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Always check your vehicle.


KrAzY

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I once got an oil change and realized they hadn't placed the filler cap back on (it did get sandwiched between the engine and the hood somehow).  I think a little oil got flung about, but all things considered, it was a potential disaster avoided.  I think I got the next change free?  It was back in the 90s, so barely remember.

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3 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

I must admit that I once left the lug nuts loose on a friends car when we did a brake job on it. It was only on one rear wheel and he noticed it before the wheel fell off.

I heard my lugs go zinging off before on my old work truck. Lost two including the bolts doing about 80mph hauling my boat and trailer.. they do make some noise when they are projectiles! 

 

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1 minute ago, jsharr said:

I would have someone qualified check that wheel for damage.  Wobbling around on the studs did it no good

I took it back in and they checked the wheel and also did a wheel adjustment. 
I'm waiting to hear back from the dealership about this.. plus they were calling Toyota corporate about it also. 

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2 minutes ago, KrAzY said:

I took it back in and they checked the wheel and also did a wheel adjustment. 
I'm waiting to hear back from the dealership about this.. plus they were calling Toyota corporate about it also. 

Does your concrete estimator work at this dealership?

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When I was young I worked at a full service gas station with a tow truck.  When I was real inexperienced I went and picked up an old car that a guy wanted to restore and needed moved.  It didn't run.  So, not really knowing any better I never did a walk around to check the car in any way.  I was slowing down for a stop light when I see this tire go bouncing past me and into the intersection.  I just thought, "Oh.  Would you look at that." before realizing where it came from.  A car hit it and we had to repair his fender.

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1 hour ago, Longjohn said:

By Pennsylvania law lug nuts must be torqued  to specs.

After getting back a car from a repair place where the wheels are off, like a free balance and rotation, I always check the lug nut torque. I've seen the torque all over the place being too high or too low. Some places do use a torque wrench while others just depend on the impact wrench to do the job.

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My cousin got a new Toyota Celica many years ago. On the very first oil change done at the dealership she bought it from they didn’t screw in the drain plug well enough and all the oil drained out on the drive home seizing the engine.

I don’t recall now how it all unfolded but attorneys were involved and ultimately it resulted in a replacement vehicle from the dealership.

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25 minutes ago, Square Wheels said:

I would not be happy.  I'd likely go to the dealer, have everything damaged repaired / replaced and send the bill to the shop that messed up.

It was the Toyota dealer that screwed it up. 

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2 hours ago, Square Wheels said:

Perfect, make them fix it like new.

Working on it all. Got the customer manager calling later today sometime. I'm sure I'm not going to be their favorite call of the day. 

 

1 hour ago, bikeman564™ said:

The torque varies by vehicle. Seems weird to have a state requirement, unless this is a minimum. Some tiny lugs may need less than 80 lb-ft.

I think 80 is the general number I remember from when I worked on my own cars and was told by a mechanic years ago. 
I guess some are minimum of 70ftlbs
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1 hour ago, donkpow said:

This is outrageous. We should protest the place. I'll wear my Wookiee suit.

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Lets do this.. I'll make jsharr dress like Yoda (the old one, but the new little cute one.. 'cause I don't think he can pull it off!)

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27 minutes ago, KrAzY said:

 

I think 80 is the general number I remember from when I worked on my own cars and was told by a mechanic years ago. 
I guess some are minimum of 70ftlbs
 

For a quick check, the state needs a value. But if your vehicle requires 145, don't use 80 ;)   Nowadays dealers and Discount Tire type places all torque to a value. Back in the day, the corner gas station guy would tighten the nuts w/ this. No one gave a chit aboot torque :)  and I never had a lug nut become loose.

14inch%2017-19-21-23mm%20Rim%20Lug%20Nut

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I had a lug nut problem, caused by a garage, that God must have been helping to overcome because it was my father's last great vacation before dying of cancer - and we knew the end was near at the time. It involved luck and a mistake that proved fortunate for it all to end well.

In 1991, I had an oil change just before a two-week vacation with my dying-of-cancer father, in partial remission from pain and on what we knew would be his last big vacation, driving from Maryland to the Black Hills of SD then eventually on to Yellowstone National Park - then back.

