We get a lot of letters about a lot of problems here at Auto Repair central. Most are either easy to solve or hopeless, with not much in between. But this one had me, not because of an obvious solution or lack of one, but just because it was funny: Hi, I had my truck in for repairs. The repairs required a torque wrench. When I was watching it appeared that the torques being applied by the mechanic seemed to be substantially higher than those recommended. He said, “Oh, that’s because my torque wrench is out 10lbs.” Needless to say, the repairs became a problem again shortly after they were “repaired.”I spoke to a different mechanic and he told me that a torque wrench is not “just out 10 lbs”. When a torque wrench is out, the amount it is out will vary depending on how much pressure is applied and that anyone knowing the wrench is out should not be using to do precision work. Is this true? Is there a manual or authoritative source of written proof of this that I can take back and show the mechanic? (I somehow don’t think he’ll take my email seriously) He is refusing to deal with the repairs again.Thank you, Terry H.Terry, without knowing exactly what repairs were made, there’s no way to get any kind of answer here. But it’s safe to say that not many repairs will “go bad” just because they are over-torqued by 5 or 10 percent. Some jobs do require very specific torque adjustments, but not many. The real laugh is on your mechanic. Anyone who claims to run a shop but uses a broken torque wrench for anything besides a fish club should be out of business. If you’re still using that shop, check your head for bumps, maybe he caught your blind side with that bum wrenchimages/news/icons/source.gif[/img”> News source: About Auto Repair