lug nuts for personal vehicles vs race cars

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When putting tires on a personal vehicle it’s always recommended to tighten the lug nuts in a star or criss-cross pattern, yet when you see pit crews for nascar they just go around one by one very quickly in a circle, why can they get away with doing it that way even though they’re driving much faster so things like a loose lug nut or vibration should be a pretty big deal, but it’s recommended that I always do a star or crisscross pattern?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Its a difference in tools and use. The driver they are using to tighten the lug nuts is set to stop before it over tightens to a damaging level. Putting lugs on the car may be the only thing that tool is used for. They don’t care about getting it to a specific ft-lbs because longevity of the lug threads isn’t a concern. They would rather just replace them than spend precious seconds saving the part for long term use. So they will just slam them on to a level that won’t come loose, but may damage the threads over time. For your car you want the threads to last the life of the vehicle. So more care is taken to get them to tight, but not too tight.

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