Blog

NEW TYRES FITTED OR WHEELS ROTATED

In the picture above is a car wheel with tyre which is fitted to a car.

VERY IMPORTANT: When you are having new tyres fitted or wheels rotated, there are two tools attached to the wheel nuts which hold the wheel in place.

The short fat one at ground level is an air powered wrench. They save an enormous amount of time and effort when the wheel nuts need to be removed.

The air or powered wrench should never ever be used to tighten the wheel nuts!!!

The long hand torque wrench is the only tool we at Gil Auto ever use when putting wheels back on to vehicles.

Please observe within the magnified circle is a gauge.  Before tightening the wheel nuts to the car we check the manufacturer’s specifications and preset the gauge to the appropriate pressure. The way the torque wrench works is to apply pressure to the nut until the preset Newton/meter is achieved, at that pressure it slips preventing over tightening.   

Cars today are highly engineered both mechanically and electronically. The force with which each nut is tightened on to a bolt is specified by the manufacturers. This is measured in Newton meters.

The wheel bolts are made of harder metal than the wheel nuts. Over tightening the wheel nuts distorts their thread. The aftermath of this is that the nuts become deformed, and the next time the wheel is removed they will no longer fit the bolt.

Any attempt to reattach the distorted nut will now damage the wheel bolt. This damaged nut is fixable when the car is in a workshop for services or repair.  It will need a new set of wheel nuts to be fitted to each wheel. What a waste of time and money.

However, should you need change a wheel while out on the road this is a very different story. A normal wheel spanner as supplied by the car manufacturer will not budge the over tightened nut. Roadside assistants will able to remove the over tightened with their power wrenches. Whether they will have spare nuts is another question.

Before leaving your vehicle at a tyre shop for new tyres, ASK this question!

When refitting the wheels back onto my car can you assure me that you will be using a manual torque wrench and not an air or power wrench?

Gil Auto do not sell tyres.
Should you wish to know who does phone us 0419308199