What Made you Smile/What Ticked you off Today?

[MrPopo]

2. Merging highway traffic that shoot down as far as possible and even continue into the shoulder to try to jump as many cars as possible. Made even more annoying when cars not merging will jump into this new 'open lane' in an attempt to jump up 10 or 12 cars in line. I will attempt to cut these people off by moving over slightly so they cant go past me.

3. Similar to 2. People who wait til last second to get in exit lane of highway. The exit lane backs up and we are slowly crawling along, and these people haul ass all ylthe way down til last possible second and try to squeeze in. Then they get pissed when those who have been waiting don't let them in.

We have both of these out here, except all the drivers who aren't me allow people to pull this shit.

The other massive problem we have is people will come to a dead stop on an active roadway to let someone in the center turn lane to make a turn; let's be polite! Except I nearly rear ended you because I wasn't expecting you to stop, since I look at both you and the traffic ahead and there's no reason for you to be stopping.

@mjmjr, there's a difference between the "I'm impatient" honk and the "you've fallen asleep at the wheel, pay attention to the road" honk. I use the latter.

[Fragems]

: Well got all new lugs installed for $20 and they are much sturdier then my previous ones.

: When I got home I checked to make sure they were loose enough that I could get them off on the road if I needed to. Once again they got them a little to tight even after I told them to be careful. Hand loosened and retightend them, but of course one was way to tight and started to strip. Guess I'll swing by next week and get another one at least they only cost me $1 a piece install included and it's on my back left so I can get to my front brakes and swap them out.

[Ziggy]

: Well got all new lugs installed for $20 and they are much sturdier then my previous ones.

: When I got home I checked to make sure they were loose enough that I could get them off on the road if I needed to. Once again they got them a little to tight even after I told them to be careful. Hand loosened and retightend them, but of course one was way to tight and started to strip. Guess I'll swing by next week and get another one at least they only cost me $1 a piece install included and it's on my back left so I can get to my front brakes and swap them out.

...Talking about lug nuts on your car?

I know a lot of places put them on with an impact gun and it makes it really hard to break loose by hand. But a lot of places also tightened them to a specific torque spec, and you really don't want it any looser than that.

If you stripped one... something is wrong. You weren't using the right socket size to remove it. If you're only using the tire iron that came with your car, and you replaced the lug nuts, that might be why. Your new lug nuts might be the correct thread size, but now requires a different socket size. Or they're just garbage. But either way, they shouldn't be stripping so easily. Especially if they're brand new. And if you ARE using the tire iron that comes with the car, and it resembles a capital L, you should go ahead and buy a "cross" tire iron to keep in the trunk. Those L tire irons are a good weapon if you're getting mugged, but they're awful for changing tires on the side of the road. The cross style tire iron makes life a lot easier. Even with over tightened nuts.

[Fragems]

: Well got all new lugs installed for $20 and they are much sturdier then my previous ones.

: When I got home I checked to make sure they were loose enough that I could get them off on the road if I needed to. Once again they got them a little to tight even after I told them to be careful. Hand loosened and retightend them, but of course one was way to tight and started to strip. Guess I'll swing by next week and get another one at least they only cost me $1 a piece install included and it's on my back left so I can get to my front brakes and swap them out.

...Talking about lug nuts on your car?

I know a lot of places put them on with an impact gun and it makes it really hard to break loose by hand. But a lot of places also tightened them to a specific torque spec, and you really don't want it any looser than that.

If you stripped one... something is wrong. You weren't using the right socket size to remove it. If you're only using the tire iron that came with your car, and you replaced the lug nuts, that might be why. Your new lug nuts might be the correct thread size, but now requires a different socket size. Or they're just garbage. But either way, they shouldn't be stripping so easily. Especially if they're brand new. And if you ARE using the tire iron that comes with the car, and it resembles a capital L, you should go ahead and buy a "cross" tire iron to keep in the trunk. Those L tire irons are a good weapon if you're getting mugged, but they're awful for changing tires on the side of the road. The cross style tire iron makes life a lot easier. Even with over tightened nuts.

