Rotating tires and getting the correct tightness without a torque wrench

Sorry if I'm being anal, but you made a typo in the body of your post "with a torque wrench".

moto g(7) power ?

 

One grey area:

That could vary some. Maybe starting with just finger tight, the additional torque angle would be around 120 degrees? Just to throw out a number. That's sketchy too, because the wheels can be not quite seated against the hub. Maybe finger-tight them all, then grip the wheels at three and nine o'clock, give it a bit of shake, then double check the finger-tight.

What's not bad too: wheel on the ground, just use the Toyota supplied wrench (with it's relatively short handle), and put some oomph into it.

 

Take a pair of twenty-dollar bills and roll them into a slim tube. A little bit of tape at the ends can be used to keep them in the proper tubular shape.

Then (wearing a mask), find somebody in the tools section at the hardware store and say "I will give you these rolled-up twenties for that torque wrench over there."

 

Excellent point. Your "as tight as you can" might be different from my "as tight as you can" but our "finger tight" would probably be more similar.

 

A perfectly usable and quite accurate 1/2" torque wrench is $19.99 at Harbor Freight if you somehow don't have a coupon for 20%- 25% off. Hard to imagine needing to guess.

 

And I'm sure that if you have the dealer rotate the tires, they will use a torque wrench within + or - 1 ft/lb from the required spec.

 

AND.....I am positive that they will NOT torque the lugs down with that uncalibrated air gun one at a time going around in a circle......which is a time honored way to warp the rotors.

 

I go to america's tires where I bought the tires from to take advantage of the perks that came with the purchase. I'm still waiting when they will actually torque the tire nuts to 78 - 80 FT LBS and adjust all 4 tire PSI to toyota door specs. When I get back home, I always get the torque wrench and air compressor out to correct their slop. I love leaving negative feedback and they call me to ask ask how can they do better next time HA! This was the 4th time that they screwed up tire job-wise on my car which I won't go into. 2 months ago, they drove my car into the lift and back to me with the parking brakes on. The loud screeching was coming from my car driving away, and when I got in the car, the brake light was lit up and the pedal was down.

It's slowly coming together that I make time to rotate my own tires for now on.

 

I've lost count times of the times I've seen a costco guy do a final torque on a car outside, and go around the circle, no star pattern.

One of the perks of having separate snow tires, I always buy tires when the wheels are OFF the car, bring them in and leave with loose wheels. No discount, but peace of mind that they'll get torqued right. And I dress the hubs with a thin application of anti-seize, check the tread over carefully for embedded metal, wash and wax the ones coming off.

One tip when getting new tires: take the valve caps off just before handing over to the tire shop. Espeically if it involves costco's green caps.

 

I've always rotated my own tires when I change the oil (at least for the last 50 years. ...with a floor jack it takes about 20 minutes. I use a 4 way lug wrench, never owned a torque wrench. Never lost a wheel, never warped a rotor....and like another poster I take my tires/wheels to the shop to buy new ones so I'll be able to loosen the lug nuts when I'm ready to rotate them.

 

I've always used a torque wrench, for wheel lug nuts. Still, I'd say finger-tight followed by some angular rotation makes a lot of sense. It is used by a lot of manufacturers, for oil filter install. Often with a torque value too, take your pick.

 

Even when your out on the road changing your own flat?

 

The only tool normally in my car that the 21mm socket will fit on is the torque wrench....

 

Are we really making it this complicated? holy crap.............

 

Tire rotation. a non-essential with more and more cars. With the most, You can only rotate front to back anyways. And many new cars have different size from front treads to back ... so they stay in the same place during their entire life expectancy. Get yourself a new car, problem solved.

not to mention blowing out the stud.

 

No not then, just give it a good tighten with the supplied wrench. Typical scenario, it's a temp spare that'll be on for less than a day.

 

Noaw, I just carry a bunch of other heavy stuff around in back. Leaving out the supplied lug wrench/pry bar doesn't save all that much weight, but it's something. A set of sockets that includes 21 mm and a cheap torque wrench are just more versatile to have around than one fixed-size lug wrench.