Over tightened wheel nut found ?

[robinessex]

Call from step daughter, slow puncture on her car. Wheel off, down to repair tyre shop. Pop wheel back on, and that 'feeling' you get when it's obvious that one nut isn't tightening down 'hard'. Sure enough, a bit more oomph on the wheel brace, and it snaps off. In 50yrs of taking off, putting on wheels, I've never yet broken a stud off through over tightening. In fact my wheel brace isn't long enough to get enough torque on to break one. So I suspect that when the cars been in for a service, some tt has tightened the wheel nuts up with an impact wrench. Can't see how else enough torque would be generated unless you used a stupidly long breaker bar. Anyway, the car is now booked into dealer to have it fixed. I suggested that all 5 studs on that wheel are changed just to be safe. Take you car in to be serviced regularly to keep it safe eh?

[robinessex]

xjay1337 said:

Did you tighten it up with a torque wrench?
Just because you have 50 years of experience does not mean you are not able to make a mistake.
While it's possible previous over tightening caused the stud to weaken in my experience they are either OK or snap, there's no half baked limbo state of weakness..

I tightened ALL the nuts with the same breaker bar. It's the one off my car, had it years, never had a problem using it. It's only 12" long, impossible to overtighten with it. 4 of the nuts tightened up perfectly, one wouldn't go 'tight'. The first clue that it's about to break. Then it snapped. I knew it would.