Watch the torque on the lug nuts!

[w261w261]

I had a new front upper control arm installed last week, and when I took the car out afterwards I could tell things weren't quite right. The balance, that had been fine, felt a little off. And the braking, which was very smooth before, now had a slight vibration.

We have thin rotors. And even though I have brand-new Brembos on the front and back, they're still sensitive to overtightening of the lug nuts. What I think happened was the shop put the left front wheel back on, didn't hand-tighten the lug nuts while holding the wheel in place (to get it centered exactly), then hit it with the air wrench and over-tightened the lugs. Not by much, but I could tell when I took them off that the amount of force to break them loose was higher than normal, I'd say by 20%.

Anyway, by loosening up and retightening the lugs to spec, the problem disappeared. Moral of the story: if you are having problems with balance or vibrations during braking, particularly after a wheel has been put back on, retighten those lugs yourself, and make sure the original set of the wheel on the lugs is centered well.

[TheWatcher]

I would say, take your car somewhere else, where they care enough to use a torque wrench. Or if you keep going to the same place, make sure you loosen the wheel lugs up and torque them yourself to spec, anytime you know they removed/install your tires for repairs.

Good that you fixed the problem yourself. :)

Peace.

[w261w261]

< would say, take your car somewhere else, where they care enough to use a torque wrench>

I'm going to talk to them about it. I suspect that they did use a torque stick on the air wrench, but perhaps the stick wasn't set to the right value...could have been a lot of things. Unfortunately, my experience is that even the best shops screw up more than I think they should...the good guys get promoted to be bosses, which has the effect of taking their hands off the work. And some of the new people may or may not work out.

The place where I have had a fair amount of work done, and a place that I would go back to for more...when they installed the new rear Brembo rotors and rebuilt calipers (I have an Se-i), on one side of the rear they forgot to tighten the two bolts that hold on a little sheet metal dust cap over the brake actuating mechanism. Every time I hit a bigger bump just right there was this little rattle. After emptying out the whole trunk I finally took the wheel off myself, found the problem and put it on right. Had to find a new bolt cause one of the two had fallen out. I surmise they hand-tightened them and then forgot to snug them down. Just a simple failure of attention, but very aggravating. What can you do, if you can't do it all yourself? No one pays the attention to your ride that you do.

Last weekend I went to a fly-in that was honoring the Corsair, a WWII Navy fighter plane that kicked major butt in the Pacific Theater. Of the 21 surviving planes, 9 of them were at this show. They're a rich man's toy now, as they are worth 1.5-2 mill each. As I watched them fly around, I'm thinking to myself: "Just who is doing the work keeping them fixed up?" Maybe the aircraft mechanics are different, but I don't particularly trust +any+ mechanic except myself...I don't think I would be flying around in 60 year old sheet metal.

[Busted_Blue]

80lbs of torque is reccomended by Honda. We have a red torque stick specifically for just wheel lugnuts.

It is possible they didn't cross torque the lugnuts and just went around and the wheel didn't slip on the hub correctly.

[AccordEpicenter]

yeah, especially some aluminum wheels can get cocked because they fit pretty snugly. I like to rotate mine a few turns to make sure its on perfectly straight. I only had a problem getting it straight when for some reason one of my front disc screws backed itself out and prevented the wheel from laying flat on the hub. Wierd. Torque sticks work very good to get the correct lug nut torque. Simply putting them on with an impact can result with lug nut torque all over the charts if you arent careful. Using a torque wrench is the best solution