Can the new Impact Driver TID 18 be used to loosen wheel lugs?

[Slartibartfass]

Wondering......?

 

[Gunder]

Nope...its an impact driver not an impact wrench.

The torque of most impact wrenches is an order of magnitude greater than impact drivers.  I.E. my Milwaukee impact wrench can deliver 1400 ft/lbs the estool impact driver can only deliver 1593 in/lbs.  (132.7 ft/lbs.). Two different tools for two different applications.

 

[Slartibartfass]

That's what I thought... Just wasn't sure.... Thx.

 

[usernumber1]

probably same as any other impact driver - how tight are the lugnuts. but they are not a substitute for an impact wrench, for sure

 

[Spandex]

Wouldn’t it depend on the type of vehicle? Every car I’ve owned has had a wheel nut torque of about 120Nm... the TID18 delivers 180Nm. Allowing for a bit of seizing over time, I’d still expect the TID to stand a good chance of knocking them loose.

It’s not the ideal tool for the job, but it might be perfectly capable.

 

[escapegoat]

Here are the lug nut torque specs for some Toyota vehicles:

• Camry: 76 ft-lbs
• Tacoma: 85 ft-lbs
• Tundra (aluminum wheels): 97 ft-lbs
• Tundra (steel wheels): 154 ft-lbs

The max torque on the TID 18 is 132.8 ft-lbs. (Pretty good for a drill)! That's enough for most passenger vehicles with alloy wheels if the lug nuts were torqued properly. If you have a work van or work truck with steel wheels you need something bigger. Also, raise your hand if you've ever seen a mechanic or tire shop actually take the time to carefully torque lug nuts. In many cases you're fighting lug nuts that were over-torqued with an impact wrench, which might put them near the upper limit of the TID 18.

It's worth a shot if you're picking it up for other things, but I wouldn't buy it specifically for automotive usage.

 

[jeh]

Just buy an impact wrench. For those who do not know, there are sockets designed specifically for impact wrenches. Regular sockets are not designed for the level of torque applied to them and will fail at some point. Additionally proper impact wrenches have either a ball pin or hog ring at the end which clips more securely into the impact socket to keep the socket on the wrench. Without the ball detent or hog ring the sockets can come off and results can be dangerous.

Plenty of companies make impact wrenches. I have DeWalt 20V model that works great. The cost was not much as I bought the tool only, given I have some other tools that use their 60V batteries which happen to work in 20V tools.

So you probably could use it, but it would be less than ideal.

On a related note whenever a dealer removes my tires for service or new tires I loosen the lug nuts and re-torque them using the correct setting.

 

[greg mann]

When I was growing up my mentor was a mechanic that had 60 years at his craft. He claimed most lug nuts were way over torqued. This can distort the wheel, stress the studs, and make removal difficult. When I used to wrench during my high school years I saw more broken studs than I could count. Guys would just lay on that impact wrench way too long. Personally, I have a Makita LXT 18v impact that it think makes a great tool for general work in the garage. It has more than enough torque to meet lug specs (as illustrated above) and keeps one from grossly over tightening lug nuts. Festool’s new impact would be just fine for that too. Disclaimer: Not for MACK TRUCKS!

 

[RKA]

Way back when impact drivers first became available, I bought a Makita impact driver for use on my cars.  While it could remove a bolt torqued to 90 ft lbs, it would only do so with a full battery. At half battery, it struggled.  I never used it this way, my fancy new tool was too nice to be abused this way.  I used a breaker bar to back out each bolt 1/8-1/4 turn, jacked the corner up and used the impact driver to remove the bolts, do what I had to do and run the bolts back in when I reinstalled the wheels.  Final torque was with a torque wrench with the wheel on the ground.  In essence, it was a fancy nut runner, but it worked great and was far better than the cordless drill that preceded it.  So if that is a use case that you find useful, there you go.

If you don’t want to bother with a breaker bar or wrench, then get the right tool for the job.  I did this once the cordless models became compact enough and started achieving power levels you could get out of an entry level air impact.  If you have an existing battery system, typically the additional outlay is only $150-200 for a good impact wrench that can handle anything shy of a completely overtorqued bolt or nut.

 

[FestitaMakool]

Agree with RKA, impact drivers with 6,x mm shank is not the right tool for this kind of job. Most brands do almost same versions with 1/4”, 3/8” or 1/2” socket. They do more torque. Milwaukee even has one for MACK and Scania, think it does about a 1000Nm.

But most important, only use torque wrench on install. Or just plain hands with short lever. Air tool sockets are available with torque limiter extenders that flexes when pushed more than its specified value.

 

[dltflt]

The Milwaukee impact is great. If you happen to have the 18v battery you can pick one up relatively reasonable.

