What's a good brand and price for a decent torque wrench for lug nuts? I went to Amazon and I suspect the $15 ones are junk, but I don't need a $1500 one either. Any suggestions? I'm guessing for $75 I could get a pretty good one.

 

Home Depot has a nice 250 lb one the longer one is easier to pull.
about $50 ( Husky was the brand)

 

I prefer a beam type for lugnuts. Even though you have to eyeball the pointer, you can easily tighten in increments without changing a torque setting. I tend to make the first pass around 50, the second at 80, followed by the final at 100.

 

I bought one from Harbor Freight (1/2 drive) a couple of years ago to set the lug-nuts. Has performed flawlessly, think it was under $15.00 on sale, might have been $10.00. I also bought a 3/8 drive, but have not used it yet.

 

I also bought one at Harbor Freight. Under $15. Works great for lug nuts.

 

Seems a bit over the top to use a torque wrench for lug nuts. I always just cranked 'em until it felt right. Haven't had a wheel fall off yet.

That said, I'm partial to the Husky wrenches. like
½ drive is better for big duty work.

 

I think I have seen a few warp their rotors by tightening without using a torque wrench. On the old drum brakes it wasn't much of a problem.

 

I doubt it matters much on modern cars with sealed wheel hubs. On drum brakes and rotors that had the studs mounted in the rotors that could easily happen. However, with a studs that are mounted in a hub the studs go through the rotor and the rotor is clamped between the hub flange and the wheel.

GM Recommends using 100 lb ft of torque with their aluminum wheels. This is a pretty high level of force and the probability is a person using a hand wrench will undertighten them and somebody using an impact wrench will over tighten them. I have been using a low torque impact wrench to mount the tires and to get the lug nuts tight enough I can drop the car before torquing the nuts. Initial torque is ~ 50 lb ft. Then I just use a click type of torque wrench to tighten every nut to 100.

Click types are easier in a quiet area since you don't have to bend way over to read a pointer or see a digital display. Much easier on the back and much quicker to work your way around a car in the morning when you want to get ready for the first track session.

The problem with most torque wrenches for the likes of us is we are using non calibrated wrenches and really have no idea whether or not we are hitting 100 lb ft or not. We are close but hopefully that is close enough. You can pay $50 or $1500 but if it isn't calibrated you don't really know what the value is.

Bill

 

I've got a couple from Harbor Freight which are OK for the price, but how accurate? I don't know. My favorite is one I got from www.brownlinemetalworks.com which is digital and precise and they offered it to forum members for $100 not long ago. Ask and see if they are still offering the deal.

 

Harbor freight.

 

You can get a decent Craftsman 1/2" drive click stop wrench on sale for about $39. Hopefully Sears still offers a lifetime warranty on their wrenches.

 

I bought my Craftsman click type 20+ years ago and still use it today. It has stood up to my abuse and still works great. I don't know if Craftsman has the quality that they used to.

 

$80 Husky from Home Depot.

 

I have one of these and it works great. They just had them on sale again recently. They are not a lifetime warranty.

Whatever brand you get make sure you take the tension off the spring once you are done using it.

 

http://www.lowes.com/pd_337334-22328...hes&facetInfo=

Keep an eye out for Sale's, I got this exact wrench for $39 several months ago on sale and the 3/8 drive one for $29

 

Craftsman, I have both a 1/2" and 3/8" drive torque wrenches and use them as often as I can. There is so much aluminum in these cars, its easy to overtorque something.

 

If you do an HPDE, or autocross you should absolutely torque your wheels.

 

I have always been a craftsman torque wrench guy I have 1/4" 3/8" & 1/2"
This article from car craft was an eye opener

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...rench_testing/

 

On aluminum wheels ( like a corvette ) you can create a condition called "spreading the metal" by over tightening your lug nuts. You can distort the center of the rims ( aluminum is a little softer than steel rims ) and create a out of balance situation causing vibration in the steering wheel by not properly torquing your lug nuts to the recommended 100lbs. It has happened to me.

 

Sears does' t offer lifetime warranty on torque wrenches. My Sears 1/2"
torque broke 2 weeks ago. I took it back to a local Sears and was told they
Do not warranty them for life any more, only 1 year.