Tire shops
sucks2beme
Posts: 5,625
Why? Why do they use the impact to put on wheel lugnuts?
NTB does this routinely. Discount tire seems much better.
They cross thread the lugnuts and the only way they come off
is by breaking them off. Nothing like getting stuck by the road
side with a flat. I do put a full size spare in my vehicles. I went
to Harbor freight and bought a couple of 24" breaker bars and
Impact sockets to keep in the cars.
NTB does this routinely. Discount tire seems much better.
They cross thread the lugnuts and the only way they come off
is by breaking them off. Nothing like getting stuck by the road
side with a flat. I do put a full size spare in my vehicles. I went
to Harbor freight and bought a couple of 24" breaker bars and
Impact sockets to keep in the cars.
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson
Comments
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You could always ask that they be tightened by torque wrench. My brother had the opposite happen. They just tighten the lugs by finger. 5 miles down the road the truck got all wonky all of a sudden and as he looked the rearview mirror to pull over he seen his lug nuts bouncing down the highway, then the wheels came OFF literally. The truck was less than a year old. Nothing like getting your tires rotated and coming away with needing all new rotors and other work.
He now asked to watch them tighten with torque wrench. -
Yep. Avoid NTB and go to a place that hand tightens with a torque wrench like Discount Tire or Mavis. I still like to watch them do it. Cross threading lug nuts is inexcusable. What were they pretending to be on a NASCAR pit crew?
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I remember as a young man many decades ago cussing the evil tire place thinking they had cross threaded or overtightened my lugs nuts when I had a flat. Then I saw the L stamped in the wheel lugs.
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I avoid them as much as possible. One reason why I do my own seasonal tire change over and bought a second set of rims for both vehicles. Then I torque them again after about 100kms and once a month thereafter.
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motorstereo wrote: »I remember as a young man many decades ago cussing the evil tire place thinking they had cross threaded or overtightened my lugs nuts when I had a flat. Then I saw the L stamped in the wheel lugs.
Classic Dodge issue."The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson -
sucks2beme wrote: »motorstereo wrote: »I remember as a young man many decades ago cussing the evil tire place thinking they had cross threaded or overtightened my lugs nuts when I had a flat. Then I saw the L stamped in the wheel lugs.
Classic Dodge issue.
Good guess; It was the front wheel from a 66 Dodge van. On a good cold day in the winter I could get 80 out of it on a steep downhill grade. Could not be done in summer as the mid engine slant 6 would overheat at anything over 50. -
Hardly a guess. It was either a Dodge or a Plymouth.
Nobody knows why they did it that way. In my case,
It was a 1966 Plymouth. My 1960 Bel Air had normal lugs.
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson -
This is from Horror Fraught and I honestly wouldn't trust them but, it's called a torque bar or a torque limiting extension.
https://www.harborfreight.com/12-in-torque-limiting-extension-bar-set-10-piece-69870.html
They do actually work and when you are using an impact gun, they are capable of letting you run an impact gun at full tilt and not over-torque a fastener.
They can come in a range of torque settings and these from Horror Fraught are fairly lightweight.
When I worked at a diesel and heavy equipment service shop, the bossman insisted that we use torque bars as many fasteners required settings significantly higher than what the average guy could pull with a high capacity torque wrench on a regular basis. Additionally, one or two fasteners at 400+ pound feet a guy could get away. It's very hard to get that high with a manual wrench and I know I was "maxed out" myself at a hair under 450 and the shop foreman could pull 470 with only "Little Billy" who was anything but little besting us at 505. Doing heavy torque loads of 100 foot pounds, multiple times a day, every day risks a significant workplace injury.
Not all tire shops use them, though, but they have become increasingly prevalent in the vehicle service industry often being mandated by insurance companies to reduce workplace injury claims. Smaller shops can often have worn out torque bars because like anything with a certain level of precision, they need to be recalibrated or replaced when they wear out. The Horror Fraught ones are fairly inexpensive but, you get what you pay for and they may not be as accurate right out of the box. They can get significantly more expensive with just one bar at one setting topping $20 on the low end of the moderate scale so a set of a dozen or so in a significant range can run upwards of $250 and way more.
