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Horror of the week 12/7/13


89mustang
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Think it had bodywork and suspension on rear, rushing to get to us for geo! QC issues?

 

QC issues for sure and at a critical area.... We work a job sheet that logs the wheel nuts torque and is signed by whoever QC's the wheel nuts.... In the event something goes wrong the consequence falls directly on the person that QC'd the work..... It might read a bit harsh but this way those that do the QC do it for real and not a "drive by" sort of "it's ok" QC.

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I've always had a (probably irrational) concern about wheel nuts based upon two things. 

 

First, watching the slap-happy way that some garage mechanics treat them and second having been a designer in the aircraft industry and being aware of the care that is taken there to specify tightening criteria and to incorporate effective locking devices.

 

Whenever my wheels are disturbed, I make a bit of a meal of loosening all the nuts and re-torquing them carefully in the correct sequence to my own satisfaction.

 

A pair of Australian friends were in an old Morris that rolled onto its roof after losing a wheel as they drove round a bend in Hitchin. The wheel had lightening holes on the same pitch as the stud holes and someone had mounted the wheel onto the wrong holes. The cross corner dimension of the nuts was only just larger than the diameter of the lightening holes and eventually the nuts broached their way through the wheel and it came adrift.

 

I came close to personal disaster when a milk tanker that I was following up a fairly steep hill lost one of its nearside wheels. It came bowling down the road towards me and I managed to avoid a head on contact, but it wrecked my passenger side front door. The driver had no idea how it had come loose but it was a multi-axle vehicle so I can understand him not noticing.

 

There is little more important in motoring than looking after your wheels and tyres and I am appalled at how little attention many motorist pay to them.

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..There is little more important in motoring than looking after your wheels and tyres and I am appalled at how little attention many motorist pay to them.

 

Agreed. The number of people I see driving with very low tyre pressures is most worrying. Fast or slow, new or old, cars, vans and sometimes (but not as often) lorries, the sloppiness is throughout society.

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Most "fast fit" company's adopt a "standard" toward wheel nut torque completion/ compliance but and i find it's very odd there's no real regulation of this outside of their internal regulation?

 

It can be argued final torque of a wheel is hardly heart surgery but a failure carries a similar consequence. How can it be a "trainee" can conclude such a vital area? How can it be that an experienced tech can assume immortality and not need a QC?

 

We use a torque wrench, we document the torque used and who QC'd the work....... Additional cost? nothing, so there's no real reason not to do it right is there!

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I'm a bit funny about wheel torques , I had the wheels off the r34 at the weekend and torqued them afterwards but still ended up stopping after a few miles to double check .

 

I lost a wheel once on the m4 , the studs broke a result of being over torqued , we were required to check the wheel torques every week and the other drivers had a habit of pushing the wrench past the click tightening the nuts further and further

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It's for this reason we don't use air guns?.... Electric wrenches hammer off but not on. If the torque wrench is calibrated there's no fear or need to pass the "click", although in the past working for other company's i confess to "additional" clicks because i wasn't confident with the equipment provided.

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