True, I have no Honda experience at all. Plus I’ve never had to replace a wheel stud on any of my vehicles. But the vdo’s seem to make it look pretty easy, using a stack of washers to help pull the stud through.
Again, I must repeat myself, as I did to another participant:
I don’t do things “how I think is best”, I do things according to specifications. I don’t know how to make that clear enough to some of you.
As to your second point, “letting the shop do their work, and replace any studs that get broken”
That is ridiculous.
If shops and service departments DO THEIR JOBS CORRECTLY, there should be no broken studs or warped rotors.
I’ve never heard of rims - steel or otherwise - causing studs to break. I remember from my professional days as a Mechanical Breakdown Inspector that chrysler in its infinite wisdom and attention to detail and customer satisfaction (ATTENTION: SARCASM!) installed soft alloy studs on its masterpieces so that wheels could only be installed once. The second time threads stripped. I wouldn’t be surprised if subaru cut corners now like chrysler has always done. In any case, if stud nuts are over-tightened, they either break immediately or - in case of some ford or bmw - cause rotors to warp. In other words, my guess is that the stealer broke the studs and “did not notice” but good luck looking for sympathy from them.
My solution is: NEVER let anyone touch my vehicles. In rare cases (new tires), check studs on the spot and check torque/re-tighten when get home.
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I had this problem before. When using a torque wrench, did you “click it twice”? Essentially double checked that you got the right torque. I found that when I did this, on the second time, the nut would spin a little bit, resulting in more torque. It’s best to have confidence in your tool or don’t, so no need to double check. Only click once.
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Good advice.
Also, I’m not completely rigid on the “spec torque” thing: Anything up to 5 ft lbs over spec I consider not over-tightened. Especially original lugnuts on a vehicle 5-15 years old.
Generally speaking I click once in the sequence, and then run around once more and click. It’s partly just about making sure / double-checking that I did hit every fastener. This is relatively easy with 4 or 5 or even 6 lugs - but get onto something like an oil pan with 10 or 12 with lots of criss-crossing and sometime diagonals and whatnot, and I’d like to make sure I didn’t just space out and miss one.
The key is not how many clicks, really. It’s to not apply any more torque after the click. Check 'em 5 times if you want - so long as you don’t keep going after the click.
Speaking of which, anytime I do wheels, I go back and check after about 500 miles or so. (And you still just stop at the click).
Tester
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I go around the car once and click torque them to 60 ft-lb. Then set it to 80 and go around once more, tightening each nut until the wrench again clicks once.
That’s for my Honda Civic. For my Town and Country van, I do 70 first and the final torque (90) the second time around.
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Steel wheels aren’t the problem; aftermarket rims could be. I once had my snows mounted on aftermarket rims. The seat of the lug nut was not OEM spec, so the rims came with their own nuts and instructions to use only the nuts provided. Using the OEM nuts with the aftermarket rims could cause the wheel not to seat properly breaking the studs.
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As the other fellow mentioned, I am suprised that you didn’t hear them banging around. I buy my tires at Costco and take them back for warranty repairs.
On each of their invoices they mark " Return in so many miles for retorquing."
Sometimes I do snd other times I use my torque wrench.
So maybe leave the wheel covers off and retorque.
Road salt should not affect hardened steel.
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I have replaced a couple of splined studs that go in from the back of the faceplate, without too much difficulty, but the screw-in type, broken off, could be rather difficult.
I always go through all studs the second time to make sure I didn’t miss any, and they NEVER spin more. Granted, all my vehicles are Toyotas. In your case, it seams like the studs are soft and stretch.