You are not likely to have a three foot pipe on the side of the road nor you may not have someone along that can press on the brake pedal to keep the wheel from spinning. I alway re-tighten the lugs in the garage when I get home to make sure I can get them off again on the road.
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I am sure they would honor the warranty, but doesnât the warranty include a clause like âor your money backâŠâ all $18.00⊠
And all you have to do is return the engine⊠Luckily that was before most warranties included the phrase, âin the original cartonâŠâ 
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The ad says $18 per month. I donât see where it says how many months. Kinda sounds like the Snap On truck!
The Minnesota AG would likely sue them for deceptive advertising like he did to Menards. People too stupid to realize what 11% rebate was. Rebate means rebate not discount. But then he is not good at English either
Stone cold serious, Purebread. Iâm not Fox.
I totally missed the per month notation! Arg, Iâll get out my JC Whitney catalog!
How do you jump on a tire iron!
As far as the way you were taught to tighten the lug nuts, same here. Spin them on snug, lower to ground contact tighten, then I would give them a final tightening when the car fully lowered to the ground.
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After changing a flat, 25 years ago, on I-95, in one of Floridaâs 95 degree, 95% humidity days, joined a road side service club. Heh, fortunately did not need roadside assistance when my girlfriend go me into some of those Georgia communities that inspired dueling banjos.
Easy: I placed it on the lugnut in question so as the handle pointed toward 9 or 10 oâclock on a face with hands. Grabbed the roof of the car and hopped up on the bassterd, and started jumping up and down until the handle got down to 8 or so oâclock. Then it was regular elbow grease to back the stubborn nuts off once I jacked the car up.
My 2010 Accord specifies 80 ft lbs per lugnut. I torque to 85 because theyâre old, but thatâs all. I loosen them all and re-torque to spec once per month, just to check if any chicanery took place anywhere I went out to, and never have to stand on the iron after torquing to just above spec.
Most shops and service centers would probably torque to 100 or 200. I understand the cover-your-a s s mentality that might prompt some places to do such, as someone stated above, but it leads to taking drastic measures when doing it yourself, lol!
About 4 years ago, on a Friday evenng, a pair of those replacement window door-to-door solicitors, young guys maybe 20-something, rang my door bell for the second time that week. I told them in an understandably frustated tone to never sest foot on our porch again.
The next morning, early Saturday, my wife borrowed the car becuse she didnât like driving hers with a check engine light on(replacement gas cap issue it turned out). I decided to go out walking, and noticed a rather familiar looking lug nut at the curbside of our driveway.
I panicked, got in her car, and sped to where I knew she shopped. Sure enough, on the passenger rear tire of that Accord, a nut was missing, and two others were finger-loose. I returned the one in my pocket to its location, got out my tire iron, and checked all 20 lugnut positions on that car. The other three wheelsâ nuts were untampered with and still tight.
Coincidence, or did it have something to do with Friday nightâs door bell?
Yeah vandals fit the story better for me too but then ya think these kids carry around a ratchet and a couple sockets just in case they run into an unfriendly. I dunno. None of i5 makes sense.
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And you think that you get picked on here for to your âzanyâ postings⊠Now the whole world (as my wife says, âthe UniverseâŠâ) is out to get you. And maybe they areâŠ
As has been often attributed to Joseph Heller, author of the book âCatch-22â, âJust because youâre paranoid doesnât mean they arenât after you.â
Why on earth would you decide to confront two strange men who knocked on your front door?
Then there is the issue that you âtold them in an understandably frustrated tone to never set foot on our porch again.â Why did you not âpolitely informâ them that you were not interested? 
My home has a front porch with three steps up to it⊠It is the norm in my area that door-to-door sales personnel, ring the doorbell or knock, and then step back off the porch and down the stairs, so as not to pose a threat.
If we do not like the looks of the person(s), we simply do not answer the door⊠If we do answer the door and we are not interested, we apologize and tell them that we are ârentersâŠâ That seems to end the conversation immediately and we bid each other good-bye.
Also, we always glance out the windows to see if the salesperson left and which way they went as we all kind of try to look out for each other.
And finally, I have never seen a traveling salesperson carrying a universal lug wrench⊠And I for one do not have an intimate relationship with my lug nuts so none of them look familiar to me⊠And (boy thatâs a lot of "and(s)) you are saying the these two went out to your car and removed one lug nut and loosened the rest and no one noticed? As Judge Judy famously says, âIf it doesnât make sense, itâs not true.â
So, my advice to you on this very Merry Christmas Day, is if you are going to confront folks on your front steps in your " understandably frustrated tone" or " to politely inform" them to never set foot on your porch again, then you might want to add some (or more) security cameras, get an attack animal, and put the police on speed dialâŠ
I hope the rest of your day is better that it apparently startedâŠ
Because they, or possibly another pair of door-to-door window sales guys, had solicited us no more than 3 days prior. And before that, two weeks prior.
Since about 2020, the prevalence of door-to-door window, chimney, and roof service solicitors in our neighborhood skyrocketed. I even saw another pair ringing a neighbor across the street WHILE I WAS DISMISSING an individual solicitor, some time before this lug nut incident.
