How easily can a wheel and / or a wheel hub and bolts get damaged by loosened nuts?

[inquirer]

First time I used a battery powered impact wrench to remove a wheel during a brake job. I just hold my finger on the ON / OFF switch a very short time for each nut, but I didn't realize that the nuts became too lose and when I loosened the last one the wheel sat on a small angle on the hub.

I then proceeded lifting the car and I removed all the nuts and the wheel.

I don't think I can visibly see any damage, maybe a few cosmetic scratches in 2 holes of the rim, which I'm not sure if they are new or not...

Anyway I have to ask: Can loosening all the nuts on the ground damage anything to a point a repair is required?

 

[thastinger]

Not the ideal way to do it, which you now know that you should have had the wheel off the ground. If you're beside the road changing a tire and without an impact, you can just break the nuts loose a 1/4 turn each, then raise the wheel and remove them.

You should be fine though, hard to imagine doing any real damage just doing that one time.

 

[inquirer]

Obviously not the correct way to do it. It was done by a mistake, because I underestimated how much I had loosen the nuts with the impact wrench.
By the way, I bought an impact wrench because from time to time I got 1-2 nuts stuck that required a lot of effort to take them off.

 

[joekingcorvette]

I use a huge breaker bar and then it doesn't require much effort at all. If anything has been over tightened you can stand or jump on the bar however that hasn't happened in a long time. I always check the lug nuts after I get mine vehicles back from Discount Tire to make sure they are not loose. So far I have not had any problems. Another tip: Use that huge breaker bar to lift the tire from underneath and line it up with the lug nuts. It really saves you from back pain.

 

[inquirer]

@joekingcorvette

Thanks for the tips. I own a telescopic wrench and even with that some nuts are hard to remove. I don't know if this happens because of overtightening by garage shops or because of the heat cycles the bolts and the nuts have to endure. (I often drive on mountain roads and I overheat my brakes... Recently one bolt broke in its nut because of heat damage. The inside of the bolt had a bluish color which I think means overheating.)

 

[someonesomewhere]

I use a huge breaker bar and then it doesn't require much effort at all. If anything has been over tightened you can stand or jump on the bar however that hasn't happened in a long time. I always check the lug nuts after I get mine vehicles back from Discount Tire to make sure they are not loose. So far I have not had any problems. Another tip: Use that huge breaker bar to lift the tire from underneath and line it up with the lug nuts. It really saves you from back pain.

This. I have replaced my standard 4-way with a 2 foot 1/2" breaker bar (DT cross threaded 2/4 lugs on our Accent, glad I discovered this in the driveway! Literally had to break them to get the wheel off) and a set of those flip-side lug impact sockets in a case. I use a proper torque wrench to tighten, always.

Breaker bar makes it silly easy to break them loose prior to lifting. Less awkward than a 4-way, imo. And comes in handy doing other things, like axle nuts and suspension components. Sometimes it's too much, so I also have an 18" in 1/2 and a 12" in 3/8 drive for better access in tighter areas. Covers pretty much everything and they're pretty cheap on Amazon. Probably less than $40 for all 3 bars. Neiko (I think), and Tekton brands, made in Taiwan.

@inquirer since you didn't move the car, you should be good. Just...you know. Lesson learned!

 

[Astro14]

You’ve got an impact. Lift the car. Take off the nuts.

You don’t need the wheel on the ground any more.

Unless you see obvious deformation in the wheel nut seats, or the hub of the wheel, it’s fine.

 

[inquirer]

@someonesomewhere
Yeah, obviously. I didn't make the same mistake when I removed the second wheel.
By the way, the nuts are short and the wrench slips out easily when using too much force when trying to loosen a very tight nut. An impact wrench has no slippage issues.

@Astro14
No, I don't think that there is any visible deformation. I also feel no vibrations and I drove the car up to 80 mph.
I may take the wheel off again for a second inspection just for peace of mind.

When you say wheel nut seats you mean the place they seat in the holes of the rim? I had the holes of one rim slightly but visibly deformed in a garage shop by a young mechanic who tightened the nuts without centering the wheel right. I never had any balancing issues with that wheel though.

 

[barryh]

I always partially jack the car up but with the some weight still on the wheel to prevent the wheel turning, then I slacken each nut half a turn before jacking the wheel clear of the ground. Same in reverse on the way down.

I can see that if I had an impact wrench there might be no need for the intermediate step.

 

[inquirer]

Just for the record, I took off the wheel again for a second thorough inspection.
I carefully checked the nuts, the bolts, the wheel hub and the center bore of the rim without being able to spot anything unusual. The only think I can see is some superficial scratches on the walls of 2 of the lug holes of the rim.