I browsed through the Haynes manual and it gave me a rather broad spec, something like 74-88. So I went ahead and torqued my lugs to 82. What's the OEM spec?

 

72-87 ft-lb......

 

that is what the manual says, but I torque mine at 85. No particular reason why.

 

its really 75 with a tq stick, but I usually hand tq them to 85.

 

Huh? What do you mean its really 75 with a torque stick?

And yes always use a torque wrench to tighten down the lugs.

 

i never torqued down my lugs, but since I got a tq wrench, why not?

I tighten them to 85ft-lbs.

 

You think dealers/shops actually use the 1/2 air gun to tighten lugs? Well some do but that can end up being 150+ TQ. They have torque sticks they are colored and torque different so that you can use for your car without over torque them.

http://www.torquestick.com/
http://www.annco.com/products/Torque.cfm

 

I'm aware of that, I used them at wal-mart when I worked there. The torque sticks are accurate to about ~5 lbs. My question was why would it be 75 with a torque stick. I used 80 ft lb torque sticks on my car when it was in the shop and it was fine. Of course it is important to go back over it with a torquen wrench when finished.

 

Then why use the torque sticks in the first place? So you could save yourself 3 minutes?

 

yes my blue Snap-ON torque stick is 80 ft lbs....and it does torque to 80ft lbs i have check it with a torque wrench

 

So the air gun doesn't over tighten, and/or snap off a stud.