[arjab]

In Chennai the best place to take care of your vehicle's wheel alignment, wheel rotation, wheel balancing, nitrogen filling, tubeless tyre repair needs etc is the MRF TYREDOME on Cathedral Road.
Thoroughly professional, modern equipment, on-time performance (no dawdling around), courteous behaviour and extremely reasonable charges.
I would rate it better than OEM service stations. Wish they open such centres in other major Indian cities.
Never had a chance to complain in my using their services for the last 6 odd years & multiple vehicles

[svsantosh]

On that experience, hope you realised how easy is it to Open up the brake drums and 'clean the brake pads, inspect and replace if needed'. Front disks are much easier than the rear drums.

And the A.S.S charges upto a 1000Rs for brake cleaning now!

[spyder_p8]

Originally Posted by qr20de

Hello Everyone,



1. Never EVER tighten a lug nut using a power/pneumatic tool. The threads might not align properly and/or nuts will tighten so hard that you might not be able to unscrew them.


I hope my experience will help members out there and prevent people from fooling them or being careless with their vehicles.

Happy and Safe Driving People!

This is irrelevant advice. Almost everyone including the factories that make cars uses such tools. The very purpose is to avoid such issue. Its purely a rush while fitting back those nuts. Almost all the tyre repair and wheel alignment shop around pune uses pneumatic tools. To err is human. Move on

[qr20de]

Originally Posted by spyder_p8

This is irrelevant advice. Almost everyone including the factories that make cars uses such tools. The very purpose is to avoid such issue. Its purely a rush while fitting back those nuts. Almost all the tyre repair and wheel alignment shop around pune uses pneumatic tools. To err is human. Move on

The very purpose of using such power tools is not to AVOID mis-alignment, it's to tighten the wheels faster. It's the carelessness that causes this mis-alignment.

To err is human, but this is stupidity.

And the thread was not aimed at people who already know the best practice method of tightening wheels, it was only to inform others who would have not faced something like this.

[pramodkumar]

Originally Posted by qr20de

The very purpose of using such power tools is not to AVOID mis-alignment, it's to tighten the wheels faster. It's the carelessness that causes this mis-alignment.

To err is human, but this is stupidity.

And the thread was not aimed at people who already know the best practice method of tightening wheels, it was only to inform others who would have not faced something like this.

Tell you very honestly I feel the guy who chiseled it screwed it up. Pneumatic tools can make them really tight no doubt, but they cant tighten if the thread is misaligned, this is purely based on personal experience. This is a usual practice to blame the previous guy when one guy screws up. I have seen this happen a lot. The best possible way was to spot weld a piece of metal like a lever to the nut and slowly try to undo it. But the stud would have been useless anyways so what you did was inevitable but I am 100% sure its not the pneumatic gun.

Pramod

[qr20de]

Originally Posted by pramodkumar

Tell you very honestly I feel the guy who chiseled it screwed it up. Pneumatic tools can make them really tight no doubt, but they cant tighten if the thread is misaligned, this is purely based on personal experience. This is a usual practice to blame the previous guy when one guy screws up. I have seen this happen a lot. The best possible way was to spot weld a piece of metal like a lever to the nut and slowly try to undo it. But the stud would have been useless anyways so what you did was inevitable but I am 100% sure its not the pneumatic gun.

Pramod

Thanks for your note pramodkumar! The guy chiseled it out, after the tyre centre guy tried breaking the nut for removing the wheel, which is why its looks so deformed!

In my years of experience too in working with these power tools, you rarely feel the mis-alignment or resistance, obviously depending on the power of the tool. And most of the times the nut/bolt gets over-tightened, because most don't have torque settings. One of the nuts was so tightly pushed in, I could hear the creaking when I was loosening the nut. Insane!

I always prefer doing it manually and getting a feel of the tightness.

I never thought of welding a piece of metal onto the nut and making it like a lever! That's brilliant! I think I should keep these pieces in my car.

[Mithrandir]

That was really scary qr20de. You were very lucky that you spotted it before something happened. It seems professionalism is very hard to come by these days. I had a similar experience when I replaced my car battery 6 months ago. My Polo's OEM battery was giving me lots of trouble so I decided to replace it. I ordered an Amaron battery from batterywale.com. They were supposed to send a local Amaron dealer to my house to replace the battery. I was expecting some experienced guy but the dealer sent a teenage kid. He opened the bonnet and even after 5 minutes of struggle couldn't figure out how to detach the old battery from battery bay. I decided to step in with the owner's manual but either he was too overwhelmed by his ordeal or was simply didn't care to see the instructions. Without paying heed to my suggestions, he forcefully pulled a plastic clamp which was holding the battery in place. The clamp broke off. I had half a mind to yell at him but considering his age, decided against it. Though it was just a clamp, it was there for a purpose: to hold the battery in place. Without the clamp, the battery is now held in place with just one bolt at the base and shakes at high speed. Professional service seems to be a thing of the past when people used to love what they do and used to take pride in their work.

[NiInJa]

Before using the pneumatic gun, he should tighten it a little with his own hands, that way he can know if the nut is aligned properly. The threads on that part of the wheel are too deep to not know if the nut is not rotating properly. Don't know how he missed it.

Also, do keep a can of WD-40 in the car. Every time you remove the wheel, Spray it on the lug nuts and threads to remove any crud that accumulates over time.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by qr20de

I never thought of welding a piece of metal onto the nut and making it like a lever! That's brilliant! I think I should keep these pieces in my car.

