Below are pictures of lug nuts from my cars. The top one is from my Focus, which was mostly dealer serviced or in some other shops. Looking at the picture we can all guess what these shops used to torque the lug nuts
The bottom one is from my wife's Mazda 3 which only had a handful of services where someone else, other than me would remove the wheels.
The difference is pretty clear which lug nuts are in good shape and which ones aren't and will need to be changed soon. The good news is that only few of the lug nuts from the Focus look like this, the other ones are OK, which doesn't exactly give me a warm and fuzzy feeling that these lugs were torqued evenly in the past.
I guess I'm posting this to give others, that use tire change or oil change places for regular tire rotations, to watch out how the lug nuts are torqued. Over time it does make a difference, as a lug nut without a proper taper will not provide adequate clamping load to the wheel.
The bottom one is from my wife's Mazda 3 which only had a handful of services where someone else, other than me would remove the wheels.
The difference is pretty clear which lug nuts are in good shape and which ones aren't and will need to be changed soon. The good news is that only few of the lug nuts from the Focus look like this, the other ones are OK, which doesn't exactly give me a warm and fuzzy feeling that these lugs were torqued evenly in the past.
I guess I'm posting this to give others, that use tire change or oil change places for regular tire rotations, to watch out how the lug nuts are torqued. Over time it does make a difference, as a lug nut without a proper taper will not provide adequate clamping load to the wheel.
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