Wheel Nut Torque Chart

Full chart

Wheel nut torque for 91 Australian vehicles

Newton metres, with the socket size and stud thread where we could source them. Vehicles that publish more than one figure get a row each: on a LandCruiser the steel-wheel setting is far higher than the alloy one, and using the wrong one is how a wheel comes loose.

If your vehicle is not listed: torque by stud size

A fallback, not a substitute for the handbook. Stay at the low end of the range for alloy wheels, and have a workshop check any stud that has been over-tightened before.

The procedure, in order

1. Your vehicle's own number beats every table on this page. Look for the figure in the owner's manual, on the tyre placard, or from the dealer or van builder first, and only fall back to a table if you cannot find one. That is the order Cruisemaster sets out in its own procedure: tighten to the vehicle manufacturer's torque specification, and if no specification is available, then use the table. Generic figures cannot know what wheels you have fitted, what the hub is, or how the seats are shaped. Every number further down this page is a fallback, not a first answer.
2. Tighten in a star or criss-cross pattern, never around the clock. Go across the wheel, not around it. Number the studs clockwise from the top before you start, then work the sequence for your stud count. Four stud: 1, 3, 2, 4. Five stud: 1, 3, 5, 2, 4, skipping one nut each time. Six stud: 1, 4, 2, 5, 3, 6, so every nut is followed by the one opposite it. Eight stud: 1, 5, 2, 6, 3, 7, 4, 8. Count the studs before you assume: plenty of common Australian 4WDs are five stud, including the LandCruiser 70 Series, the LandCruiser 200 Series and the Jeep Wrangler, while the HiLux, Ranger, Triton, D-Max and LandCruiser 300 are six. Cruisemaster's sheet says wheel nuts should be tightened in a diagonal criss-cross sequence, and Australian Off Road says the correct sequence must be used to locate the wheel centrally on the hub. Going around the clock pulls the wheel off centre, and you end up with uneven clamp and a shudder.
3. Tighten in stages, and do the final torque with the wheel on the ground. Fit every nut by hand first so you know none are cross threaded. Snug them up in the star pattern. Lower the vehicle so the tyre takes the weight, then do the final pass with the torque wrench in the same star pattern. Cruisemaster's procedure reads: make sure the mating surfaces are clean, install the wheel and hand tighten the nuts, lightly tighten all the nuts in a criss-cross pattern until snug, lower the vehicle to the ground, then torque in a criss-cross pattern with a torque wrench. Torquing with the wheel in the air lets the wheel shift on the studs and gives you a false reading.
4. Clean the hub face and the nut seats first. Australian Off Road's procedure begins with making sure the hub surface is clean of dirt or mud and the back of the wheel is clean of dirt or mud. Cruisemaster says the wheel and hub mating surfaces, the wheel studs and the nuts must be free of oil and all foreign material. Rust scale, mud or a stone trapped between wheel and hub compresses in the first few kilometres and the nuts go slack. That is the single most common reason a correctly torqued wheel comes loose on the way home.
5. Never oil, grease or anti-seize the studs. Cruisemaster says it plainly and without conditions: do not lubricate wheel studs. Its torque figures are stated as applying to fasteners in a clean and unlubricated condition, free from rust or corrosion. Every published torque figure assumes dry threads. Put oil, grease or anti-seize on a stud and the same reading on the wrench produces far more clamp load, which stretches the stud. Some coastal owners use anti-seize anyway. We used to print a rule of thumb here about dropping the torque by 20 to 30 per cent to compensate. That number is gone, because no manufacturer publishes a de-rating factor for wheel nuts and a click wrench cannot read a lubricated joint reliably enough to build a procedure on. If your studs are seizing, clean them with a wire brush or replace them. Do not guess a reduced torque.
