Tires and Steering Issues on 2001 Ford Taurus

I own a 2001 Taurus SES. I just returned from Meineke for an oil change and tire rotation. Before having this done, my car drove smoothly in terms of steering and alignment. Since having the tires rotated, I noticed on my way home that the steering wheel pulsates and pulls hard to the right.

I thought it might mean that the tires need to be rebalanced, but according to the receipt, they did check the balance of the tires.

Any thoughts??

You could have a separated belt (ie: bulge) on one of the tires that's now on the front of the car. Balancing the wheels/tires won't necessarily account for this.

If they rotate the tires again for troubleshooting and the problem is there, this could be an issue where you now have a warped brake rotor due to the wheel lugnuts not being torqued properly. This usually wouldn't lead to a pull though.

-Rod

Thanks for the reply shorod.

It shouldn't have anything to do with the rotors, b/c I put brand new rotors on about a month ago. I will check the improper torque with the lug nuts.

Do you think I should put the tires back how they were? I have been told that tires should be rotated every 12,000 miles and it has been around that since the last tire rotation.

You could also hve a bent wheel.

Not as noticeable on the rear.

Mike
:smokin:

Thanks for the reply shorod.

It shouldn't have anything to do with the rotors, b/c I put brand new rotors on about a month ago. I will check the improper torque with the lug nuts.

Do you think I should put the tires back how they were? I have been told that tires should be rotated every 12,000 miles and it has been around that since the last tire rotation.

If the wheels were installed with an impact wrench and over-tightened unevenly, it could warp the rotors, even though they are brand new.

Yes, it is a good idea to properly rotate tires periodically. However, part of properly rotating them is to properly torque them as well. To determine if it's an issue with the tire, I'd suggest putting them back the way they were temporarily and see if the shake and pull is better. If so, you'll want to have your tires/wheels inspected to make sure they don't have a safety issue such as a separated belt and that a wheel isn't bent (like mwt47 suggested). If the shake and pull isn't better, then you may have a warped rotor due to improperly torqued lugnuts.

-Rod

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

I took my car to BigO Tires yesterday to look at it. They said one of the front tires had a belt that had broken w/ 2/32 of tread left and the other front tire was hopping (not sure what that means). I went ahead bought two new tires to replace them.

One last question though. How can someone determine if they have properly torqued the lugnuts when tightening?

What I do is run the lugnuts snug with a cordless impact, using the star pattern (on 5-lug wheels). Then I lower the car so the weight is on the tires, set the parking brake (so as not to torque against the park prawl in the transmission) and use a torque wrench, again in the star pattern, to properly torque all the lugnuts to 95 lb-ft.

Keep in mind that using the clicker type torque wrench, you cannot technically re-check torque by letting it click a second time, or going around the lugnuts again. The only proper way to re-check would be to loosen the lugnuts and torque them again. Of course, there are all sorts of other factors that come in to play too for proper torquing, such as thread lubricant, if extensions are used on the socket, etc. Just wanted to mention this before someone decided to argue about it.

-Rod

Rod,
Would you explain why you can not recheck the torque or go around the lug nuts a second time with a torque wrench? I seem to recall every once in a while torqueing the nuts and finding at least the first one needing to be torqued again. If it were just one nut torqueing down on metal by itself sure, your absolutely right. In fact, to re-torque a nut/bolt you will almost always have to torque it to a higher torque in order to overcome the frictional forces of the nut/bolt to even turn it. But for the rim to be propery torqued as a unit, it has to be fully and properly seated, thus the star pattern at increasing torques. But sometime I have found when you torque all the nuts and go back to the first, it is no longer holding the rim solo at the highest, correct torque, as it was when it was first torqued, and consequently may not be holding down on the rim with as much force as it was before. Nut torques are based on the necessary torque to create force/pressure to keep the rim from slipping on the hub assembly. It also is to keep studs and bolts and nuts from being overloaded. With this change in force between the nut and rim, the frictional force between them has decreased (which is the force that resists the nut from coming off and is the same amount of force at the nut to turn the nut. By the way, on a typical lug nut on a 1/2" stud, a 100 ft-lb torque translates to 3200 lbs of force to turn the nut at the rim to overcome 3200lbs of frictional force. Pretty amazing.) So, because of this decrease, it needs to be re-torqued. What do you think?

See, I knew I had to add the "technically" word as well as the "lubricant" caveat. I don't argue that sometimes the lugs don't tighten completely the first time. However, if they are and you go around them a second time with the clicker style torque wrench, if it clicks again, you've exceeded your torque. Of course, probably not enough that it would ever matter, and most likely still less than if you were to just use a impact wrench to over-tighten the lugnuts. However, you've still TECHNICALLY over-torqued the lugs.

