Accura Wheel Lug Nut Over-Torque

[Rereonehundred]

Helping my friend today with his 2006 Accura TL. He had a brake job at all four wheels a few weeks back, and the pro mechanic gave him back a broken lug nut key for the keyed secure single lug nut at each wheel. The story was the lug nut key broke when doing up the last wheel.

My friend bought a new key from the dealer, and it broken when he tried to take off the keyed nuts and replace them with the normal hex lug nuts, as we are in a low crime area. So he bought a second key from the Accura dealer, and I agreed to help him.

On the RHS of his Accura I needed a good hard pull on a 27 inch breaker bar to loosen all the lug nuts, keyed or hex. The breaker bar was visibly bending with my pull. My gut calibrated torque feel put these lug nuts at over 200 ft-lbf. They all made loud snapping noises when coming undone. Oddly, the two LHS wheels seemed to be near the car’s specification of 80 ft-lbf.

We reset all the lug nuts at the 80 ft-lbf spec.

So two questions for you guys with much more experience than me.

Do these lug nut keys often break?

At what point should we worry about abusive torque amounts having stretched or weakened the wheel studs?

Thanks guys…………….

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[Ingvar]

1. They break if you use impact wrench on them. Done it. The way I fixed mine, as center key piece broke loose and was in the free spin inside the socket housing itself was I drilled hole through the socket and the key insert itself and locked it in place with a nail. Then undid the security lugs and replaced them with a new set.
2. My experience with alloys is – they suck lug nuts in. Self tighten. That’s why I use ton of antisieze on them. Also, as it’s 2 different metals, they galvanically bond to each other, alloy to lug.
But yes, someone took a hel of torque to those nuts.

[Rereonehundred]

Thanks ukrkoz.

After reefing a breaker bar that seemed like a fishing pole to get those stud nuts off, the 80 ft-lbf specification seemed to be not much more than hand tight.

[Ingvar]

Yep. 80 Lb/f is very light torque on lug nuts. Guaranteed they used impact wrench.
That’s one of the reasons you do NOT take your cars to quick oil type places. They use impact wrenches on oil pan plugs. Then YOU have to replace the pan. $400 easy money outta your wallet.

[Author]

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