6. One smooth pull to one click, then stop. Pull the wrench smoothly and steadily, and stop the moment it clicks. Do not jerk it, and do not click it again on a nut that has already clicked, because each extra click adds torque on top of what is already there. Working around the wheel a second time to check is fine only if you stop at the first click on each nut and do not keep going. This is the most common way a careful person over-tightens: they do the sequence twice for peace of mind and end up 20 per cent over. We could not find an Australian published document that spells this out, so treat it as workshop practice rather than a manufacturer instruction, but it is consistent with every torque wrench manual we have read.
7. Re-torque after 50 to 100 km, every time. Nuts settle. CarsGuide advises checking again with a torque wrench after about 50 km when the nuts have settled. The 70 Series Store recommends a re-torque after the first 100 km following any wheel removal, and a check at 100, 500 and 1000 km for a new wheel fitment. Caravans and trailers need more again: 100, 300 and 1000 km for the settling in period, and Al-Ko says every 100 km for the first 400 km. Put a reminder in your phone before you drive off. This applies to a roadside tyre change on the Hume as much as to a new set of wheels.
8. A rattle gun is for loosening and for running nuts down, not for the final tighten. This is the one rule every Australian caravan and trailer maker prints, and Australian Off Road, CSA Direct and Regent Caravans all use the same wording: an impact or rattle gun, if used, must only be used to nip up the wheel nuts for speed; an impact gun should never be used to achieve the final wheel nut torque setting; it is imperative that the final wheel nut torque be achieved manually, using a properly calibrated, high quality torque wrench. A gun hammers rather than pulls, and where it stops depends on air pressure, battery charge, hose length, how long you held the trigger and how dry the threads are. There is no way to know what number you landed on.
9. Over-tightening stretches studs, warps rotors and wrecks alloy wheels. CarsGuide sets out what happens: stripped threads on nuts and studs plus stretching of the studs, which makes them weaker and prone to fracturing and eventual failure, and that stretching can also cause the nuts to work loose. Rotors and drums distort, giving you steering shake and shudder under brakes. Alloy wheels, which are softer than steel, get damaged, along with the alloy dress caps on steel wheel nuts. A stretched stud does not recover. Once a stud has been pulled past yield it has to be replaced, and if one on a hub has been over-torqued, assume the rest have been too.
10. What a torque stick is, and why the colour on its own tells you nothing. A torque stick is a deliberately springy 1/2 inch drive extension bar that sits between an impact wrench and the socket. It twists and soaks up the hammer blows once the fastener reaches roughly its rated torque, so the gun stops driving the nut past that point. Colour coding is not an industry standard and it is not standard in Australia: it varies by brand, and a set sold here may use a colour for a rating that another brand uses for something else. Read the ft-lb or Nm rating stamped on the stick in your hand, never the colour. As one example, the Genius Tools TO-410EXT set runs green 65 ft-lb (90 Nm), black 75 ft-lb (100 Nm), yellow 80 ft-lb (110 Nm), red 90 ft-lb (120 Nm), blue 100 ft-lb (135 Nm), orange 110 ft-lb (150 Nm), grey 120 ft-lb (160 Nm), brown 130 ft-lb (175 Nm), white 140 ft-lb (190 Nm), aqua 150 ft-lb (200 Nm). That is one American brand's product listing and it does not claim to be a standard. Sets sold in Australia, such as the Toledo 10 piece 1/2 inch drive torque extension bar set, are colour coded too, and we could not get their per bar ratings from the retailer page, which is the whole point: check the stamping. Whatever the colour, a torque stick is a ceiling, not a setting. It stops a tyre shop over-tightening. It does not tell you the nut actually reached the number. You still finish with a torque wrench.
11. Steel wheels and alloy wheels often take different numbers. On several vehicles the factory figure changes with the wheel material, and the gap is large enough to matter. Toyota publishes the LandCruiser 200, 300 and Prado 250 at 131 Nm on alloy wheels and 209 Nm on steel. The Prado 150 is 103 Nm alloy and 112 Nm steel. The HiLux 4x2 is 121 Nm alloy and 152 Nm steel, while the 4x4 is 105 Nm. Mitsubishi publishes the Triton at 128 Nm on alloys and 147 Nm on steel. If you have fitted steel rims to a 4WD that came on alloys, or the other way round, you need the figure for the wheel actually on the car, not the one the brochure had. Worth knowing about the source: the Toyota table these figures come from is a Toyota Motor Europe accessory and TPMS installation document, not a Toyota Australia owner's manual. It is a manufacturer document and the figures reproduce exactly, but it lists European models and uses export names, so check your own handbook where you can.