See, I tried to post to post the technical side to avoid an "argument" and yet it didn't work. ;)

My background's in electrical engineering (ie: a "sparky"), but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.... Most of the work I do is with #2 and #4 screws and the mechanical engineers on my team have warned about "checking" the torque of them. Sounds like you might be one of them ME's from my team.

-Rod

So, I guess I need your ME coworkers to do the explaining why using a clicker twice on a fastener would result in overtorquing? I would love to hear a good explaination, as you probably sense my lack of understanding/belief. What school did they go to? That might have something to do with it. I'm kidding. Sorry for getting carried away with my previous discussion. I was trying to explain myself thoroughly rather than make short unexplained statements that wouldn't hold water. Again, if you could explain why, that would help me better. I might even learn something from a EE about mechanical stuff. (I already have from you) Fwiw, when I have used my clicker twice on a properly seated fastener, I don't see it move. #2 and#4 screws are REALLY small, no wonder they warned you to be careful, yep, just a babies breath could snap them or sqwash what they're holding, which sounds like a cb maybe? Sounds like electronics work you do. I need to be careful with 1/4" and 5/16" fasteners, I snap them like sticks real easy. Good talking.

Yeah, my co-workers could certainly do a better job of explaining the logic than I could. It's not a CB that we work on, it's a small communication system for a missile product that the taxpayer pays over $300k each for, so we're very careful with the assembly of the system.

My understanding of the issue is that in order to get the wrench to click a second time, you need to overcome the torque of the original torquing. So your suggestion of stepping up the torque, like when torquing head bolts, is a very practical one. Yeah, the "overcoming the torque" most likely has a much larger effect on a screw torqued to 2 in-lb than one torqued to 95 ft-lb.

When people watch me torque their lugnuts, which admittedly I sometimes go over a second time to make sure I didn't miss one, they sometimes inquire about if they should use one. When they ask how much to spend on one and how often to get it calibrate, my typical response is, "I don't think the quality and accuracy of the wrench is that so important, I think it's more important to get the lugnuts torqued evenly." Obviously I can't maintain that same line of thinking when working with the product I get paid to work on.

-Rod

Hmm, that's all very interesting. I really don't know or understand what reason your coworkers stated to you about not retorquing with a click torque wrench. If it was for your #2 and #4 screws, I can believe you need to very careful with them. Retorquing them could quite easily twist them off I would think. Quite frankly, I'm surprised they don't have something better at torquing screws that fragile and important than a click torque wrench. Now, my understanding of using the clicker when you retorque something, it will click once you match the set torque on it. That shouldn't change whether you are tightening or checking the tightness. If you are you using it at the same setting, I really don't understand how it could apply a higher torque. Do you see why I don't follow on their line of logic? If you recall, there are two forms of friction, static and dynamic, they are why retorquing won't result in a higher torque. Another words, the nut won't turn the second time you try turning it until you apply a torque that is much higher than the orginal torque. Does that make any sense? But again, with a 2 in-lb torque, retorquing could easily be fatal because of those two types of friction since it probably wouldn't take much on the second try to excede its sheer strength and twist it right off. With lug nuts, there's a lot more room for going over a particular torque without breaking it. Oh well. If you can get a better explaination from your coworkers, maybe I can learn something that I'm not seeing. Thanks

Until I get a chance to bug the MEs, feel free to peruse the following websites:

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153615 (starting with post #18)
http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/wiki/How_to_torque_a_bolt
http://www.viva-lancia.com/fulvia/qanda/engine/smoke.php (last post)
http://www.lawnsite.com/showthread.php?t=21924&page=2 (post #13)
http://clemsonscc.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1016&start=0&sid=f9722a5d82ec04868580e857de603538

Of course these are only sites that support what I typed above. There are other sites that make no mention of the need to loosen a fastener prior to retorquing. There are also articles that say to apply a lubricant to the threads and still others that suggest lubricants may actually increase the amount of torque necessary, etc.

So, bottom line, torque your lug nuts in a star/criss cross pattern when installing wheels to avoid warping rotors or breaking wheel studs. If you are more comfortable going around the lugnuts again with the torque wrench, most likely there's no harm in that either. The big issue is to not undertorque nor significantly over-torque the lugnuts.

Any further torque discussion probably needs to be taken offline and we have sufficiently deviated from the original thread topic.

-Rod

Yup, we've torqued and retorqued it enough. But to be clear for everyone, once you have torqued a nut or bolt, the only way to be certain you have it at the right torque is to loosen it and torque it to the specified torque. Anything else becomes a shot in the dark. Clicking your torque wrench on it right after the first time will only confirm that it is tight and won't turn any more, if it was properly seated. It just feels better to go over it just to be sure that it is still tight like it should be. Does that sound ok, Rod?

I have no problems with that.

-Rod