Since they are pretty much torsion bars, they will fatigue over time and lose their accuracy. If you run a tire shop and you run them every day, all day, you might get a year out of them before they need to be replaced. Your more likely interval is about 6-7 months.
So you're either taking a significant amount of time to torque lug nuts and maybe running 9 tire jobs in one day as opposed to 10 because of the extra time needed for manually torqueing or you're dropping several hundred on new torque bars every 6 months or so negating the labor savings. The only other options is to "count the ugga duggas" which is no where near accurate.
So there's you conundrum and why they use impacts to put on lugs. It's literally due to cost to time factors.
If a tire job costs me 1.5 hours in labor if I do everything exactingly right then, I can pull 5 tire jobs in one 8 hour shift. At, we'll say, $90 an hour on the labor, that's $135 per tire job and $675 a day.
If I can cut a half hour out of each tire job by using the ugga dugga gun, I can now fit 8 tire jobs into a day. So at $90 an hour, that's now $720 a day.
But they don't charge you actual labor time, they charge you the going rate for the "book time" So if book time is 1.5 hours, you're still being charged $135 for your tire job, it's just taking the tech 1 hour to do it instead of 1.5 hours.
So the reality is that ugga dugga gun takes a $675 day and turns it into a $1,080 day.
That's why they use ugga dugga guns instead of torque wrenches and also why they cheap out on the torque bars because they might have to work an entire day, one day a quarter, just to afford new torque bars. It won't cost them anything to overtighten your lugs but you'll end up with a hernia and warped brake rotors for their no trouble at all.
That's also why they get exasperatedly annoyed when you insist on a torque wrench being used.
Time is money.
Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
I don't even care if they use the impact as long as they start them by hand.
But they stick the lug in the impact and let her rip. I've seen torque sticks
before. My son has some. But they are snapon, not that China junk."The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson -
@Jstas
On a standard car, it doesn't take an extra 30 minutes per car to use a torque wrench for final tightening. That's a fallacy. There is no reason to use the heavy impact to tighten all the way. It's fine to use an electric or pneumatic driver to get the lugs on to something like 30lb-ft. Once the car is on the ground, a guy can do the final pull-click star partern with a torque wrench in about 3-4 minutes. Maybe 5 minutes if it's a 6 lug truck wheel.
Discount Tire and other quality tire shops factor this into the installation cost per tire. They don't use "book rate" for that and that is pretty standard across almost all tire shops that I've encountered. Now, if you getting tires done at a general mechanic or dealership, well that's a mistake to start with, IMO.
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Trying to save time by skipping the torque wrench is just lazy or cheap. And yeah, going to a general mechanic or dealership for tires is usually a ripoff anyway
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@Jstas
On a standard car, it doesn't take an extra 30 minutes per car to use a torque wrench for final tightening. That's a fallacy. There is no reason to use the heavy impact to tighten all the way. It's fine to use an electric or pneumatic driver to get the lugs on to something like 30lb-ft. Once the car is on the ground, a guy can do the final pull-click star partern with a torque wrench in about 3-4 minutes. Maybe 5 minutes if it's a 6 lug truck wheel.
Discount Tire and other quality tire shops factor this into the installation cost per tire. They don't use "book rate" for that and that is pretty standard across almost all tire shops that I've encountered. Now, if you getting tires done at a general mechanic or dealership, well that's a mistake to start with, IMO.
You should stop jabbering about things you know nothing aboutExpert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
@Jstas
On a standard car, it doesn't take an extra 30 minutes per car to use a torque wrench for final tightening. That's a fallacy. There is no reason to use the heavy impact to tighten all the way. It's fine to use an electric or pneumatic driver to get the lugs on to something like 30lb-ft. Once the car is on the ground, a guy can do the final pull-click star partern with a torque wrench in about 3-4 minutes. Maybe 5 minutes if it's a 6 lug truck wheel.
Discount Tire and other quality tire shops factor this into the installation cost per tire. They don't use "book rate" for that and that is pretty standard across almost all tire shops that I've encountered. Now, if you getting tires done at a general mechanic or dealership, well that's a mistake to start with, IMO.
