Thought I would try and see what the general consensus is on this, as I am a novice mechanic and I have no idea what the right answer is. A few of my more mechanically inclined friends have told me that torquing isn’t all that important for most things and that torque really is only important for certain parts. Is this true? Because when I look in my service manuals for my vehicles it seems like they have recommended torque for most bolts… is this more of a recommendation? Is it okay to just make most bolts “tight’nuff” and call it a day? Interested to see what people’s thoughts are on this.
Important, as others have said.
My caliper bolts are to be torqued to 135 ft/lbs on the front. If I just used a ratchet and went “good enough” chances are pretty good they would eventually vibrate loose and my entire bracket would end up in my rims or somewhere else causing a lot of damage.
Could I use a break bar and just uga dugga them tight? Ya probably and they would probably be ok for a long time to. Do I want to risk one of the most critical safety aspects of my truck being the brakes? No , no I do not.
Lug nuts are another one. You don’t wanna over tighten those to the point you stretch and break the studs, having catastrophic failure and your wheel coming off on the highway (interstate). Some lugs call for 70ft lbs, some like my truck call for 130ft lbs.
Will it always lead to failure? No probably not. Do you want to risk your (and your friends/loved ones lives?) I’m going to take a guess and say no, probably not.
Tl/DR: invest in a torque wrench and use it. 20ft lbs isn’t much and can be over torqued. 130+ ft lbs is pretty heavy torquing and you’ll never “feel” it out