I was just outside rotating my tires on my 2010 4runner and one of the wheel lug studs broke at 90 ft lbs. Is 90 ft lbs to much for these? 90 ft lbs is what I use on my other vehicles. The 4runner just hit 5,000 miles.

discount tire broke 6 of mine (3 driver front; 3 passenger front) when they were putting my tires on. They set theirs at 80 ft/lbs I believe

83 ft/lb per the manual, page 621.

I broke one of mine too. It appears that it's pretty commn on toyotas. I was freaking out at first but I guess it's not a big deal, and I need to learn how to do it myself.

Check thenut on the stud you broke. The one I broke had some fubar threads about half way down. The nut bottomed out, that's why it broke.

Thanks, I'll have to take a look at the lug nut. It never got "tight", but felt like the threads stripped. Next thing you know the lug nut was laying in the driveway with the lug stud. I'm glad to hear other people have broke some too. I have never broken one before at 90 ft lbs, however I will make sure to torque them at 83 next time.

even at 90ftlbs they shouldn't break. Someone beforehand has way over tightened them. Most likely they used an impact.

+1

I belive this was the cause of my nut's fubarring.

Yea I just said that.

The only time it was in the shop was for undercoating after I bought it. Hopefully the Toyota mechanics aren't over tightening them. I'm assuming that since the rest of the lug nuts torqued down without breaking that they are OK.

I've seen them use impacts before. Not trying to point fingers but it wouldn't surprise me if they just blipped them on without actually using a torque wrench. I actually am surprised to see wheel lugs being torqued with a wrench. If the others are torqued it should be ok. I would replace the broken one though.

scares me to death to have ANY tire store touch my brand new 4runner when i get it. I will be taking off the rims 2 at a time and taking them in to swap out the tires myself, thats how paranoid i am. They hire just about any guy capable of holding a wrench to do these jobs i feel, so no offense to any mechanics here, but this has been my experience.

Should we be taking away from this post, that lug nuts should not be installed with a impact tool, rather they s/b torqued by hand?

I've never heard of such a thing.

They can be "installed" with an impact gun if you are careful. They should not be "tightened/torqued" with an impact gun. A torque wrench should be used to do final torquing. Unfortunately, some idiots think that a torque setting is a minimum or are just to lazy to use a torque wrench.

By the way, I just had new tires done and the tire place said a stud broke off when they were taking the lug nuts off. Sure enough, I could tell by the way it broke that it occurred when removing the lug nut. I could not find any evidence that the threads were screwed up. The dealership had already worked on the vehicle requiring removing the front wheels. I suspect the dealership overtightened when re-installing the wheels, but I can't prove it. In any case, the dealership replaced stud under warranty. Makes me wonder if I have other studs "stretched out" though.

Most impact guns don't have a low enough torque setting on them. Also, the torque settings are not accurate enough either. Most guys at the shops I see just have them set at max and blip them on with out regard to proper torque.

You're kidding, right? Impact wrench is great for getting lug nuts off - particularly when the last jackass installed them with an impact wrench - but you should absolutely be tightening them by hand with a torque wrench. If you've got an air gun with a low enough setting to get them in there below the specific torque setting go for it. As has been noted this typically isn't the case.

Besides potentially breaking the stud as in this case, using an impact wrench to tighten lug nuts leads to tires that can't be changed on the side of the road because they're on there too MF'ing tight.

It's not good that this keeps coming up, makes the lugs seem cheap. I've had my tires on and off a bunch of times and haven't had a problem (both at the dealer and in my driveway).