Torque Specs & Tire Rotation
 

Can someone tell me where to find torque specs for our car? I have the service manual downloaded but can't find what section this would be in. Specifically, I was looking for the wheels and the oil pan plug. Thanks.

Being a non-moving part I wouldn't exactly stress over it. "Tight enough, without over tightening" sounds good to me :)

Every diagram (at the end of each section) has the torque specs written down on the diagram, right where the bolt is shown. There's a key for reading the torque specs near the beginning of the manual (white vs black wrenches mean different units, in/lbs or ft/lbs, although I forget which is which at the moment).

This is straight out of the Service Manual. Look at item 13. The torque spec is 25 ft-lbs.
http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/t...9-102739AM.jpg

This is also in the SM:
http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/t...09-12915PM.jpg

WRONG.

http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/t...09-13427PM.jpg

Yep, definitely 80ft/lbs for the wheel lugs. Went through this after I swapped in the wheel locks and wanted them tightened correctly.

Thanks for the replies. Too bad I just read in the service manual that you can't rotate the tires. I, along with others from the board in a previous post of mine, thought that you could still swap between right/left; however, apparently all the tires are unidirectional...lame.

You sure about that? I don't recall our tires being unidirectional. Asymmetric, yes, but not unidirectional. What page in the service manual did you see this on?

It's on MA-33. Am I reading that right?

The SM does indeed indicate directional tires on that page. That's where I read it first as well. However, if you look at the sidewall of the tires themselves and look up the same tires online, it appears they are only asymmetric, and could be rotated left/right.

Hmm...yeah, you're reading it right. I'm surprised though. Looking at the sidewall, I can see that the word "Outside" is stamped on the tire, which is what indicates that it's an asymmetric tread pattern (i.e., different tread on the inside of the tire vs. the outside). When tires are unidirectional, however, the sidewall is usually stamped with an arrow and the word "Forward" to indicate the direction the tire must rotate in. And I do not see that on the sidewall. I wonder if maybe that's a misprint in the service manual.

Actually, maybe a better way of putting it would be to say that they've worded that sentence really poorly. Here's how they worded it: "Tire cannot be rotated in vehicle, as front tire are different size from rear tire and the direction of wheel rotation is fixed in each tire." Okay, let's think about this. What would happen if the fronts and rears were all the same size, and the tires were unidirectional? Would that prevent us from rotating them? No. We wouldn't be able to swap the left rear with the right front, but we'd still be able to swap the left front with the left rear, and the right front with the right rear. Right? So really, what they should have said is that we can't rotate the fronts and rears because the wheels are different sizes. Period. The direction of wheel rotation isn't even pertinent.

I also looked up the tire at tirerack.com, and they mention it being asymmetric, but don't say anything about it being unidirectional. (Bridgestone Potenza RE050A)

But hey, I could be wrong. So I guess the safe thing to do is never flip them from one side to the other.

Guys, I'm going go out on a limb here and say that it's a misprint in the SM. Because check out this picture of the Bridgestone S-02: SuperView of the Bridgestone Potenza S-02

It's a little tough to see, but if you look at the back of the tire in the shot (at 3 o'clock), you can see a little arrow with the word "Rotation". That's how you know it's unidirectional. And our RE050A's don't have this indicator.

So what does that mean?

Correct, the RE50A's are asymmetric. This means they have an inside and an outside, but can rotate either way.

You guys realize the wheels themselves are directional right? Unless you want the wheels to look backwards :)