Does Tire Rotation Include Tightening Lug Nuts?

[Econoline]

WTF, Michigan???? What the actual fuckity fucking fuck?????

https://jalopnik.com/does-tire-rotation ... 1839270921

[BoSoxGal]

See why I quit the law?

Of course in a reasonable world, the dealership would just have paid the damages to vehicle and occupants considering the mechanic admitted his negligence. I’d be curious to know whether the dealership refused to pay, or if their insurer refused and pushed the matter to litigation. Insurance is one of the most evil industries in existence.

My tire shop not only tightens the lug nuts, they insist I come back within 100 miles for a free re-torque.

[ex-khobar Andy]

The dealership who did this will suffer from customers not returning for service. If they had just paid up it would have been one of those 'shit happens' occurrences and everyone would have moved on. I think It will be overturned on appeal.

[Joe Guy]

The shop could counter the bad press by putting up a big sign outside that says, "Free Lug nut Tightening With All Tire Rotations."

[Scooter]

I believed the ruling to be fucked up until I read the comments on the article. The mechanic did, in fact, perform all the elements of a tire rotation. He just performed the last piece, tightening the lug nuts, badly. That is negligence, not unfair or deceptive practice, which is what the law is intended to cover. The mechanic did not charge for a tire rotation that he did not perform, nor did he set out to deliberately leave the lug nuts loose (say, for example, to skimp on time, or to cause damage which he could then charge to repair). He just did a piss poor job of it.

Whether costs should be awarded in what was actually a negligence case is a different question, which might have produced a different result if it had been presented that way, rather than overreaching to claim fraud when what happened was a dreadful mistake.

[Joe Guy]

You’re right. The person who wrote the article doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The plaintiff’s attorney should have known better. Justice was served.

[Scooter]

Of course in a reasonable world, the dealership would just have paid the damages to vehicle and occupants considering the mechanic admitted his negligence. I’d be curious to know whether the dealership refused to pay, or if their insurer refused and pushed the matter to litigation.

This was a PI case brought by the passenger (I'm guessing that the mechanic covered the repair costs for the owner of the vehicle). Either the parties were far enough apart on damages that they believed it worthwhile to go to trial, or the plaintiff's lawyer saw an opportunity to rack up a lot of legal fees that would be paid by the defendant if the courts could be convinced that the statute at issue applied in this case.

[BoSoxGal]

I understand about the origins of the case, but my question is about what happened before the lawyers got involved - when it was just the passenger going to the dealership and asking them to cover medical costs, etc. directly related to injuries incurred by the negligence of the mechanic who failed to tighten the lug nuts.

Like the lady who was horribly maimed by McDonald's coffee and originally only asked them to cover her out of pocket medical bills, a paltry few thousand. She later got millions and McDonald's got a huge amount of bad press and a new guideline to serve lukewarm coffee - this probably made lots of other people much safer (they'd had 700+ complaints tied to the boiling temperature of their coffee) but it wasn't a positive thing for the company.

When I was county attorney we had a couple of cases where our insurance refused to settle with a plaintiff and demanded that we defend a lawsuit if we wanted them to cover any payout; the Commissioners wanted to pay because it was clear that the County was negligent, so I handled those cases and we reached very reasonable terms with the plaintiffs and the County took the funds from general operating budget. Insurance companies are pretty much hard line refuse all claims and THEY are at fault for a lot of the logjam in the torts system that gets blamed on plaintiff's attorneys.

[Burning Petard]

Many years ago I saw a friends car with alloy wheels and the lug-holes badly oval led because the nuts had not been properly torqued. Not so much a problem on old steel wheels. That episode led me to get a torque wrench with half-inch drive and a big socket that fits my lugnuts; and keep it in my car trunk. Never used it. But it was there if I every had to change a wheel out on the road. Now I am trying to find a local source to re-calibrate the torque wench. A matter of prudence. "In the event of an actual emergency" is the wrong time to check if emergency equipment is actually working.

As I read all the posts above, the question on appeal was who pays the legal bills. Not who had liability for actual harm.

snailgate.

[Big RR]

The point I see here is that the court ruled that this was negligience, not willful fraud or misrepresentation. In a neglience case the plaintiff is entitled (to the best degree possible) to be made whole, in a willful/intentional tort case the defendant is responsible for enhanced damages due to his misconduct.

Here the appellate court found that the work contracted for was performed, albeit negligently; it did not say that the tightening of the nuts was not part of the service asked for, only that the party performing the service did not do so properly (and that this was not an intentional act, but a negligent one, so the plaintiff was not entitled to the enhanced damages and attorneys fees. She still, presumably, was made whole, she just didn't get anything else. Indeed, in most cases, even ones where the damages are high, they are based on negligience, not intentional acts.

I agree with BSG that, in many cases, the litigation could have been avoided entirely by good faith settlement negotiations on the part of the dealer, but the insurance comnpanies are often jerks and try to bring everything down to the wire to see who blinks first (and they, with all their assets, can afford to delay and not blink).

[wesw]

BP

at 0ne p0int, calibrating a t0rque wrench was part f my j0b

we had t0 use a skidm0re-wilhelm device, which was ab0ut 10 grand.....

we used a 4 f00t wrench, very expensive and calibrated it every m0rning

even n that the markings n the wrench were never actually very accurate

I adjusted the wrench t0 the prper t0rque, then taped the adjustment in place.

the wrench seldm g0t 0ut 0f adjustment after the initial setting

the markings n a cheaper wrench are unlikely t0 be accurate as t0 the true t0rque values

if yu never used y0ur wrench nthing has likely changed inside it.

my advice is t0 set yur adjustment t0 what y0u think is a reasonable value, and tape the adjustment in place.

calibrati0n is expensive and basically p0intless in y0ur situatin.

the 0nly way t see if y0ur lugs are pr0perly t0rqued at a sh0p is t0 l00sen them and retighten them anyway

if y0u are 0n the r0ad just use y0ur best judgement t0 tighten them

nicely snug f0r aluminium and slightly m0re snug fr steel

a g00d f0ur way, crss shaped lug wrench is a really g00d t00l, I keep a 4-way in my vehicles

just a th0ught

wes