On my car I used a bit of nickel anti-seize on the threads and tapers. Mainly to help prevent them scratching and galling the mating tapers on my $4000 rims.
The McGuard/TRD nuts I used have a cool feature where they have a 'floating' taper that can rotate on the nut, to further help prevent scratching and galling.
There are those who claim that putting anti-seize on wheel studs prevents you from properly torquing the lug nuts and they will essentially be under torqued. But I've done it for years and never had an issue. Turns out the mechanic I deal with does the same.
Lubricating threaded fastners causes excessive tightening, not under tightening. The torque is an indirect indication of the tension in the joimt. The calculation to derive the torque for a given tension includes a factor for friction. If you lubricate a bolt and tighten to a dry torque figure the forces in the bolt and joint will be too high. So RTFM and use what the designer intended.
Note I'm from an aviation background where to save weight fastners are sized "just big enough" (factor of 1.5 or 2 times) so correct torque is much more important.
It's often not realised that one reason for high fastner loads is to improve fatigue life in joints subject to cyclic loads. This includes wheel studs connecting rod bolts etc. It is not to prevent loosening.
Edit Mansaxel types faster than I do
1000xTHIS!Even the most mundane applications have some pretty complex fastener specifications anymore; lugnuts are especially important depending on the the material of the rim, and failure to apply the correct technique
and torque can cause cracking or galling of the rim, warp a rotor, or even cause premature axle bearing failure, especially in FWD vehicles.
RTFM is the order of the day
for sure nowadays, when even a grandma's grocery-getter car like our Rav4 needs special tools for the cartridge oil filter.
Regarding rattle guns... yes, the new cordless ones are effing amazing; the advent of industrial brushless motors has finally made possible an electric motor armature with a ratio of torque to low rotational mass similar to an air motor, and with similar rotational "elasticity". Traditional big air-gun hammer/anvil designs finally work correctly, where electrics used to have to muddle through with dog/pintle clutch designs that just cannot generate as much "break-free" torque.
While I still own a 1" drive air impact (rated 1400 ft /lbs, but you need to feed it with ~20HP compressor and a 3/4 in hose to get that; talk about a air-waster
) from the farm days, these new electrics are effing amazing. It's just that for SOME applications (like big trucks and buses), we're still talking an order of magnitude more horsepower required, and portable electric just isn't reasonable.
Yet. In perspective: I have a 1/4" hex drive, as well as a 3/8" & 1/2" square drive Kobalt impact gun; these are rated 1800 in-lbs, 150 ft-lbs and 380 ft-lbs respectively. With proper shank/socket,
any of these will whip the lugnuts off/on the Rav4.
All of these have
an electronic adjustable tightening torque-limiter. On lowest setting with the 3/8" and 1/2" drive models, this limits to ~40ft-lbs; this is
perfect for the first round of torquing on most passenger vehicles, to be immediately followed by 2nd or final round with a proper torque wrench.
And all these 6S Li-Ion powered cordless guns come in at $99 everyday (they have a 650 ft-lb rated 1/2" drive model now for $199 with batt/charger) or around $50-75 a pop when bought in whatever kit LOWE's has on sale for Father's Day or Christmas...
*
EDITED: I forgot I actually have 3 of them now... I'll suggest that
this is probably the biggest reason you'll see tire shops switching over to cordless rattle-guns; it's gotta be
a lot less assache than fuck-knuckling a couple of torque-stick sockets (a one-piece socket with long shank that limits torque by dint of metal elasticity) and air zip-gun/hose all around the shop.
This has to hugely improve the efficiency of workflow in such a high-turnover environment, where the metrics aren't measured by the usual 1/10th, but by the 1/100th of an hour.
mnem
Adapt or die.