Appreciation post: I was wrong about using a torque stick for lug nuts on my personal truck

My buddy in Phoenix convinced me to just use a torque wrench, and after checking, I found the stick had been under-torquing them by about 15 foot-pounds for months. Anyone else have a go-to method they swear by for this?

2 comments

2 Comments

riley_garcia12d ago

Man, that's scary to think about. I had the same thing happen with a cheap click-type torque wrench from a parts store. It felt fine but was way off when I checked it against a digital one. What kind of torque wrench did your buddy have you use? I mean, I just do the final tighten with a good beam-style wrench now. It's old school and you gotta see the dial right, but I trust it more.

rivera.keith12d ago

Yeah, torque sticks always seemed a little too good to be true. After a scare like that, I just went and bought a decent digital torque wrench. It beeps and vibrates, so you can't mess it up even if you're not looking right at it. @riley_garcia has a point about beam wrenches being trustworthy, but I like the idiot-proof setup.