Dragging brake?

I just had my tires rotated and balanced at Sears (and an oil change). As soon as I drove off the lot I sensed that there was a drag on the vehicle. I did not hear any noise but the vehicle seemed to slow down more rapidly when my foot was off the gas and it generally felt like their was resistance. Is it possible the mechanic did something which caused this while rotating the tires?

Anything is possible. I would not drive the vehicle until you get it checked. You could have loose lug nuts, a damaged brake line, or even have directional tires reversed…even though this generally would not have caused this much increase in rolling resistance it’s worth checking out.

They torqued the lug nuts right before I drove it out. Could it be they over-torqued the lug nuts which is affecting the brakes?

Not likely, I don’t see any way that overtorquing lug nuts could cause the brakes to drag, but you still need to get everything rechecked.

This may sound silly, but are you sure the emergency brake is released? If you never use it and someone else does, you may have not released it when you got in the car or it might have stuck and not released all the way.

They may have used the parking brake when they parked it. If you never use it, it could have locked up.

I went back tonight and got it rechecked. The mechanic test drove it, put it on the rack and spun the wheels to see if the brakes were dragging and rechecked the torque. He said he noticed nothing driving it and the brakes did not drag when he spun them on the rack–he said he didn’t need to remove the wheels to see if the brake was dragging. He set the torque at about 110. He also checked the parking brake. He found nothing wrong. The truck still feels like it is dragging to me.

If he could spin all four wheels by hand they are not dragging when you drive it.

I agree that the best way to test for drag is to put the vehicle on the rack and try spinning the wheels by hand. Any drag will be obvious.

Do you have directional tires on the truck? You can tell by looking, because the grooves will be in the shape of a V and there’ll usually be an srrow molded into the sidewall telling you which way it should turn.