hey just adjusted my coilovers. lowered the front about a little more than half an inch and i don't know if it's just me or the roads that i drove on, but my car feels kind of unstable in the front. It feels like the wheel will fall of or something. Though it can purely be my head, because this is also the first time i ever adjusted them or actually removed the wheel and put them back on - so I don't know if i put the lugs back on properly. I also tightened them pretty well with a pipe extension.

should I get a torque wrench and redo the lug nuts just to be sure or should i just rely on my weak strengh and assume the nuts are tightened?

could the unstable feeling just be that i need an alignment?

btw, i did not take the car on the freeway yet.

or by and by it could just be my head?

 

You're probably just over reacting, but if it'd clear your mind buy a torque wrench. Personally I let the power of a Impact Drill to do the work.

 

well i dont have an impact drill... i just used my minimal brute strength to tighten up to the point where it's tight. I didnt want to over tighten it/warp my rotors even more.

does 80 lbs per lug nut sound good?

 

I looked it up on a Google, and alot of posts said you'll be fine at 80.

 

any chance that lowering half an inch messed up my alignment and thats why im feeling the /weirdness/ difference?

 

yes


also, have you had your tires balanced lately? if not, that might help too


This kid who bought my old Civic called me one day and told me it was all wobbly and asked what to do. Sure enough, he took off the wheels and didn't tighten the lugs tight enough.

I recommend double checking your lug nuts before you go spend any money. 80lbs is factory specs i think.


either way though, you NEED an alignment.
Every time you adjust your height, you ruin the alignment.

 

okay thanks man
i will get a torque wrench today to be sure

and no i havent had wheel balancing in over a year. - but would removing the wheel and putting it back on cause the balancing to be messed up?

 

No, that would not mess up the balance of the wheel.

 

okay - then its probably under tightened lug nuts or alignment issue - I didn't want to over tighten the lug nuts so when i did them i just stopped applying pressure as soon as i felt it was tight.

 

^well, the thing is about that is that they feel tight really early, because with the wheels on the ground it takes more force on the nuts to get them to go down and pull the wheel right up to the hub, because when you tighten the lug nuts, the tire is literally being dragged on the ground to move towards the hub, and on top of that you have 1/4 the weight of the car pushing down on that wheel.