Aldi torque wrench

so when you check the nuts/bolts are tight, do you back them off first? .... sounds like going round & round & round in circles 🤣

 Yes I found it was funny when i had a new tyre fitted on my mini years ago after a while when i was going slow there was a rattle coming from the front wheel on removing the hub cap two broken wheel studs fell out 

Bailey had a problem with the Unicorn range some years back and recommended checking torque on wheel nuts before every trip. I bought a Draper and haven’t used it since switching to a motorhome. One problem is that they are supposed to be periodically recalibrated but that doesn’t sound very practical.

many years ago I was an apprentice mechanic. I remember the first time being sent to get a "talk" wrench I thought they were kidding me, like going to the stores for a long weight or a left-handed screwdriver. hitchglitch is quite right, the "professional" wrenches are supposed to be recalibrated at least once a year as the internal springs stretch and they become inaccurate. I can't imagine anything under £50 being up to much, probably just as well follow the technical advice of my old foreman, get a long bar and tighten to FT!

Sorry not been back to my discussion but had some issues, all the reply’s are great and show a wide variety of opinions. The comments on recalibration is correct in the work place I was told by a motor engineer though that as long as you take the pressure off after use the wrench with the slight use privately would be fine without annual recalibration.

One trick I use is when the service engineer sets it I follow with my wrench this gives a reasonable check my wrench is as accurate as the engineers.( I have my caravans serviced on drive at home so always there)

All wheel nuts should be checked after a few mile following a service which removes the wheels.

Thank all for contributing it been interesting.

 ... probably just as well follow the technical advice of my old foreman, get a long bar and tighten to FT!

or ... as a bloke I used to work with said 'tighten till you fart, then another 1/4 turn' 😂

Knowing someone who had a wheel come off their car within a week of buying new tyres, has heightened our concerns over torques. So we do have a torque wrench and it’s used to confirm that wheel nuts are correctly torqued after they’ve been removed for any reason. The manufacturers show correct settings on most data plates, ditto tyre pressures. Towball bolts also require specific tightening.

Very many mechanics will tell you that their experience has calibrated their right arm to know when the correct torque has been applied. It’s not a reassurance which I’d rely on if my life depended on it, which in a way it does. I suspect too, that particularly with thick bolts and heavy ratings, over tightening is as much of a problem as the reverse. Precision engineers will lubricate threads so as too eliminate any friction which would detract from torque wrench tightening.

As with many things, extreme examples may illustrate points more clearly. We have a low range torque wrench which we use 100% for bicycle maintenance, where over-tightening thin bolts creates a real risk of subsequent failure. Under tightening too.

As for quality and accuracy, I’m not sure that super accuracy is essential for checking wheel nuts. Given that many Aldi/ Lidl tools can be found outside their stores at several times the price, it’s not altogether sensible to dismiss their offerings as too cheap to be any good.