When you go to one of the big chain tire stores, the use a few specialized tools to install your tires, like a tire mounting machine and a tire balancing machine. But the rest of the tools are pretty standard stuff that you usually have in your garage, with one exception. That one exception is the extensions they usually use on their impact guns for tightening the lug nuts. These extensions are usually color coded and are referred to as Torque Sticks. Their job is to only allow the lug nuts to be tightened to whatever the value is on the Torque Stick. This makes it super simple to get your car at the factory spec without having to set and use a torque wrench.

I’ve never trusted them as much as the tire shop seems to, and have always found that at least some of the lug nuts aren’t as tight as the others. But is this operator error or are these things just not that good? And should a torque wrench always be used afterwards to get them precise? Watch and learn how these thing really work, with help from the Torque Test Channel.

Video Description:

Torqe Stick, AKA Torque Limiting Extensions. Our lifetime of tool ranking: https://etsy.me/3G8j3QK Common torque sticks & lugnut sockets: https://amzn.to/3C3WOeW For a full set, HF seem to work well too: https://bit.ly/3LLEHOZ. Today we take a 2nd look at torque-limiting extensions with a high-speed camera, and with the help of slow-mo footage we’re able to make more educated demonstrations about how they do and don’t work than previously before. Because of this, we have now removed our previous video on the matter as it is seen alone is not an accurate picture of everything going on as we now learn.