12. Published torque figures assume the factory nut, the factory seat and the factory rim. Change any of those and the number may no longer apply. Cruisemaster puts the warning in capitals on its own stud torque table: torque settings will need to be reduced depending on wheel rim design and type, and you should consult the manufacturer or wheel supplier for specifications to suit the wheels supplied. That applies just as much to a 4WD on aftermarket alloys or a set of Sunraysias as it does to a caravan. If you have fitted wheels the vehicle did not come with, the wheel supplier's figure is the one that governs, and it is usually lower than the stud could take.
13. Match the nut to the wheel, check the stud length, and never buy nuts off a number on a screen. Conical (60 degree taper) nuts, ball seat nuts and flat seat nuts are not interchangeable. Fit the wrong seat and the nut only touches the wheel on an edge, and it will come loose no matter what torque you used. Cruisemaster also warns that with closed end nuts you should run the nut down the full length of the stud before fitting the wheel, to make sure it does not bottom out before it clamps the wheel. A nut that bottoms out feels tight on the wrench and is holding nothing. And do not buy replacement nuts against a thread size listed on any website, this one included. M12 x 1.5 and M12 x 1.25 are both common in Australia and look the same in your hand. Take an existing nut off your own vehicle and match it at the counter.
14. Some vehicles use wheel bolts, not studs and nuts. Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Mercedes commonly hold the wheel on with bolts that thread straight into the hub, and at least one Chinese brand sold here does too. The procedure is different and most of this page's wording does not fit it. There is no stud to hang the wheel on while you start the first fastener, so the wheel has to be supported by hand or on a guide pin screwed into one hole, and a heavy wheel hanging on a part started bolt is how threads get cross threaded and ruined. Start every bolt by hand, never let the wheel hang on one, and use the vehicle maker's figure. The generic stud thread tables further down this page do not cover bolts.
15. Socket sizes: 19, 21 and 22 mm cover almost everything in Australia. 21 mm is the most common hex and covers most Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan, Ford and Tesla. 19 mm covers Honda and Subaru. 22 mm turns up on the Jeep Wrangler JL. 17 mm shows up on some European cars. If you carry one socket in the ute, make it 21 mm, and carry a 19 mm as well if you tow or travel with other people's vehicles. Be honest about where this comes from: the torque sources behind the vehicle figures on this page do not publish socket sizes, so these are trade patterns rather than sourced specifications. We have dropped the Isuzu D-Max and MU-X from the 19 mm list and the Prado 250 from the 22 mm list because sources conflict and we could not settle either one. The only reliable way to know is to put a socket on a nut before you need to. Use a thin wall or nylon sleeved socket on alloy wheels so you do not chew the nut faces or the wheel.
16. If the vehicle is not in the list, fall back on the stud thread, carefully. Cruisemaster's guidance is to use the vehicle manufacturer's torque specification, and only if none is available fall back to the stud size table. That is the right order. When you do fall back, take the low end of the range rather than the high end, and get the real number from the owner's manual, the tyre placard or a dealer as soon as you can. Be aware that the trailer tables are maximum tables: Cruisemaster's figures are headed Maximum Recommended Hub/Drum Stud Torque and are based on 80 per cent of stud yield, so they are the number you stay under, not the number you aim for. Do not use a trailer stud figure on a car, and do not use a car figure on a light truck. Isuzu N Series, Fuso Canter and Hino 300 wheels are out of scope for this page entirely, and their studs and torques are nothing like anything listed here. Under-torqued nuts come loose and over-torqued studs snap, and a generic table cannot tell which risk your vehicle is closer to.

