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Shop foreman told me to stop using a torque wrench on drain plugs, and I still think about it
Back when I was green at a shop off I-20 in Odessa, the foreman watched me torque an oil pan plug to spec and told me I was wasting time because "hand tight plus a nudge is all they need." I did it his way on a 2019 Cummins and the plug wept oil for a week until the customer brought it back, so I went back to my torque wrench and spec sheet that same day. Any of you had a veteran give you a shortcut that turned out to cost you more time than it saved?
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morganh4412h ago
Had a guy at a Firestone in Amarillo tell me to skip the star pattern on wheels and just run them down with the impact, said it "saves ten minutes a car." First dually I did that way came back with a warped rotor and the customer was not happy. I went back to hand starting every lug and torquing in a star pattern, takes longer but I never had a comeback like that again. That foreman's shortcut cost me a Saturday fixing my own mess, which was way more time than doing it right the first time. Torque specs exist for a reason, and drain plugs are cheap to do right.
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