Dad was pain-free, active and did a lot of walking. We came across things we didn't expect to find and had a great time - a big rodeo, Native American prayers on Bear Butte, a B2B bomber, and more.

But the son of a bitch who checked brakes, etc. during the oil-change had spun the lug nuts on so tight with an air wrench they couldn't be removed by me after a tire suffered a slash in it due to a road worker directing a bunch of us onto the wrong stretch of road with metal debris on it on the Crow Reservation in Montana.

We discovered the tire was leaking miles down the road on I-90 and about 30 minutes from Billings, Montana, where we had a Motel 6 Reservation for the evening. The one tiny-town gas station we could get to couldn't do repairs on Saturday but we could fill up the tire with air and hope we could make it to Billings before it went flat - the trunk was full of stuff and the spare under it hard to get to.

We got to Billings, refilled the tire at a gas station, and the plan was to check-in at Motel 6, find out where I could buy a new tire and have it installed, and do it.

In Billings, there were two Motel 6's across the street from each other.  We assumed they were both the same operation so, when I saw an office sign, I got in line to check-in.  While in line, I saw a brochure for businesses in Billings and picked it up to look for tire services.  That proved important!

When I got to the front of the line, I learned these were two DIFFERENT Motel 6 operations and I had reservations at the one across the street.

So we went there, checked-in, and rushed off to the Sears we were given info about from the guy at Motel 6.  The garage there was closed for the day.

So the plan was now to empty the trunk of stuff into our room (2nd floor, of course) so we could get to the spare, change the tire, and go get a new one the next morning at Sears.

That's when I found out I couldn't get the lug nuts to budge.  Lucky for me, I had got in line at the wrong Motel 6 and found that brochure - there was a gas station listed in it 10 minutes away that I phoned and found they could sell me a new tire and put it on.  We refilled the gashed, near flat tire again, and headed there.

The guy at the gas station struggled trying to get the lug nuts off with air-powered tools, finally did after 10 minutes or so, checked our other lug nuts for us, and we had a new tire on the car for just $45 total!  I gave the guy a $20 tip!  We then looked for a place to eat dinner - something I now could do without worrying about the tire!  We left for breakfast then on to Yellowstone the next morning without missing any time!

It have NO idea how that gashed tire held any air for so long between air-fills.  The steel belt was ripped and sticking out of the slash.  We were VERY lucky that we hardly lost any vacation time - and that was SO important because it turned out to be my dad's last good time - three months later he was in the hospital and mentally in-and-out of good cognition from then until passing away the following April.

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The picture below with dad feeding the wild burro is a vid-cap from the only video or still I have to show my nephews about my father missing three fingers from his left hand - which happened during a behind-the-lines Darby's Rangers attack north of Anzio in WW2.  In every other family picture we have, dad had his left hand hidden behind something.

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7 hours ago, bikeman564™ said:

For a quick check, the state needs a value. But if your vehicle requires 145, don't use 80 ;)   Nowadays dealers and Discount Tire type places all torque to a value. Back in the day, the corner gas station guy would tighten the nuts w/ this. No one gave a chit aboot torque :)  and I never had a lug nut become loose.

14inch%2017-19-21-23mm%20Rim%20Lug%20Nut

I have one of them.. I typically torc it down as tight as I can by hand, then jump on it once making it a bot tighter. NEVER fails me yet and I changed a lot of tires! 

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42 minutes ago, KrAzY said:

I have one of them.. I typically torc it down as tight as I can by hand, then jump on it once making it a bot tighter. NEVER fails me yet and I changed a lot of tires! 

tighten until you hear a crack, then back off 1/4 turn......  

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1 hour ago, KrAzY said:

I have one of them.. I typically torc it down as tight as I can by hand, then jump on it once making it a bot tighter. NEVER fails me yet and I changed a lot of tires! 

 

54 minutes ago, jsharr said:

tighten until you hear a crack, then back off 1/4 turn......  

Anti-seize is your friend. Exploit it.

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