Family-centric comments and suggestions on everything related to family cars.

Suitable for beginners and experienced off-road vehicles, as well as camping trailers, caravans and motorhomes

Utes, commercial vehicles and traction testing

We can easily compare design, practicality, value, etc.

Buy second-hand? Here are the things to be aware of and buy wise products

Our experts select top models

What is happening in the automotive world

Learn about the personality behind the team every week

The star of the latest big event

The most interesting hints of what is about to happen

What was recalled and why. Are you affected?

The latest and future automotive technologies from all over the world

We are here to help you solve any car problems

Looking for tips on how to carry or travel with your family?

How to, off-road tips and adventure travel destinations

Not just utes. To provide you with detailed advice-technicians-on which car is suitable for you and your job

Looking for answers? Our automotive experts are here to help you

If you want to know, we may already have the answer

Not sure about the maximum towing capacity of your car? We have listed all relevant models here.

Want to know how much air to put in the tire? Our database has answers

Everything you need to know to make sure you and your family are as safe as possible

Helpful advice before you finance your next car

Tips on getting the right insurance and how to file a claim

Everything you need to know when adjusting the size of a new car

Having to replace a flat tire on the side of a busy road is something that all motorists would rather avoid. If you know what you are doing and everything is in order, it should not take more than half an hour to install the spare tire and you are ready to go. 

However, in this case, if you use the standard wheel bracket that comes with the car to loosen the car's wheel nuts and find that the nuts are too tight to move them, how would you feel? It’s too tight, even if you put your feet on the wheel bracket and stand on it with all your weight, can’t you loose them? Anecdotal evidence suggests that this situation is not uncommon.

Needless to say, over-tightened wheel nuts can make simple wheel replacement a nightmare. Therefore, to ensure that you do not encounter this situation-and avoid potential mechanical damage that you may not know about-here are some handy tips.

This is usually attributed to the powerful pneumatic or battery-powered impact guns used by machine shops and tire retailers, inadvertently applying excessive torque through the hammering effect when tightening the wheel nuts after vehicle repairs or installing new tires. 

Torque is the torsional force applied when the wheel nut is tightened. The amount of torque is in Newton meters or Newton meters, specified by the car manufacturer, and can usually be found in the user manual. 

Every new car that rolls off the assembly line has its wheel nuts "tightened" to the correct Nm setting. However, if these factory settings are not maintained during ownership, the wheel nuts may become too loose or too tight.

Too loose wheel nuts will cause the wheel to start shaking when rotating, causing noise and vibration. These noises and vibrations are easy to detect and are usually solved by stopping and tightening them. However, if they are tightened too much, it can cause more headaches than just being stuck on the side of the road.

This can cause the threads on the wheel nuts and wheel studs to peel off and the studs to stretch, which can weaken them and easily break and eventually fail. This stretching can also cause the wheel nuts to loosen.

Disc brake rotors and brake drums may be deformed, causing the steering wheel to shake and tremble during braking, which may have a chain reaction and damage other related parts.

Alloy wheels made of materials softer than steel may also be damaged together with aluminum decorative caps mounted on steel wheel nuts to improve their appearance. If the nuts are too tight, these caps can easily deform when they are loosened forcefully and eventually rotated on the nuts. 

The only solution is to remove the dressing cap with a chisel to contact the wheel nut. This will not only damage the dressing cap, but also increase the risk of damage to the alloy wheel when doing so. 

A free (if not completely accurate) way to check the tightness of the wheel nut is to use the wheel bracket provided with the car kit. 

Car manufacturers design these tools to provide sufficient leverage—and therefore the required torque—to tighten the wheel nuts to the recommended settings. Therefore, if you can use the wheel bracket to loosen and tighten the wheel nuts of a car, you can be reasonably sure that the wheel nuts have been tightened to or near the correct torque. This also means that if you have to change wheels in our roadside scene, you will be able to loosen them.

However, if you want more precision, the best tool is a torque wrench. These can be purchased from auto parts suppliers and hardware stores, and the basic version starts at about $50, which is sufficient for this purpose.

The torque wrench allows you to select the desired torque setting, and when the wheel nuts are tightened, it will tell you (usually with a clicking sound) when the setting is reached. Using this technique, four sets of wheel nuts can be easily checked in a minute or two.

This is a good habit to develop, especially after the wheels of your car have been removed and reinstalled. Sand particles may be trapped between the wheel nuts and the surface they "sit on" on the wheel, and may produce erroneous torque readings that do not represent the actual clamping force. 

Therefore, after checking the wheel nut torque settings after reinstalling the wheels, it is important to check them again with a torque wrench after the nuts are fixed for about 50 km to make sure they are still correct.

Ordinary car owners rarely check their wheel nuts, which is remarkable considering the key role they play in driving safety. After all, if the tires are the only thing between your car and the road, then the wheel nuts are the only thing that keeps them there. 

Therefore, it is wise to check the wheel nut torque settings as part of your daily maintenance work, especially after your car wheels have been removed and reinstalled with an impact gun to ensure that they are not over-tightened.