cover on it. Take off the cover and you could beat the hell out of the lug nut and it would take all the abuse you could give it. I guess too many waxers kept losing the covers and complaining about cheap plastic covers so they gave us what the waxers asked for. I still have a set of C4 lug nuts that I use for track days. Have been using them for many years and they are great, however, the stainless jacketed lug nuts I use on the street are starting to get really ugly due to taking them off so many times.

The better ones on my car look similar to the one above. The worst ones are pretty bad.

Bill

ohmy

I take great pride in having very clean blemish free nuts

Racer

I take my wheels off with an impact wrench and spin them on with the impact wrench until just before they tighten up then do the tightening sequence with my torque wrench, My lug nuts look fine.

diyguy

The last several times I've been to Discount tire (not in the vette), I've had to have two tires repaired on two different cars.

If you will go outside and watch them - First - they are relatively careful taking them off. When putting back on - they will first use the impact with a torque bar at a very SLOW speed. Then they go around on each wheel and HAND TORQUE each lug-nut.

And, for the more astute of you that give a rats-azz, if you look on your receipt, you'll see the torque value for any given car/truck you take to them.

Some of the better guys will ask you to come back for a quick re-torque for cars with aluminum wheels! I don't go that far as I will use my own Snap-On digital torque wrench to double check in a couple of weeks.

That to me seems about as good as you can get! Why the hell do I want to jack up my car myself, then put on jackstands and drag 4 wheels and tires up to the shop. I've got a better chance of dropping the car, or even dropping it with all the monkey motion to lift the car once wheel at a time and jack stands.... Geesh- aren't we being a bit over **** on this?

And, for those that have taken the tour in Bowling Green, amazingly they use a air impact wrench on all five at the same time. It's not a perfect looking part of the assembly process - just a guy putting tires on and shooting the nuts till the gun shows a green light, then on the next 30,000 wheels/tires...

Racer

Hmm, I would rather have my car at home for the day and 4 wheels at the tire shop, than have my car sitting there all day and who knows what is parked and how close as it is waiting to go into the shop and while it is waiting for me to pick it up, as well as who knows if they even know how to jack it properly. NO THANKS, I will do it myself. Takes no time at all with an air compressor and the right tools.

Knob Jockey

The Discount Tire Stores that I have been to were all very cognizant of how to properly lift a C6. Maybe they learned the hard way on some other unfortunate Vette owner's car.

They also always used a torque wrench when tightening the lug nuts and they always check/re-torque all the other wheels on the car.

Of course having read all the horror stories, I always have a chat with the manager before I get my car anywhere near their service bay. And the car is never out of my sight.

I bought aftermarket chrome lug nuts to go with my chrome wheels and they have survived unscathed, so far.