Andre, That's sort of what I assumed. Thanks for the verification. Steve In a message dated 10/26/2005 9:23:25 AM Central Standard Time, andrecas@aol.com writes:

From a purely mechanical & physics perspective, i.e. not considering corrosion issues, etc., metal to metal threaded fasteners should be lubricated and torqued to spec. A threaded fastener is intended to produce a clamping pressure on the joint - if the fateners are dirty, rusty and poorly lubricated, a greater portion of the applied torque goes into overcoming the rotational friction of the nut and less goes to the clamping force, i.e. holding the wheel on. So somewhat paradoxically, lubrication increases the clamping force (which we want) for a given level of torque.

As in the earlier message, it's very true that one should be very careful when allowing poorly calibrated air guns near your wheel nuts. I always re-torque my lug nuts by hand after having my car serviced (but then I'm a nutty engineer!) Andre