I'm F-IN pissed...
 

So, i'm taking my wheels off today, right...?

The shop that put the wheels on must have used an airgun to tighten them, which i specifically requested that they did not...

anyway, i got the fronts done without too much of a hassle... move to the back, and am cracking the lugs... get 4 of the 5 and am working on the 5th... CRACK... what the hell was that...?

It ****in snapped my torque wrench... now i know i'm not supposed to use a TW for a breaker bar, but if these things were at the specs they should be, it wouldn't have been a problem...

so, i call another shop, about 1 miles from the house, they tell me to bring it over... i get there and they don't have the thin walled sockets for the air gun... :( he tells me to come back tomorrow morning... ok fine...

now, i drove over and back from the shop with 2 17's on the front and 2 18's on the rear... is that going to **** with my diffs...? are there any repurcussions to doing this...? i kinda putzed around to get over there... was afraid i could be screwing something up... :dunno:

relax cory, you will be fine. just try not to drive to much like that. and also make sure that you go back to the shop over there and use a TW on their head.

As long as the sidewall size makes up for the smaller 17" wheel, you really shouldn't have any trouble. The fronts will have a lighter rolling mass than the larger rears, but since this is only temporary (like what, 2 days?) you should be fine.

If you're worried about it, just stay off the gas and don't drive hard.

i had to do the same thing but worse 17's on the front and 19's on the back!!! i dont think it messed anything up and i had to drive like that for a week because no place wanted to change my tire they looked at it and was like volk 19's are you joking we dont touch those..... but i didnt notice a diffrence but whi knows?

i won't be driving it anymore until tomorrow morning when i go back to the shop... the guy said he had a thin wall set at home he would bring in for me...

what are the chances that the stud is going to break when they crack that *****...?

I will unleash the wrath of all that is unholy if that happens... :mad:

Stuff happens like this...although breaking a torque wrench is sorta bad. Hope it works out, but you dont have to worry about the diff if you are taking care of it immediately I would think.

hopefully it was craftsman= X take that mofo back!

get a breaker bar

it was a Kobalt which is supposed to have a lifetime warranty, but i have to pay to have it fixed...? how's that work...? :dunno:

Thats not much of a warranty. Snap on makes the best tools, but too expensive. If I ever break a craftsman I just take it back and its no questions asked.

I am going through a similar problem...I bought some tires for my car and after I put them on I noticed they are 55mm sidewall and I have 60mm sidewall on the rear, but both 15" tires...will this be ok until I fix it?

I wouldn't drive it like that If I didn't have to, but you could see 5mm difference between the front and rears from normal wear, so I don't think you're gonna kill anything, but I always like to give myself every advantage I can....

D,

never use your T-wrench to remove stuff. It will make it go out of spec with a quickness. I think that your studs should be cool though. Either way you should let those guys know how pissed you are. Putting wheels on with air is just ****ing stupid. Anyone with half a brain knows that that is a no no. Sorry to hear about your troubles. Your car is clean and I always look forward to your pics n stuff.


Take care

Ron

When you guys say with "Air", do you mean with an impact? I didn't think anything was wrong with that... Also about my tires - I inflated the front ones (55mm) 10 more psi and deflated the rear ones (60mm) 10 psi...to kind of balance out the size difference and it seemed to help for now until I can get new ones.

Well, in theory, air impact wrenches have adjustable torque limiters. But nobody really ever sets them to less than max -- which can be enough torque to endanger your studs.

Worse than the impact wrenches alone is that some sloppy shops don't seat the lug nuts properly, so you might wind up with the studs off center in the lug holes, and just held down by excessive torque. One hard stop (or start), and you might wind up with loose wheels, or sheared off studs.

Half-inch drive breaker bars are fairly cheap, and a worthwhile investment -- especially when you get around to installing coil-overs. ;)

Then seat the lug nuts by hand, jiggling the tire until they seat down snugly. After you have the five lug nuts seated, then use the torque wrench to tighten. Alternate every other lug, rather than adjacent ones.


Hint: Save your pizza boxes. They make good spacers between stacked tires in storage. :D