NTB, Beaumont: tire service

I have been a A.S.E. certified technician since 1970 and from all those years I can certainly tell you that most whell studs are broken on removal not installation. Why do they break when being removed because they were imporperly installed the last time! So to blaim the shop / tire tech removing them is totally unfair. Just because they were removing them with a air gun does not make it their fault. Most large tire shops today us airtools for removal and a few use them for installation, but if you watch closely many of those using the guns for installation have a extension on the gun, this extension looks a little like any socket extension except it has a line down it and is called a torque stick. There are several different versions of this and they are designed to have to line show a twist when they reach a certain torque (tightnes). The tech just runs the gun and watches the line when he sees it twist the nut is the proper torque. The other way is to run the nut on with the gun and actually tighten it with a torque wrench. When these install procedures are followed the shop removing the nuts will have not problem taking the nuts off. Nor will the customer try to blaim the technician who used a gun to remove the nuts for breaking the studs.

Impact wrenches are not to blame in this instance. If auto repair shops still used hand tools to get lugnuts off or any nuts or bolts for that matter, the days of waiting there while your work was done would be over. I am a former technician for NTB. The fault lies with the user of the tool. These things do happen sometimes. You as the consumer has to allow the party at fault to correct the mistake, but it will take time. Also there are certain types of vehicles that only hand tools should be used on. Any mechanic should know which vehicles these are. Just wanted to let the consumer know how important these air tools are in auto repair(esp. impact wrenches), just like anything else you must be carefull!