You should stop jabbering about things you know nothing about
Likewise. I think everyone here generally agreed that zipping on lug nuts directly from the impact gun and cross-threading was a bad thing. Then you start talking about heavy truck shops and book hours which have nothing to do with normal tire shops. Bye-bye. -
I like to clamp my lug wrench in a vise, set the brakes in the car and put it in gear. Then I can spin the car around to install or remove the lug nuts.
Relativity. It's a thing.
PS A smaller vehicle helps. Tough to do with a Hummer.
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I'm planning to also pick up a 2nd set of rims for the CRV, just as Willow mentioned. Main reason is the existing tires are very noisy, I put up with that in the winter (where we live we need fairly aggressive tires ) but won't do it for the rest of the year.
So, in hopes not to totally derail this thread, what tires are known to be highway quiet but still good traction?Yep, my name really is Bob.
Parasound HCA1500A(indoor sound) and HCA1000(outdoor sound), Dynaco PAS4, Denon DP1200 w/Shure V15 Type V and Jico SAS stylus, Marantz UD7007, Polk L600, Rythmik L12 sub. -
@Jstas
On a standard car, it doesn't take an extra 30 minutes per car to use a torque wrench for final tightening. That's a fallacy. There is no reason to use the heavy impact to tighten all the way. It's fine to use an electric or pneumatic driver to get the lugs on to something like 30lb-ft. Once the car is on the ground, a guy can do the final pull-click star partern with a torque wrench in about 3-4 minutes. Maybe 5 minutes if it's a 6 lug truck wheel.
Discount Tire and other quality tire shops factor this into the installation cost per tire. They don't use "book rate" for that and that is pretty standard across almost all tire shops that I've encountered. Now, if you getting tires done at a general mechanic or dealership, well that's a mistake to start with, IMO.
You should stop jabbering about things you know nothing about
Most tire shop workers are paid hourly, not flat rate. But they are definitely
under pressure. Quick oil places.are often the worst about this."The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson -
Likewise. I think everyone here generally agreed that zipping on lug nuts directly from the impact gun and cross-threading was a bad thing. Then you start talking about heavy truck shops and book hours which have nothing to do with normal tire shops. Bye-bye.
Who's worked at a parts counter?
billbillw - no
jstas - yes
Who's actually sold tires for a living?
billbillw - no
jstas - yes
Who's sold tires at a national chain store?
billbillw - no
jstas - yes
Who's sold tires at a small mom and pop shop?
billbillw - no
jstas - yes
Who's installed tires at a national chain store?
billbillw - no
jstas - yes
Who's installed tires at a small mom and pop shop?
billbillw - no
jstas - yes
Who worked as a service technician for more than 5 years?
billbillw - no
jstas - yes
Who has worked as a heavy machinery technician?
billbillw - no
jstas - yes
Who passed the ASE certification exam?
billbillw - no
jstas - yes
Who is capable of reading and comprehending English?
billbillw - apparently not
jstas - yes
Are you getting what I'm laying down here, brochacho?
I am speaking from experience. The only reason I stopped working a side job doing fleet maintenance and contract automotive electrical work (repairing stereos, gauge consoles, wiring harness repair, etc.) on weekends at a local automotive repair shop was because my primary employment changed and I was not allowed to moonlight anymore.
It'll be 10 years now since I last turned a wrench in employment but I promise you that the billing method has not changed.
The original question asked was "Why? Why do they use the impact to put on wheel lugnuts?"
Cross-threading was mentioned as one of the possible negative outcomes of such a practice. No one answered "Why?"
So I gave the answer of why.
In all my time as a part-time tire monkey, I never cross threaded a lug nut and always started them by hand. I repaired a few cross-threaded wheels studs, though. Since we worked on a lot of German cars, torque sequences were important so I got in the habit of not trusting the torque bars on passenger cars and doing it with my torque wrench.
