Torque Specs for wheel lugs
 

What are the torque specs for the wheel lugs? Is is 96 ft/lbs?

2007 Boxster S w/18" wheels.

Thanks.

You are correct.

Not to be picky, but torque is measured in lb/ft. Work is in ft/lbs.

I know, Everybody says it. Just the engineer in me trying to get back out. :)

Actually, it's ft-lb :cheers:

Ft/lb is to measure energy. Lb/ft is to measure Torque.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound-foot_(torque)?wasRedirected=true

Jesus H. Who let the engineers in?

Set your torque wrench to 96 whatever-the-eff's and you're good to go. :D

Well technically you are measuring the resistance to turning of the bolt and not the tightness of the bolt or the force of the bolt on the wheel. If you want to get really anal then is 96 lb/ft dry, lightly oiled or if you use anti seize how much do you have to change the setting to compensate.

I have seen systems that are used on wind turbines that address these issues. They have a special washer that squirts out blue goo when it is the correct torque. They are very acurate and make tightening bolts a simple process. Too bad they don't have them for lugs.

By the way I torqued my lugs to 95 ft/lbs (that is what it says on my torque wrench) today.

Damn engineers!
Torque is measured in ft-lbs... not ft per lbs (ft/lbs), I'm not sure what is a measurement of?. Or torque is in-lbs and N-m

Ref: Marks' Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, Ninth Edition, McGraw-Hill Book Company. I can also reference American Machinists' Handbook - Seventh Edition (my grandfather's!) McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1940.

Thanks all. 96 xx/xx it is.

Just don't set it to 96 Nm :D

You guys should have let Jimmy Carter get the Metric system in the US. Soo much easier.

Theres a revised spec for the wheel bolts, something above 100 ft-lbs. I dont know if that spec was retroactive to all models.

Also, the threads are lubricated but the sherical cap is not.

All interesting but when was the last time you calibrated your torque wrench? :rolleyes:

I check my click wrenches against my beam wrench all the time.

When I started using a torque wrench for this, I was ashamed how far I was over torquing. Made the car feel or ride different I swear.

About a year ago. Why do you ask?

http://www.members.shaw.ca/mtharris/...20wrenches.jpg

Having said that, I now use a torque stick on my MG725. I checked it with the torque wrench the first few times but it was always so close I stopped checking.

I used to have mine checked yearly because I used them so much. I'm surprised how off they can get. I actually wore a torque wrench to the point it was no longer able to be calibrated.

For wheels I just told the techs to buy a cheap harbor freights and compared the torque value with a known good one every once in a while. No need to wear out a expensive torque wrench on lug nuts.

Fitting wheels
 

Hello I live in the UK. I have never in my life used a torque wrench on the wheels of any of my cars. I am now just on 66. The car I have now is a Boxster S 2002. The first thing I do when I buy a new car is take all the wheels off so I can copper grease the threads, then use a spider to tighten. This has been my procedure for all those years.

Say hello to warped rotors. Have you always had drum brakes?

So this ties in nicely to my thread on cleaning up the lug nuts. Would the YouTube specs be the same on my 99 with 17" wheels, with putting anti-seize on the threads?

It's funny you mention that. Anytime work is done on a car where the wheels are off, I remove and re-torque the wheels. very rarely are they torqued correctly and majority of the times they are over torqued. Sometimes my snap-on impact has issues removing them. At that point I make sure to contact the shop where I had the tires put on!!!

:troll:

On one of the Toyotas I work on, the torque rating is like 65 for the lugs. OMG it feels like they are finger tight compared to Porsche's wheel torque. But I never have issues it at that rating.

Older thread, but check out what they say on the torque when using anti-seize on stock lug bolts.

Proper torque for wheel lugs - Rennlist Discussion Forums

Warped rotors?
 

Hello Warped rotors. I have had drum brakes on the rears on some early cars but not for a while now. I have had no trouble with warped rotors (Disc's UK) using my tightening method with a spider.

My brother brought his car to me last Sunday to change his front rotors and brake pads as his rotors were warped. He had new tires put on recently. When I went to take the lug bolts off one on each side was on so tight it took me standing on the lug wrench to get them off.

Very common even at dealership level we would run into the same issues. I had to write techs up that did not torque wheels to get the point across, and even then the techs would slam the lugs hard and follow up with a torque wrench. Why even bother that point. But some actually think using a torque wrench is to make sure the lug nuts are tight! :confused: Its funny how something so simple cannot conveyed to some people.

The real thing is....
The definition of torque is about having two equal and opposite forces that will cause a system to rotate.... the calculation of torque is the answer of a multiplication...which is the product of the pounds amount and the length of leverage...

but...people are not wrong to say lbs/ ft also , because you can say it in the opposite form, which would be : i will apply "x" lbs PER feet of leverage length. This is where all the confusion comes from.

To conclude...i would say that the exact specific torque value...with or without lube...is a kind of mental masturbation... these bolts have major safety factors so there is no way that any yield strenght would be reached for the difference that oil/grease or whatever else lube would do if you stay in a logical range of torque values...Just make sure you reach that value in an uniform, smooth and constant movement. The main objective is to torque them as less as possible, but as long as they will never come loose on their own.

Probably not the best thing....but
 

I have a 19V Craftsmen Impact driver rated at 135 ft lbs , considering how over rated everything usually is I figure it is probably closer to 110 ft lb ...it is whet I use to remove tires and put them back on. Like some when I purchased a new set of tires last year I took the car home and had to stand on a breaker bar to get the lugs off as soon as I got home and then I put them right back on with the Battery Impact Driver.

Next time I buy tires I am taking the wheels in myself off the car.

But wait---
 

The tire dealer won't be able to try and sell you a four wheel computer alignment, if you just bring in the wheels without the car!

I felt the same way. I feel like I was probably applying double the torque required

I always loosen and re-torque my lug nuts after a trip to the tire store. I took my wrench with me a couple of times and got the strangest looks.

I used to buy tires for my daily drivers at Costco, and the one I went to used a torque wrench to do the final tightening of the lug nuts.

My torque wrench does not have ft/lbs on it, it has newton-meters. So I need to set my torque wrench to 130 nm to get 96 ft/lbs, correct?

https://www.metric-conversions.org/energy-and-power/foot-pounds-to-newton-meters.htm

I attended a recent porche tech inspection training offered by PCA; they stated new specs from Porche is 100 ft/lbs old manuals state 96 ft/lbs.

So then I would want to set my torque wrench to 135.5 nm?

Google is great for unit conversion. If you Google "nm to ft lbs converter" you get several sites that have you enter one number and it will convert it to the other unit.

This is the accuracy you need with each lug nut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89LmNvN7jTc

Yes, that's why I included the conversion link in my post. I just want to make sure I'm doing the conversion correctly.

https://www.metric-conversions.org/energy-and-power/foot-pounds-to-newton-meters.htm

Somewhere between loose and stripped.

It's a German car, so best imho to get used to torque figures in nm (newton-meters).

130 nm

I've lots more Mercedes experience than Porsche experience, and Mercedes and BMW and many others forbid using lubricant (antiseize is lubricant) on wheel bolts. Porsche specification confuses me in this regard.

Awesome, 130 nm it is. Thanks!