411/412/603 wheel nut torque?

[Kevin H]

This isn't about to become the subject of a law suit, but the topic came up (again) yesterday because I finally picked my 411 up from the mechanic who has had it for the last 9+ years.

The mechanic and I have had quite a lot of correspondence lately in which I have criticised numerous events in relation to my car, which in a roundabout way I was saying were down to either his negligence or at the very least a poor decision on his part. Yesterday he went about denying responsibility for every one of these events for one reason or another, in most cases claiming we had conversations that we did not in fact have. One of these issues was the wheel falling off when I went to road test the car earlier this year.

He said he asked me for the torque settings, which he didn't, and went on to say that in the absence of any manufacturers information regarding wheel nut torque I supposedly told him to use the same settings as a Jensen, which apparently is 55 ft/lbs. This is in fact a complete fabrication of the truth because we never had any such conversation.

Originally Posted by RGSchmitt

"Common sense would dictate prudence on the part of both the mechanic and the owner."

In other words, if you would rather not be driving with a wheel
falling off, know the right torque values and watch the wheel being
reinstalled accordingly!

Okay, so what should the torque value be for the wheel nuts?

And in real life how many owners of Bristols, or any other car, (a) know what the torque spec is, and (b) supervise the mechanic doing up the wheel nuts with a torque wrench?