No, torqueing by hand does not add 30 minutes to each car but it doesn't take less than 5 either. If you knew what the process was, you'd know that. I was using an easy to follow segment of time for illustration purposes at the risk over oversimplifying.
In all honesty, though, looking at the Mitchell ProDemand estimator guide, 4 tires, mounted and balanced has a labor booking time of 1.22 hrs so, 1 hour and about 14 minutes. The average going rate for 4 tires in my area is about $177 for labor costs. At an average rate of $140 an hour for an automotive tech in my area, 1.22 hrs for a tire change is the accurate book time. So, forgive me for not being pedantic in an effort to simplify the billing process so it's easily understandable.
If I have a lift and I don't run in to problems, I can do 4 tires, mounted and balanced, in about 45 minutes which is $107 in actual labor costs at the $140/hr. rate. I'll still get paid for the $177, though, because the book time is an agreed upon standard that keeps price wars from putting small businesses out of business, gives a service center a base for providing accurate estimates to customers and keeps costs stable so that risking safety-jeopardizing corner cutting just to not operate at loss isn't a common thing. Every shop, whether it's a Firestone shop, a Costco, a Walmart, a Pep Boys or Jim's Auto Service, they all use the same estimation guides as they all use the same pay scale for their general area. You'll never hire a decent technician for $40 an hour when the guy up the street is paying $70. So if you don't book your estimates with those costs in mind, you won't be in business very long. BTW, that labor cost doesn't just cover the technician's pay. It covers all the overheard for that tech too. Power, water, heating bills, shop supplies, any kind of insurance that needs to be carried and the clerical costs of running the business. The tech ends up getting about half of that hourly labor charge in the end. The rest covers that tech's employment costs. If you can't estimate on a base book value then you have no way of budgeting and controlling costs.
https://blog.torque360.co/automotive-labor-time-guides-why-you-need-them/
My experience at the heavy machinery shop was in regards to tools, not necessarily tire installation. I thought that was clear when I made the distinction that the fastener torque settings were significantly higher than your average passenger car. Seems like others got it, not sure why you missed it.
Additionally, since you keep using this word and it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means:fallacy /făl′ə-sē/
noun
A false notion.
A statement or an argument based on a false or invalid inference.
Incorrectness of reasoning or belief; erroneousness.
For my statements to be a fallacy, they would have to be postulated as a rebuttal argument or an initial argument.
A false statement is not a fallacy unless it used as basis for an argument.
I have made no false statements.
The only fallacy I could have possibly committed here is an oversimplification fallacy. Otherwise, you just challenged my argument with a red herring fallacy and tried to discredit me (another fallacy, an ad hominem attack) with it.
So, the above is in excruciating detail as a rebuttal to your challenge that I have made false statements and I do, in fact, know what I am talking about.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
TIRE FITE!!!
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sucks2beme wrote: »Most tire shop workers are paid hourly, not flat rate. But they are definitely
under pressure. Quick oil places.are often the worst about this.
OK, so, a technician at any level is employed on a hourly rate. Your certification level is like what you status is in a trade union. These are not actual wage numbers so calm your pedantic tendencies. I'm just trying to illustrate something here. An apprentice working towards ASE certification might make $25-$30 an hour. An ASE Certified Technician will be making significantly more than that, That would be a Journeyman level. An ASE Certified Master Tech is going to make the most wages. $65+ an hour.
The labor rate is not the wage rate.
The labor rate is fixed and only changes as economic pressures change.
So a $140 an hour labor rate will pay for any one of those levels.
The differences are:
- An Apprentice will usually have work verified before the shop foreman will sign off on it. An apprentice does not get a work order without the tech in charge's say so and cannot typically job a work order independently. Apprentices are costly because you have to pay the apprentice out of the that $140 an hour labor charge as well as the Master Tech that is signing off on it. This is why you don't often see apprentices at small shops. An apprentice will typically take the entire labor time allotment and then some to complete a job. This dilutes the apprentice's wages until the apprentice gets better at it 'cause the apprentice will still get paid the same $25 for the hour labor on the booked estimate whether it takes him 30 minutes, 60 minutes or 90 minutes. He wants to get paid better, get better at your job.
