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Old 01-12-2011, 11:35 PM
kip Foss kip Foss is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: S. Texas
Posts: 1,237
From someone who learned the hard way; don't EVER use a tire shop that services trucks. Their air compressor is usually set to 175 psi. This pressure is all well and good if you are using a one inch spline drive on big truck tires or heavy equip. tires, but if you are working on a mini van it is a bit of an over kill.

Also ask the kid working on your tires what the torque should be. If he hesitates or doesn't know don't let him near your tires.

Many people recommend not using anti-seize but when you are broken down at 3 am and have rounded off the last nut and ruined the stamped steel tube wrench that came with the car you will rue the day you listened to these dunces.

If you car/truck/van/boat trailer etc. is over about 5 years the lug nuts should be removed, cleaned with a tap, lubed and torqued. In 55 years of driving all over the world I have NEVER lost a lug nut or bolt, much less and entire wheel, and I have lubed every single one on every car I've ever owned.

The lug nut lube conspiracy is like the change oil conspiracy. People think that if the owner's manual recommends changing oil every 5k miles then a 3k interval is better. In all the cars I have driven, and there have been a few, I change my oil and filter every 10K miles. I have never ever lost an engine to oil failure, and I don't know anyone who has. Maybe an oil pump failure or plugged oil passage but never a break down in the oil itself. So dealers or manufacturers or oil companies can say what they want but the reality does not bear them out.

Now, that said, I am sure that every person on this board can cite a friend of a friend that loss a wheel or an engine for too much or too little lube, but those weighed against the total number of drivers out there really don't amount to very much.
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