 

[pixelated]

I use my impact driver to spin the lug nuts off and on after I’ve broken them loose by hand and before hand torquing. It’s not able to break them loose, or tighten them properly. My driver is a 20v DeWalt, not sure what it’s max torque is.

If the wheels were put on at a typical shop, all bets are off, I broke a 1/2 drive breaker bar trying to loosen a lug nut once.

 

[BCConstruction]

No it won’t. My 3 year old Makita impact driver has 1600in/lbs of Torque and it can budge a wheel but tightened at 85ft/lbs. I bought the Makita impact wrench with 210ft/lbs and it’s vastly more powerful.

 

[greg mann]

An important item to keep in mind is that torque specs are set for the fastening of dry and clean threads, both nuts and bolts, unless otherwise specified. Even a low grade lubricant can have a huge effect on the squeeze resulting from a specified torque. 30% over torque is not uncommon with a light oil on the threads. This is probably a cause of a lot of over torque. After a year on the road and that oil is no longer effective but the extra squeeze is still there. That is a contributing factor to why studs break and wrenches break.

 

[Cheese]

Ya, if they are used to retain the wheels on your soap box derby racer... [poke]

The lug nuts on my car are individually hand torqued to 105 ft lbs.

The lug nuts and studs have been very sparingly coated with Never-Seize. Just a little dab will do you.

My corded Milwaukee impact wrench is rated at 350 ft lbs of torque and I've had the local Milwaukee shop verify that capability.

That particular Milwaukee impact wrench has never loosened even one of the lug nuts on my car. As a matter of fact, it's severely damaged all of the chrome covered lug nuts because it just keeps hammering them but is unsuccessful in loosening them.

After many dollars spent on replacement parts and a few years of frustration, I realized i needed to move to a more robust tool, I now have a Milwaukee impact wrench that is capable of 1400 ft lbs of torque...now that finally works.

So the bottom line is, add in a 3X multiplication factor for removing lug nuts...give it a factor of 5x-6x if they are rusty or have not been removed in several years.

 

[six-point socket II]

Hi,

With clean and fresh bolts/lugs/lug nuts it will probably do it (and some more). (I always laugh, when YT'ers try do demonstrate impact drivers/wrenches on nice fresh bolts, and then claim how much more powerful they are compared to the manufacturers claim/ technical date.)

But you absolutely shouldn't do it. And on used bolts/lugs/lug nuts sitting on a car/trailer for a year or after a hard winter it will fail. It's an impact driver not an impact wrench. It will suffer greatly along the way.

Additionally, every connector/adaptor used on an impact driver/wrench eats energy. So going from 1/4" to 1/2" with a connector/adaptor, then adding the socket will reduce the overall torque output.

The 1/4"/ 6.4 mm chuck is generally not suitable for this kind of job.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[imdking]

My Makita XDT16 is kick ass! I use it on my LS430 lug nuts (removal only). I bought it just for that purpose, and so I keep it in the boot. Works like clockwork.

 

[ach_78]

Hi,

With clean and fresh bolts/lugs/lug nuts it will probably do it (and some more). (I always laugh, when YT'ers try do demonstrate impact drivers/wrenches on nice fresh bolts, and then claim how much more powerful they are compared to the manufacturers claim/ technical date.)

But you absolutely shouldn't do it. And on used bolts/lugs/lug nuts sitting on a car/trailer for a year or after a hard winter it will fail. It's an impact driver not an impact wrench. It will suffer greatly along the way.

Additionally, every connector/adaptor used on an impact driver/wrench eats energy. So going from 1/4" to 1/2" with a connector/adaptor, then adding the socket will reduce the overall torque output.

The 1/4"/ 6.4 mm chuck is generally not suitable for this kind of job.

Kind regards,
Oliver

I agree that it's certainly not the best suited tool for the job but I don't see why one should be afraid of damaging the tool doing so.
It's an impact, it's been designed to hammer the heck of whatever is at the end of the tool.
If the nut is stuck and doesn't move, that's one thing, a waste of time/effort, but it's not going to damage the tool. If it does, it is utter crap.

 

[six-point socket II]

I'm gonna ask frankly, you know the difference in application of 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", (...) tools - aka using the right tool for the job - and not hammering on a 6.4mm hex shaft & chuck trying to break free bolts that you would never consider using 1/4" tools on?

Tool is going to shut down, you can do that I don't know how many times, at some point it's done. End of story.

Kind regards,
Oli'utter-junk-tool-user'ver

 

[Spandex]

The size of the shank is irrelevant really. The maximum torque that will be applied to the shank and the rest of the mechanism will only ever be the maximum torque that the tool is capable of applying. As far as the tool is concerned, a seized wheel nut is no different to a bolt that won’t move, or a screw that won’t move. It applies torque up to it’s maximum and the shank rotates, or it doesn’t.

So, either the tool is designed to safely cope with a static load (momentarily), or it’s not.