I was using an 18inch socket wrench breaker bar from one of my Dads socket sets and they were still tight. Got 19/20 loose but that last one just didn't want to budge . I'm 320 pounds so I can exert quite a bit of force thus I started to strip one which was way to tight . They are a smaller tire shop with older impact guns so I figure they just went a little overboard once again even though I asked them to be careful.

Will probably be in that area again next week so I'll just get them to toss another one on for a buck.

The tire iron in my car is just a cheap L one with an extendable handle so I'll probably get a cross one sometime in the future.

[Jmustang1968]

If the socket is the right size, you shouldnt be stripping lug nuts. You want your lugs to be tight, basically to the point you have to crack or break them loose with the iron.

[mjmjr25]

@mjmjr, there's a difference between the "I'm impatient" honk and the "you've fallen asleep at the wheel, pay attention to the road" honk. I use the latter.

I tend to agree and in most cases law enforcement would too, i'd think. A car in traffic, not moving as other cars are could certainly be justified as a potential or perceived emergency for a number of reasons.

[Ziggy]

If the socket is the right size, you shouldnt be stripping lug nuts. You want your lugs to be tight, basically to the point you have to crack or break them loose with the iron.

Yeah, I don't remember exact torque specs off the top of my head, but they should be pretty tight. They can be over tightened with an impact gun, which makes them difficult to remove with a wrench or tire iron, but still you shouldn't be stripping them with the correct size socket. Unless they're garbage nuts. A lug nut should be strong enough where, even if it's over tightened, it wont strip out with the correct size socket. And it shouldn't rust.

The tire iron in my car is just a cheap L one with an extendable handle so I'll probably get a cross one sometime in the future.

Yeah, you don't wanna be stuck on the side of the road with one of those garbage tire irons. The cross kind crucial, you apply so much more torque with two hands. Or, for that nut that's seized on their, you can use two hands on one side and a foot on the other and apply even more torque (I've had to do that once or twice). In fact, just the other day a co-worker had a flat and I had to put a donut on for her. She only had the shitty L kind of tire iron that came with the car. I tried using it, but after about two seconds I said "Fuck this!" and got my cross tire iron out of my trunk.

Funny (but not at the time) story:

I went to leave for work one day and noticed I had a flat. Then I noticed that it wasn't even my tire! In the middle of the night, some low life dirt bag had a flat and switched his bald tire for my good (and matching) tire. Luckily I had a free spare, but after that I decided to get wheel locks. So I got a set of 4 and put one on each wheel. I kept the key in the center console.

Faster forward a year or two, some one broke into my car and stole some stuff. As if that didn't suck enough, I realized a day or two later that they also stole the key. Good thing I realized that before I got a flat on the road... I would have been fucked! I got creative and was able to remove all the locks myself, but it wasn't easy. At that point, I replaced the locks with regular nuts and got a Viper alarm instead. But boy what a pain in the ass it was removing those locks!

[prfsnl_gmr]

@mjmjr, there's a difference between the "I'm impatient" honk and the "you've fallen asleep at the wheel, pay attention to the road" honk. I use the latter.

I tend to agree and in most cases law enforcement would too, i'd think. A car in traffic, not moving as other cars are could certainly be justified as a potential or perceived emergency for a number of reasons.

What if you are the creepy guy who honks at attractive young women? Can that get you arrested in Minnesota? (If so, I am never visiting... )

[MrPopo]

@mjmjr, there's a difference between the "I'm impatient" honk and the "you've fallen asleep at the wheel, pay attention to the road" honk. I use the latter.

I tend to agree and in most cases law enforcement would too, i'd think. A car in traffic, not moving as other cars are could certainly be justified as a potential or perceived emergency for a number of reasons.

What if you are the creepy guy who honks at attractive young women? Can that get you arrested in Minnesota? (If so, I am never visiting... )

Luke, what are you doing on prfsnl_gmr's account?

[prfsnl_gmr]

Luke, what are you doing on prfsnl_gmr's account?