I remain polite, up to a point where enough is enough.
In their defense, these guys were at ground level, in front of the first step when I leaned out the front door.
It just seems odd that the next day, the lugnuts were loosened and one in my driveway. As I recall, being as it was at the time of their visit dusk, they could have come back from their vehicle parked several doors away, walked down the driveway around in back where our cars were parked, and done their deed. We had no motion sensor lighting or CCTV at that time on that house.
As far as the other suggestions offered here: Stating âSorry, weâre just rentersâ, or other tactics, well, at that time it just never came to mind. Iâm not the most street-savvy tool in the shed, so to speak. My Dad and Aunt, conversely, were expert readers of people, and could see/smell a b u l l s chitter a mile away.
OK, so now you know, tell door-to-door sales people you are ârentersâŠâ
To handle unsolicited sales calls, donât answer unknown numbers, hang up immediately if you do, and never give personal information.
For interesting calls, be polite but firm, state youâre not interested, and end the conversation quickly. I might also add that âI am House sittingâŠâ
Donât press any numbers: Pressing buttons, even to opt-out, as it can signal your number is active and lead to more calls.
Donât say âYesâ: Scammers use this to record you agreeing to something.
Donât share info: Never give personal details like account numbers, SSN, or passwords. If you receive an email or a phone call with notices of nefarious action on your credit, never reply to the email or answer and questions on the unsolicited phone call, âthank them,â hang up go get your credit card and call the number on the back of the cardâŠ
Be wary of spoofing: Caller ID can be faked, so a âlocalâ number isnât always trustworthy.
Now with your newfound âsuper-powersâ use them wisely⊠Donât â â â â them off, remember, even burglars and robbers are only "trying to make a living⊠" L LâŠ
These I know.
One advantage of todayâs smart phones is they always display âsomethingâ corresponding to an incoming call. They can be programmed to display the names of family, friends, frequented businesses one uses, etc. Even assign unique ring tones and text tones so there is no guessing.
All others I ignore, and let go to voice mail, if they choose to leave such.
As for my encounter with those replacement window guys, like I said: three solicitations within two weeks? And not just them, it might have been a pair offering chimney sweeping services. I kinda snapped at that point, plus I was also under stress from some issues at work at that time, so it all boiled over.
I feel that if it was those guys who tampered with my lugnuts, that could be considered a crime, if, the wheel had come off, resulting in accident and injury to my wife, and or property damage to whatever the wayward tire struck after leaving my car.
If they didnât like my tone, they could, after I went back inside, hacked up and coughed a big slimy phlegm onto my front porch steps. Gross, uncouth, but not life endangering! But never f u k with someoneâs car.
RE: calls and button pushing buttons. In the 90s, before caller ID, we were getting weekly calls from a legitimate financial institution that wanted to refinance our mortgage (no interest reduction) this went on for many weeks, we told to them to stop calling us, they ignored that request until we threatened to sue. When the Feds and the state created âdo not callâ lists we were still getting calls from solicitors. Donât press buttons, this goes for emails too. The unsubscribe button just flags the email account as active.
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We have 3 dogs, the little red head is 55 lbs and very prey driven, powerful, stupid fast/quick, and the queen B, she is our 1st cordless door bell most of the time, the other one (the big head) is around 80 lbs and VERY powerful, and the old grouchy man is 100 lbs and none of them like strangers anywhere close to the house⊠We have a nice sized front porch with 7 (I think) steps, most door to door sales personâs are in the yard before I can get to the door⊠lol
Normally I canât hear the sales people anyway from the very deep barking and tell them to leave the info on the outside table cause I am holding the door so the dogs canât get outâŠ
But otherwise they are very friendly dogs that love people, both pits love the grand kids and people at the drive throughs..
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About 15 years ago, I listed my landline with the FTCâs Do-Not-Call Registry, due to an increasing number of spam calls and other unsolicited calls.
Within one month of being on the Registry, the number of unsolicited calls to our number SKYROCKETED. I unregistered, but the damage was done.
I had to change our kreldan phone number to regain some peace in the house.
Oh, I used an acronym! What does âFTCâ stand for?
Federal Trade Commission.
What do they do? Regulate and FACILITATE TRADE.
WHY would I list my private phone number with an agency that facilitates trade??? The first thing theyâre going to do is either provide or sell my number, along with that of other folks, to merchants. Thatâs facilitatinâ trade!
I never again Do-Not-Called any phone number of mine with them.
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My neighbor has five big âdoodlesâ. I think most are labradoodles. Last one she got is loud and obnoxious so her cat frequents my house. Of this writing the cat is on my couch! The benefit for them, door to door solicitors usually walk away.
Dogs and trucks, we used to vacation in North Georgia, my girlfriend liked hiking up to various waterfalls. Iâm loading the truck, my dog came out, sat by the passenger side door. She was making sure we took her along. There is tubing on the Chattahoochee River, dogs are allowed, my dog, a Shih Tzu, does not like water.
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