I recently bought a torque wrench - the modern 'click' collar design, 20-150ft lb torque,
and the appropriate size six point sockets for the lugnuts on mine and my wife's cars.
I loosened and re-torqued my wife's wheel lugnuts to spec, or maybe 1lb over, but
what was really scary was how tight they were on, initially. Of course I used her tire
iron, and not my new wrench! to loosen the lugs at each wheel, and for most of them,
I'm 190lbs myself, yet was able to STAND ON THE TIRE IRON and ride it down to loosen
those nuts! I'm guessing whoever last tightened them must have been to 100 or even
200 ft/lbs. WTH?!
The torque spec for her car's wheel lugnuts is 76 ft/lbs, so I set the wrench to about 77,
retorqued each wheel, then moved on to the next one: Loosen, retorque, 5X.
My question: After having been on her car at such overtorque for so long, is there any
risk of some of her lugnuts loosening over time, now that they are all at a much lower
torque: within 1 pound of what they should be tightened to?
I also waited almost two hours after she drove home from work for things to cool down
before loosen & retorque.