Not sure how this impacted my 'personal safety', but whatever. I only did one wheel and the impact was set on the lowest setting so it was no where near the 100lbs torque required. Got a torque wrench and did them all the proper way. Found out DT had waaaay overtightened some nuts. Drove for a bit and retightened. All is good. Thanks for the input.

 

Good on you taking the initiative on trying to learn! That is how we better ourselves.

Just be cognizant of the fact that you WILL make mistakes. Learn from those as well.

Always ask questions, you have a wealth of knowledge and experience available to you here. Use it as much as possible BEFORE you make those inevitable mistakes. It may help minimize the cost and headache of those mistakes.

 

Dude, I am a walking mistake.

 

To really understand the issue, take a look at the lug nuts. When tightening, they're tapered in a way that they center themselves into the holes on the wheel, thus centering the wheel onto the hub. This happens easily when the car is in the air and there is no weight on the wheel. As you tighten the lug nuts, the wheel gets properly centered on the hub. Once the lug nuts are tight enough, even the weight of the car won't pull the wheel off center. At that point you can lower the jack and use a torque wrench to torque to spec.

Now think about what you did. You loosened all lug nuts which made the wheel come off of center on the hub with the full weight of the car on the wheel. The only way to get the wheel back on center is to tighten the lug nuts, but the entire weight of the car is now working against you. As you tighten each lugnut, it has to slowly pull the wheel back toward center while fighting the weight of the car. This puts a LOT of stress on the wheel studs and lug nuts and could even damage the threads.

Now think about one more scenario; you keep 4 lug nuts tight and change one at a time. Even with the full weight of the car on the wheel, the wheel can't come off center because 4 lugs are keeping it secure to the hub.

Hopefully this makes things more clear.

 

Yes, and that is what I ended up doing. One at a time.