Torque Sticks?

[jeep72]

What Does Everyone think about Torque Sticks? I heard to not use them. But Pep boys use them all the time.They live by the Torque Stick.

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[rice400]

Personally I would never use them. I would run the lug nuts down snug with an impact or by hand and then use a torque wrench to finish them off.

[jeep72]

I don’t like them either. When I went to auto school they said don’t use them.I dopn’t know why pep boys thinks there the best thing ever.

[rice400]

Time is money, my guess is they just dont want to grab a torque wrench and do it right. They must not realize that even one under/over torqued lug nut can cause braking problems due to excessive lateral runout

[skim3544]

If you are talking about the torque extension bar for the impact wrench, I personally do not use them. They are sensitive to the impact torque so they won’t work with some impact wrenches. The reason I don’t use it because I am planning on testing them first to see if they are reasonably accurate with my impact wrenches. But if I am having my car serviced, I rather have the mechanics use them because I had couple of times that they didn’t. The mech shot the lug nuts with his industrial strength impact wrench and I had heck of time removing the wheels afterward.

[dollman0]

I think it depends on how hard your impact hits. When I was in tech school, we checked and it was either under or over torqued but the average was reasonable. I am sure tire shops like them because it is a fast tool to use for production. These torque sticks are even available for truck wheels that torque to 450-500 ft lbs… I have found you get the same result from using a thin extension due to the flex action lol

[dreamer2355]

We dont use them at the shop i work at. We all use our torque wrenches after snugging the bolts down with our impact guns.

[3SheetsDiesel]

The shop where I work has, as it’s company policy, to use a 65 ft-lb rated torque stick (which is painted yellow), followed by a torque wrench set to the manufacturer recommended torque spec on every lugnut of every car that comes into the shop for any reason. After the first person uses a torque wrench, they have to call over a second person to go back around the car and re-torque all the lugs to the factory torque spec. Like I said, this has to be done on everything that comes into the shop, even if that thing is an 8-lug pickup that only needed a light bulb, we’ve still got to pry off the center caps, and hit all 64 lugnuts with a torque wrench.

That being said, I trust the shop supplied torque equipment (sticks and the wrenches) about as far as I can comfortably throw my apartment building. I bought my own set of torque extensions and I’m the only one who uses them. I’ve verified that they torque to what’s engraved on the stick with my torque wrench, so I trust my torque sticks implicitly. I did have to modify them slightly though. To keep myself from getting fired simply for owning torque sticks in a color other than yellow, I repainted mine with yellow spray paint. It’s fairly obvious that they’re not the shop supplied ones if you look close, but I keep them in my toolbox unless I’m using them, and from 10 feet away, you can’t tell the difference.

[Trcustoms719]

I hate dealing with lug nuts and drain plus from people at the quick lube places tightening the snot out of them with impacts.
You loosen and snug bolt with an impact then you use a torque wrench..
Pepboys, jeffy lube and walmart are the worst places for doing this around me.
I personally bought a car from a guy that worked at jeffy lube and man… he had so much crap messed up on that thing (’88 mazda mx6 gt)
I advise people to not have their cars serviced at these places.
Use a dealer or a good independent guy.
I take a lot of pride in what I do and treat every ones car as if it were my own. which I can’t say for most of the guys at these places. S:(

[spelunkerd]

I think the point behind torque sticks it they put a top limit on how much torque is applied to wheels by air tools. So, the best way to use them is to have them on impact wrenches as a safety, so that the wrench doesn’t apply too much torque before the final accurate torque with a dedicated torque wrench. If you use an impact and then a torque wrench, you may be inadvertently over – torquing your nuts, since the second torquing won’t reverse over torquing by the air tools….

[Jennifer]

Dunn Tire uses torque sticks. The last two times I was there having my tires rotated they used them. After the first time they were used, when I went to get my car inspected they had to use a floor jack handle on a breaker bar to get the lug nuts loose. When I had my tires rotated again they used torque stick again. This time after they were tightened with a torque stick two of the lug nuts were so tight that they had to be burned off with a torch by Dunn Tire the next time my tires were rotated and the wheel had to be sent out and be refinished.

[Jake F]

I see no application for this type of tool in the automotive industry. However, if home repair calls for a specific torque on a screwy nutty bolt under the sink or piano, it might come in handy for ease of access.

[Delwyn Ching]

I use them sometimes when I’m being lazy. Most times I just go with the lowest torque on the impact then use a torque wrench to get them correct. This is the way Costco tire shop does it and torque sticks are prohibited so I’m told by my cousin who works there.

[David]

I have a 65 ft-lb one I use to snug down the lugnuts on our cars, then torque to the proper value using a torque wrench. It’s surprisingly accurate on my impact – seems to be just shy of 65 ft-lbs. I wouldn’t want to trust them to bring things to the right torque, but to prevent over-torqueing with an impact, I think they are great.

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