Ford recommends our wheel lug's be torque'd at 150lbs. Before I began to rotate my tires the other day, I checked the factory settings and found that they were only torque'd from the factory at 135lbs. I didn't, however, have a brake shimmy or steering wheel shimmy issue when applying the brakes on my truck (what luck eh?). I subsequently torque'd them to 150lbs. But I DID have this issue on my Excursion. Again, Excursion lugs were under-torque'd by some 25 lbs. from the factory. Re-torqueing them to 165lbs. completely eliminated the brake shimmies. It appears that the huge weight of the truck and the under torque'd lugs forced the front wheels to "quiver" over the hubs enough to render them "out of round" when applying the brakes. Not saying this is a fix all cure all, but something to add to your short list of quick fixes before dragging yourself to the dealer!

 

I've been doing mine at 135 lbs because 150 lbs seems like overkill. . .

 

At 135lbs., my truck was fine, but decided to follow spec on this one, especially since how the braking on my Excursion degradated over time from being under-torque'd

 

I think 135 is plenty. most people over tighten there lug nuts. they probably won't come loose even with only 100 lbs of tourque.

 

You're probably right, and again, 135 was fine on my truck for 5k miles., but I'm gonna be safe anyway and follow Ford spec, it's printed in the manual. Again, the purpose of this thread was to offer those with brake shimmy issues a possible alternative solution. I don't want this thread to turn into a debate.

 

I have mine torqued to 100 and no issues. At 150lbs you might risk scretching the threads on the studs over time, not sure how much they'll take. I've never been able to find a specific torque rating for our trucks. A good friend of mine is a BMW tech and they don't torque any lugs on any model more than 100lbs. However much you decide be sure to torque them all to the same rating. Different rates on the same wheel is a easy way to warp a rotor.

 

I agree on different torque rates on the same wheel, not good for brakes. Torque specs for our trucks is in the owners manual. BMW's are a bit lighter than trucks, so of course torque specs are commensurate.

 

LOL...I just run mine down as hard as my impact will tighten them and then take a pull handle and tighten them a little more. Probably somewhere between 90-200lbs I would guess.

 

me too :o never had any probs before...

 

i have the wheel shimmy too... but i found out that my left front tire is out of round...