Easier to have a length of steel pipe to put over the handle of your wheel wrench as an extender. But do not use this for tightening the nuts. only for loosening them.

The last time I needed to change a wheel, I could not. The nuts were far too tight. Not only me: the hole-in-the-wall puncher guy could not shift them either. Best he could do was fill it with air to get me to the tyre shop with the pneumatic tool.

And this was a factory-fitted wheel. It is a good thing I was not far away from home.

[qr20de]

Originally Posted by Mithrandir

Without the clamp, the battery is now held in place with just one bolt at the base and shakes at high speed. Professional service seems to be a thing of the past when people used to love what they do and used to take pride in their work.

@mithrandir: oh man! That sucks dude. You should really get this fixed asap. You wouldn't want that battery to jump about in case you hit a big pot hole. I just don't think people care about learning these things properly. It's become more of 'do it as fast as you can and get the money'

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Before using the pneumatic gun, he should tighten it a little with his own hands, that way he can know if the nut is aligned properly. The threads on that part of the wheel are too deep to not know if the nut is not rotating properly. Don't know how he missed it.

Also, do keep a can of WD-40 in the car. Every time you remove the wheel, Spray it on the lug nuts and threads to remove any crud that accumulates over time.

@niinja: Thanks so much man! My 'car' bag has some rags, fluids and spare bulbs. I'll definitely add the WD40 to that.

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Easier to have a length of steel pipe to put over the handle of your wheel wrench as an extender. But do not use this for tightening the nuts. only for loosening them.

The last time I needed to change a wheel, I could not. The nuts were far too tight. Not only me: the hole-in-the-wall puncher guy could not shift them either. Best he could do was fill it with air to get me to the tyre shop with the pneumatic tool.

And this was a factory-fitted wheel. It is a good thing I was not far away from home.

@ginathom: I can't believe factory tyres come fitted that way. Although you think they could have also tightened up because of weathering i.e. dust, water, stones? Over time I have found some of the lug nuts in my car to be quite stubborn in coming loose too.

[vinit.merchant]

My experience on similar lines, almost 8 years back.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...er-issues.html

In my case, it was not the nut, but the bolt that got stuck.

[gthang]

Ideally, pneumatic ratchet should be used only for wheel nut removal. It can be used to torque, but only after threading by hand. The time saved by threading the nut with a ratchet is minimal and should be avoided.

More often than not, issues with wheel nut removal is not due to individual nut being tight or stuck, but rather due to uneven torquing across the wheel face by not tightening and/or removing in a diagonal pattern.

I have seen many people tighten/loosen in a circular or random pattern struggling. Next time you have problems with a nut, check the opposite side. Will save you a lot of grief.

Cheers.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by qr20de

@ginathom: I can't believe factory tyres come fitted that way. Although you think they could have also tightened up because of weathering i.e. dust, water, stones? Over time I have found some of the lug nuts in my car to be quite stubborn in coming loose too.

It might have been three years since buying the car. Yes, I could be wrong about "Factory." More likely to be be dealer, rotating tyres at service. Thanks.

But the pneumatic tools have torque control, don't they? My impression is that they tighten to the required setting, and then slip. Without that, I'd guess they could break the operator's wrist, let alone damage the nut! So, power tool with proper setting should result in the right torque on every nut on every wheel every time: no room for human error. With proper setting.

The OP's original guys using the power tool to start the nut is unforgivable. I suppose they would say it mostly works for them --- just as the OP had only problem in 16 nuts. But the problem when it happens, is too bad to risk. All for a few seconds.

I was working with a couple of guys recently (by profession, actually a builder and an auto driver), taking apart a pump (we had to replace the stuff in the stuffing gland) and I noticed an obsession with making things tight. When you are screwing into a cast block that is definitely softer and more fragile than the steel bolt, this is not a good idea.

(by the way... i taught them how to fasten a stud by putting two nuts locked against each other on the end of it )

[RGK]

Originally Posted by gthang

Ideally, pneumatic ratchet should be used only for wheel nut removal. It can be used to torque, but only after threading by hand.

More often than not, issues with wheel nut removal is not due to individual nut being tight or stuck, but rather due to uneven torquing across the wheel face by not tightening and/or removing in a diagonal pattern.
Cheers.

Yes very true.

I faced the same issue two years back, but that was done by the ford service center. Unfortunately, I did not notice at that time and faced this problem when I went for the wheel rotation.

I raised the issue with Ford and got the bolt replaced free of cost. I never allow anyone to tighten the wheel nuts in my car and do it myself with the OEM wheel spanner.

NB: It is always better to check the nuts (remove and refit manually) once in 6 months with the available wheel spanner in the vehicle.

[nikhilarni]

Originally Posted by qr20de

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to share a terrible experience that I had last week with careless and dishonest mechanics and tyre centres.


One of the lug nuts had jammed on the bolt. It turns out the retards at the previous rotation centre mis-aligned the threads on the nut and the bolt but still tightened the wheel. They couldn't realise that something was wrong because they used the pneumatic gun! And this carelessness would cause so much frustration.

Hi,

Thanks for sharing this experience.

I had a similar incident when I went in for a Wheel Alignment and Balancing at a Bridgestone outlet in Baner, Pune. I did not realise the the nut was incorrectly put in until I had a puncture on that same tyre and the puncture guy could not remove the tyre.

Fortunately, there is a HASS nearby who helped me remove the faulty nut and gave me a free replacement.

Since then, I have been extra careful with mechanics bolting the nuts back on my car tyres.

I feel its due to either sheer carelessness or lack of training to handle power tools.