To rotate tires or change a flat tire, you need to know how to tighten lug nuts, but “tight enough” isn’t enough. While many people get away with using a spider wrench, breaker bar or impact gun (which could be disastrous), the best way to tighten lug nuts is with a torque wrench.

Tightening the lug nuts on your wheels to the correct amount of foot-pounds of force with a torque wrench is one of the more overlooked car care musts. Today we are going to show you exactly how to use a torque wrench to ensure your vehicle’s wheels are snugged up to the correct specifications.

Knowing how to tighten lug nuts properly is critical. There are a number of reasons that you want to make sure that your lug nuts are properly tightened. A few of those are:

You don’t want the lug nuts so tight that they break off the studs.

You don’t want the lug nuts so loose that they work loose from vibrations.

You don’t want to tighten the lug nuts to the point where they distort the brake rotor (this is one of the main causes of the dreaded “braking shimmy“).

You don’t want the lug nuts so tight that you cannot get them off the next time you need to change a flat tire on the side of the freeway, with just the car’s spare tire wrench.