A couple days ago ended up with a front driver flat. 11,000ish miles on tires. Kinda cool the jack jacks up the entire side of the car.
The bad. The stubby factory lug nut wrench.
1. it’s short. Could not get any of the nuts free and I bent the wrench by hand.
2. for lack of knowing what the proper term is I’m going to name it the nut cup. Seems to be a softer metal, see up above about bend, as it was not grabbing the nuts, lugs, very well at all. Kinda rounding out the inside and not doing the lugs any favors at all.
A couple street workers recognized my situation and had a portable impact wrench that worked.
Lesson learned. Carry a good sized breaker bar and a 19mm socket.

 

When wheels are put on - everyone (in the car repair/tire business) uses an air wrench. It's just faster. What everyone in that business should use is a torque limiting socket on the wrench. Sometimes that does not happen and people end up in your situation.

Sorry for your troubles.

On my cars - if I've not put the wheels on myself - I use my provided factory tools to loosen wheels nuts to make sure they work before I have a problem. (of course I don't leave them loose!) I understand that's not a reasonable thing for normal consumers to do - but having been in the car business for xx years - that's the way it is. And also why I check the air in my spare tire! (every few years) Because no one else does that.

 

Historically I've always done okay with that wrench, but it is certainly short, and people do sometimes put lugs on too tight.

 

My suggestion - Go down to Home Depot and go into the plumbing aisle - look for a 2 foot section of 1 inch diameter iron pipe (less than $10, small enough to throw in the trunk). Whenever you need that extra torque to pull off lug nuts that weren't tightened with a torque wrench, simply slide the iron pipe over the end of your lug wrench or breaker bar socket and you'll be good to go. PS - when you put your wheels back on, use a torque wrench. Depending on whether you have lug nuts or lug bolts, the torque isn't crazy high - its like 80 ft-lbs for the lug bolts and 95-100 for the lug nuts (owners manual should have your model's spec. Just recheck the bolts for torque after a short drive (some say 50 miles but I usually just do a 5-10 mile drive then recheck).

 

Hey all. Today I’m removing every nut and anti seizing them. 2 done and yes I’ve got gray stuff everywhere.
I’ve got a 20” breaker bar and 19 mm socket in the spare tire compartment now. The factory one doesn’t seat wheel on the nuts and when trying to loosen nuts it twists and pops off. Not good for nut or wrench. It’s been retired to center cap pop off tool only.
I used a torque wrench set at 110 and could barely loosen the nuts that were just put on. Guessing around 150 cause I was way past the click.
The nuts that haven’t been removed in 11,000 miles I had to get the air compressor and 1/2” impact gun out. Even than they didn’t just wizz off with 130psi.
I would suggest either getting AAA membership or check your nuts, ha, before you have to and keep a bigger bar and socket in the back.
Off to the other 2 cause I may have missed some new gray mascara on my right cheek.
cheers!
oh. The book says 81 pnds torque. So I’m going 90. Gonna leave my new center cap popper and torque wrench in the car for a few miles until I’m comfortable with the nuts holding lbs.

 

Good plan.

I think coned lug bolts take a lot of torque because there's just a lot of contact area there. And I have seen a few instances that they worked loose on the passenger's side. FWIW. I sure think 90 or 100 is a good idea.

 

Some cars in the past had left hand threaded wheel nuts on one side of the car to help prevent wheels from coming loose, and the center hub knock offs (for wire wheels on 60's british cars for example) are left hand thread on one side.

 

There just seemed to be at least 1/2 turn left for snug at 81. So I went the extra 1/2 turn.
Yes I know I was calling em “nuts” when they are actually bolts but nuts was funner.