What the impact wrench is actually for

• ▸An impact wrench loosens, a torque wrench tightens. That is the whole rule. Use the gun to crack the nuts and to run them back down until they are snug, then put the gun away and do the final pass with a calibrated torque wrench in a star pattern, with the wheel on the ground. AIMS Industrial puts it the same way: use the impact wrench to run the nut down and snug it up, then finish with a calibrated torque wrench, and it warns that tightening lug nuts by feel with an impact wrench risks over-tightening, which stretches studs and cracks alloy wheels, or under-tightening, which lets the wheel loosen in service.
• ▸What the nut-busting number on the box actually means. It is a breakaway figure, measured in reverse on a stiff test joint under ideal conditions, and brands do not all measure it the same way, so two guns quoting 900 Nm are not necessarily comparable. Many guns also quote a lower fastening torque, and that figure is just as much a test bench number. What your gun puts into a nut on the way in depends on battery charge or air pressure, hose length, how long you hold the trigger, the socket and extension you have on it, and whether the threads are dry. None of that is repeatable, and none of it is measured. This is why every Australian caravan and trailer maker prints the same line: an impact gun should never be used to achieve the final wheel nut torque setting. A high nut-busting rating buys you the ability to get a seized nut off. It buys you nothing at all on the way back in. If you want the speed of a gun without the risk, put a torque stick between the gun and the socket, and still check every nut with the torque wrench afterwards.
• ▸How much nut-busting torque you actually need. Australian wheel nuts run roughly 100 to 145 Nm on passenger cars and 120 to 165 Nm on 4WDs and SUVs, with factory steel wheels on a LandCruiser 70 Series at 209 Nm. Breaking a nut loose takes considerably more than it took to tighten it, because of rust, road grime, the seat bedding in, and the fact that half the utes on the road were done up by a rattle gun on full noise. AIMS Industrial's guidance is that a 1/2 inch impact wrench with 400 to 600 Nm is sufficient for normal lug nuts, and that 600 to 800 Nm of breakaway torque gives more margin on corroded or over-tightened fasteners. For a typical Australian 4WD, buy on the 600 to 800 Nm nut-busting figure. Buying on the fastening figure is buying on a number you must not use.
• ▸For a seized nut on a coastal or outback 4WD, or a wheel that has not come off in five years, go higher again. A pneumatic 1/2 inch wrench at 1000 Nm or more is the tool that handles truck wheel nuts and genuinely stubborn rusted fasteners. If you are buying one tool for a station or a workshop that sees 79 Series utes and caravans, the 1000 Nm class is the one that will not leave you leaning on a breaker bar in the dirt. Keep in mind that a 79 Series on steel wheels leaves the factory at 209 Nm, so a nut on one of those that has been on for years and had a gun over it every time needs real grunt to move.
• ▸Do not use an impact driver for this job. An impact driver is the 1/4 inch hex tool for screws. Its hex chuck and bits are not built for the side load of a wheel nut, and the bit or the chuck is what gives way. Output is typically under about 200 Nm and often well under that, which is frequently not enough to break loose a properly torqued or corroded lug nut anyway. What you want is a 1/2 inch square drive impact wrench with impact rated sockets. Standard chrome sockets can shatter on an impact wrench.
• ▸The torque wrench to buy for this job. Wheel nuts across the Australian fleet run from about 95 Nm on a Suzuki Jimny to 209 Nm on a LandCruiser 70 Series on steel wheels, and caravan hubs on M14 x 1.5 studs work at 209 Nm with a 245 Nm stud ceiling. A 1/2 inch drive click type torque wrench covering roughly 60 to 340 Nm reaches every vehicle and trailer figure on this page. Click wrenches are least accurate at the very bottom and very top of their range, so if you mostly do one vehicle, pick a wrench whose middle sits near your number. Have it checked for calibration every couple of years or after you drop it, and always wind it back to its lowest setting before it goes in the drawer, because leaving the spring loaded takes the calibration off.

Caravans, campers and box trailers