Go to your local harbor freight and buy a couple of their cheap torque wrenches. You can buy about 6 of them for the price of 1 nice name brand one

 

Just had my tires rotated at the dealer. Maybe I should check the nuts

 

I lost one on my old Lexus at a Sam's Club (you think new lugs are expensive at a Ford Dealership?). Last time I ever buy tires there though. Those dudes are total freakin hacks.

 

I have a battery operated impact. Does good enough to get the lugs snug until I get it off the jacks. Then I get my trusty old Snap-On torque wrench and go over them to 100 ft lbs. Never had a problem.

 

Proper torque is 150 for anything newer than 2000. If only at 100, it is a matter of time before you lose one.

 

And get what you pay for! A Chinese torque wrench sounds scary to me.
I was done buying cheap tools many years ago.

 

Yep, made that same mistake at Sam's Club. Lessons learned.

 

The tire shop at the Sam's here is good. You can't generalize.

 

Dang... I learned a lot... definitely going to invest in a torque wrench and start double checking my lugs.

thanks everyone for their input

FB

 

Just in case anyone else is looking for a lug nut I got one from RockAuto.com for about 4 bucks shipped to my door.

FB

 

Good thing you don't have lug nuts like I needed for my Harley wheels. Nobody but the dealer carries them.

 

Our Costco has a great tire shop, and they do use a torque wrench.

 

Here's a funny, took my 08 to discount tire to have tires rotated and rebalanced. It came with stock 20's with center caps with fake plastic looking looking lugs. You know the deal, pop the center cap off and the real lugs are underneath. After getting it home I notice one of the driver side rear lugs missing on the center cap and took it back the next day. They swore up and down they didn't do it but when I told them to stick their finger in the hole and feel that the plastic was twisted they changed their tune real quick and offered to pay for the center cap.

But then I got a 2012....

 

Even though Discount is the only outfit I will let touch my lug nuts, even they aren't infallible. I got stuck on the side of a dirt road with a rear blowout on a little Ranger because the morons at Sears overtorqued the lugnuts when they rotated my tires. Fortunately, a knight in shining armor on a white charger (ok, he was a redneck driving a beater) with bulging muscles came along. Even then, he had the divil's own time geting three of the nuts off. When he said he was afraid that he might twist off the remaining two lugs, I told them I could get back to town on three lugs but I wasn't going anywhere as long as those last two nuts were still on there. He managed to get them off although he had use both arms and one leg to to do it.

After putting on the spare, I drove directly to Discount and bought two new rear tires. When I asked the guy to check the torque on the front wheel lugnuts, he started to just crank on the nuts. I had to explain to him they had probably been overtorqued and he need to back them off and retorque them. Even with the air wrench, he had trouble getting them backed off.

 

The Quick Lane at my dealership uses a torque wrench on every car.