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Torque Sticks

  • Thread starter Deleted member 8987
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Deleted member 8987

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I did professional auto repair and diagnosis for probably 40 years according to she who keeps track of that stuff.

About 20 years ago, the clueless individual ran the stop sign, and my career was over.

Saturday I helped at a Church sponsored car care Saturday, and saw Torque Sticks for the first time.

When were these invented, when did they come into use? I can imagine Snap-On with their new stuff to wow the folks in the trenches having them first.

Interweb reading seems to indicate they work well for some things.
 
Been around for at least 30 years that I know of. Accuracy is pretty low though, from what I understand. They need to be matched to the impact gun; but impact guns get weaker as they age, etc. And if you pick up a gun with a bigger hammer inside (or longer lever arm), it will put more torque through the stick than it's rating.

Don't recall where or who offhand, but I'm pretty sure I've seen a note from a major car maker saying a torque wrench is required to tighten lug nuts.
 
20 years ago nobody around here had heard of them.

Strange.
 
Thought about buying a set when I worked for a shop. Matco driver showed me a set, wound up buying a full Snap-On torque wrench set, which I still use today. As TR3driver says, impact guns are accurate for a while and/if you use same exact air pressure each time.
 
You read up on them, everybody has a different idea as to how they work. Makes your head hurt.
Within 20% of marked value, maybe.

Worth the effort? Nah.
 
Are they a little better than the Tire shop guy just setting the impact gun to "$" and calling it good.

I always try to take my wheel to the shop if I need tire work and torque it myself at home with a proper wrench. Have thought of taking the wrench with me and re torquing the nuts on the tire shop forecourt if I have more than one wheel done.

One thing I have noticed is that my front brake rotors never warp.

David
 
I have watched the tire guys just zap them with impact. At my one store I would torque them before I left and it irritated the manager. I would hold up two fingers and give a thumbs down. Watched an alignment thru the waiting room window as the tech used vice grips to adjust toe-in. Had a pissy fit right there and he had to borrow a wrench. Still had to realign when I got home. 3 degs off. Never have gone back. My shop now is two blocks away and gave me the torque specs and offered wrench to check.
 
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