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?

 

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

 

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

 

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.