Aldi torque wrench
Hi for anyone wanting to invest in a torque wrench, Aldi have a special offer at £16.99 looks good to me and you might think you don’t need one but you do believe me.
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When you have your caravan serviced the wheels are taken off to check the brakes. Where I have mine serviced they check the wheel nut torque settings while you watch. On the service sheet they advise that you re check the torque setting after 50 miles.
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Many and I mean many years go when I used to drive an HGV if we got a puncture we would change our own wheel as in those days we carried a spare. When we tightened up the wheel nuts we would put the extension bar on the wheel brace and jump on it for all we was worth, as we didn’t want the wheel coming off. Lots of artic trailers would when doing a tight turn snap their wheel studs, this would happen because the wheel on the forward axle scrubs under. After many years and much research it was blamed on the driver over tightening.
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TomL What it means is that I don't pay for a job and then do it myself !
As I said perhaps I am lucky, but perhaps there is not the need for a Torque Wrench with the need as the poster implied. If I was not aware of the consequences of wheel nuts coming loose, or wheel change I would not as I said carry one in the boot of my car. But I don't see it any more important than any other part of my outfit that is serviced regular and properly maintained to my level of expectation and satisfaction.
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I would get one, I check out caravan wheel nuts before a journey, friends of ours picked up their brand new caravan drove a few hundred yards up the road and a wheel came off evidently tyre bands had been fitted by a sub contractor at the dealers and the wheel torque had not been checked. It is so important that the mobile engineer who services our van asks us to watch him as he torque's the wheel nuts and get us to sign to witness he has done so
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and do you check the settings on his torque wrench and do you know what it should be set to? I've had ATS/Kwik Fit show me that the wheels were torqued up with a wrench after he'd used a windy gun. I pointed out to him that the wrench clicked without the nut/bolt moving at all .... it went way way over his head that the gun had tightened the nuts/bolts to silly lb/ft ... the wrench did nothing.
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The simple answer is yes, I know the settings for my van wheels that's why there is a rating plate on all caravans and he does show us his torque wrench settings also its recommended that the nuts are backed off (loosened) before finally tightening with the torque wrench
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Bailey had a problem with the Unicorn range some years back and recommended checking torque on wheel nuts before every trip. I bought a Draper and haven’t used it since switching to a motorhome. One problem is that they are supposed to be periodically recalibrated but that doesn’t sound very practical.
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many years ago I was an apprentice mechanic. I remember the first time being sent to get a "talk" wrench I thought they were kidding me, like going to the stores for a long weight or a left-handed screwdriver. hitchglitch is quite right, the "professional" wrenches are supposed to be recalibrated at least once a year as the internal springs stretch and they become inaccurate. I can't imagine anything under £50 being up to much, probably just as well follow the technical advice of my old foreman, get a long bar and tighten to FT!
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Sorry not been back to my discussion but had some issues, all the reply’s are great and show a wide variety of opinions. The comments on recalibration is correct in the work place I was told by a motor engineer though that as long as you take the pressure off after use the wrench with the slight use privately would be fine without annual recalibration.
One trick I use is when the service engineer sets it I follow with my wrench this gives a reasonable check my wrench is as accurate as the engineers.( I have my caravans serviced on drive at home so always there)
All wheel nuts should be checked after a few mile following a service which removes the wheels.
Thank all for contributing it been interesting.
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Knowing someone who had a wheel come off their car within a week of buying new tyres, has heightened our concerns over torques. So we do have a torque wrench and it’s used to confirm that wheel nuts are correctly torqued after they’ve been removed for any reason. The manufacturers show correct settings on most data plates, ditto tyre pressures. Towball bolts also require specific tightening.
Very many mechanics will tell you that their experience has calibrated their right arm to know when the correct torque has been applied. It’s not a reassurance which I’d rely on if my life depended on it, which in a way it does. I suspect too, that particularly with thick bolts and heavy ratings, over tightening is as much of a problem as the reverse. Precision engineers will lubricate threads so as too eliminate any friction which would detract from torque wrench tightening.
As with many things, extreme examples may illustrate points more clearly. We have a low range torque wrench which we use 100% for bicycle maintenance, where over-tightening thin bolts creates a real risk of subsequent failure. Under tightening too.
As for quality and accuracy, I’m not sure that super accuracy is essential for checking wheel nuts. Given that many Aldi/ Lidl tools can be found outside their stores at several times the price, it’s not altogether sensible to dismiss their offerings as too cheap to be any good.
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