The shop that did my tire rotation managed to cross-thread 4 out of 5 lugnuts on my left rear wheel. They are paying for my rental car and the repairs, but how exactly can they fix it when they do? They couldn't even get any of the cross-threaded lugnuts off. I can't believe they let me drive that thing away...I distinctly remember the kid uttering "What the hell?" before shrugging, torqueing them all down, and pulling it out of the bay. When I noticed the clunking and then inspected the lugs, they were all at different heights. That should have been caught and I could have been killed. He claimed he hand-threaded them before tightening them, but since there is no possible way that 4 lugnuts jumped the threads and cross-threaded themselves after being hand-tight,I have my suspicions.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter they are paying to have it fixed, I'm just worried that it's not going to be easy and they will break something else in the process. Like if they need to use a torch on the lugs how do they do it without damaging the rims/tires? I have a really bad feeling about this.

Can someone ease my worries?

EDIT: How exactly do these kids get jobs at these tire places? Most of the tire places I go to manage to screw something up every time I go there, so what's the interview for these places? Do they just give the kid a baseball bat & tell them to go beat the **** out of a car? "Wow you managed to totally destroy that car in 10 minutes, you are hired!" I know mistakes happen, but if your sole purpose in life is to take off and put on lugnuts, and you can't do it right...why exactly are you better off alive than dead?

 

That sucks. I had an experience like that about 10 years ago with a new set of tires being installed. I drove out into the parking lot when they were "done" and the whole rear of the car was doing the Tango. I backed up, they took it back in and put a floor jack under it. The second the right rear tire left the ground, it fell completely off! Apparently they hand threaded the lugs a few turns, but forgot to hit them with the impact gun.

The studs are actually cheap items ($5-10 each?) and shouldn't be that big of a deal for a competent shop, but that doesn't sound like that's what you're dealing with. I haven't done any on Evos, but it should be a pretty straight-foward job. The rotor will probably need to come off and the messed up studs pressed out and new ones pressed in...done.

If they take a torch to the rotor and try to bang them out with a hammer with it still on the car, I'd be inclined to get my car as far away from that place as possible

 

Well I'm taking it to the dealer because the tire shop doesn't do those kind of repairs. However, if you can't get the wheel off because 4 of the 5 lugnuts are stuck on the studs, how do you get the studs out?

 

cause they work for minimum wage

 

Bigger impact gun than what put them on or a huge breaker bar with 6 feet of pipe on the end for leverage. Seriously, I am not sure, but I know they can be broken off because I've seen the aftermath of wheel theives and they snapped my locks/studs right off. Of course, I have no idea what the wheels looked like when they were done...could've been marred up pretty good. That is how I got my "experience" installing new wheel studs

 

An impact gun should never be used to put lugnuts on. That should be your first clue that shop had no clue what they were doing. Torque Wrench is the way to go.

 

I've never seen them put on any other way. As long as the torque for the impact gun isn't set higher than the max torque they are supposed to be at, and they were initially threaded by hand, it shouldn't be an issue. However, I've noticed that whenever they run down the nuts with the impact gun, the torque wrench never moves before it clicks. One that that also worried me was the kid said "well I torqued them to 92 ft/lbs so i don't know what would be wrong" when the max torque on our lugnuts is 80 ft/lbs. I always wondered if they even bothered to look it up; apparently not.

 

They say it shouldn't be a problem but I've seen it happen even with the impact gun at the 'right setting'.

 

Here's my recent experience with tire shops.
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=146648

I also don't know how you would get the stud hammered out if you can't get the wheel off. Does anyone know??

 

max torque on ours is 80 ft/lbs? Damn I torqued mine to 100.

 

you cannot set torque specs on an impact gun... go look at an impact gun they have a knob, usually its 1 2 3... always put them on my hand then use a torque wrench! but most shops dont do that becuase it takes to much time....

and the reason why the torque wrench never moves before it clicks is because the impact gun they put your "nuts" on with already put them at like 100+ ft/lb

 

Torque spec for our stock lugnuts is 73 +/- 7 ft-lbs.

 

Some can set a "max" with a selector, but it also depends on air pressure and the gun. You can reach a selected torque level with an impact gun using "torque sticks" however. Most tire shops I've been to use them and they are as close to accurate as a run-of-the-mill hand torque wrench (+/- 3-4%) when used with a "good" gun. Most sticks are designed to work with a gun of a particular power (ie. a "250ft/lb" gun). You still need to hand thread them to get them started, but the torque sticks will allow final torquing without much worry...

 

Getting back to the topic, 4 of the 5 lugnuts on my hub could not be removed with the impact gun that put them on as they were put on then TORQUED with a torque wrench to 92 ft/lbs. Let's just say on Tuesday the mechanic cannot take the nuts off with his impact gun. How on earth is he going to take it all apart to replace my studs & lugnuts?

 

If they don’t have a strong enough impact gun, then they will have to try using a breaker bar with a long extension, hopefully the nut and or stud will break off. Other wise you could split the nut with a air hammer and a chisel bit, but there's a good chance of messing up the wheel doing that.