- A Certified Tech can work without oversight and typically will pull in the most money because they can complete jobs accurately and under-time. A good tech can cut a significant amount of time off of a single job which could mean that the tech does 12 tire jobs in a day instead of 10. The labor rate still gets charged and the tech makes more money because he can do more work in an hour at a lower cost with less comebacks. This is good for the tech and the shop owner.
- A Master Tech runs your shop or the entire business as well as oversees repairs and does the "big jobs", usually with an apprentice as an extra set of skilled hands. They are expensive for a reason and they are typically worth every penny 'cause Master Tech Certification is not easy at all.
All of their pay comes at an hourly rate because the customers get billed by the hour for their time. To guarantee a salary for a tech that is under producing means that you are going to pay out for that tech and they will not be bringing in the work they need to sustain their pay scale. That means their slackass paycheck is coming out of your pocket instead of jobs covering his labor charges which means less food on your table for your family at the end of the day.
So to say that techs at tire places and lube places are paid hourly and not a flat rate or vice versa is not accurate.
Unless it was a Master Tech that was the service manager/foreman, usually at a dealership or national chain of service centers, I have never met a tech that was paid a salary or "flat rate". Labor costs aren't even estimated at flat rates as larger, more complex problems, like a transmission rebuild or a differential rebuild, are jobbed out at higher hourly labor rates because they require higher skilled people to do the work, require more shop supplies as well and that cost needs to be covered in the estimate. You can see this in the labor rate differences between a service center, a transmission shop and an auto body shop. All techs are certified, one makes more than the other because of the more specific skill set and running something like a body shop has very high overhead compared to a tire and lube shop. Any way you cut it, though, you wouldn't work for free and neither does your mechanic.
You're also not paying for their labor. You are pay for their time it took to learn how to do that job, know what tools are needed to do that job, owning those tools and having the experience, shop and facilities to do that job expediently.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
I like tires.
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George / NJ
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Gardenstater wrote: »TLDR 🤣
I started to read it, but I got . . . . . tired. -
Once again, Jstas assumes he is superior in everything, not really knowing anyone else's work/life experience. So smug. He writes thousands of words that nobody takes the time to read because it is mostly unnecessary babble. TLDR most definitely applies to most of his posts.
We are all pretty smart around here and many of us have plenty of work experience doing these things. We don't need a lecture from brochacho. I think I'll be like Tom and start using the ignore feature. He tires me.
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Once again, Jstas assumes he is superior in everything, not really knowing anyone else's work/life experience. So smug. He writes thousands of words that nobody takes the time to read because it is mostly unnecessary babble. TLDR most definitely applies to most of his posts.
We are all pretty smart around here and many of us have plenty of work experience doing these things. We don't need a lecture from brochacho. I think I'll be like Tom and start using the ignore feature. He tires me.
This is an actual fallacy.
It's an ad hominem attack.
It's typically indicative of a lacking argument that has been disproven so the knee-jerk reaction is to try to attack the character of the arguer instead of the argument.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
I dig the wordy posts, because I almost always learn something new from them.
I love talking to people who have more life experience than me and gaining additional insight or knowledge as a result. -
Good idea, bye.I think I'll be like Tom and start using the ignore feature.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Yes, a lot of oil change and tire shops like Discount Tire
Pay employees by the hour, not flat rate. You aren't going
to see many certified techs slumming it at those places.
Places like Firestone, yes they have some real techs.
I understand flat rate. My older son worked as a tech for
a while in dealerships. It's a tough way to make a living.
That's why he moved on to other things.
Even at a lot of dealerships the oil change guys get paid
hourly. 8 hours pay for 8 hours of work.
Please keep in mind this may NOT be true across the country.
I'm not saying you're wrong for your area of the country. But
across the South things are different."The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson -
I see this thread is still rolling on. I'm no tire expert, nor do I claim to be one or have ever played one on tv, but I think this thread needs to be rebalanced.
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I see this thread is still rolling on. I'm no tire expert, nor do I claim to be one or have ever played one on tv, but I think this thread needs to be rebalanced.
Static or dynamic?
