mclasser

I had some free time today so I decided to conduct my periodic steering/suspension check on the I35. When I went to remove the wheels, the lug nuts were a royal PITA to unbolt. I had new tires put on not too long ago and those tire jockeys probably torqued the nuts to 200 ft/lbs or something. After much cursing, I was able to get them all off. When putting them back on, one nut in particular gave me great grief. When I went to finger tighten it, it wouldn't thread easily and gave a lot of resistance. I torqued it and all the lug nuts down to 80 ft/lbs and by visual inspection, the nut in question seems flush with the other nuts and is nice-and-tight. But the next time I go to remove the wheel, I fear that nut won't come out or will break the stud it's on. Should I just worry about this later?

DjHackStyle

Worry about it later IMO but u should have used antiseize on all lug studs. I do it to all my cars never had a broken stud or hard to remove nuts

ShocknAwe

iTrader: (3)

Likely just got some dirt in the threads or something. Clean them off really good next time

Chris Gregg

iTrader: (59)

Don't worry about it now. But, do have a new stud and lugnut in hand for when you pull the tires off next. Although, I've read this is a typical issue (not suggesting rampant, but there have been mention of it over the years) for the 5/5.5 gens. I've never broken a stud in my life until my 2003 and I've broken 5 between both fronts. Only solution I found was to replace every single stud with new oem ones, not expensive and definatley cheaper than having to also replace the lugnuts. I also added anti seize after replacing. No further issues.

How much of this could had been something a shop did in over tightening? Perhaps. But in my experience, the newer studs just seem significantly more brittle than on my 3rd gen.