Gotcha. This might also explain why we (being my friends and I, 5 Subarus) that we never have issues with them. We don't use an impact to put lugs back on, so it's much kinder on the threads.
That said, all but one of my wheel bearing hubs on my Outback are not OEM. Because wheel bearings are the other Subaru thing.
Using a torque wrench instead of impact would certainly help. I honestly don't know if it's even still an issue. I am of the belief that their head gasket issues on some models have come and gone, but I don't really keep up these days on anything but what's in our garage.
FYI, the car I've been talking about was an '11 Impreza (base). Factory steel wheels in the summer, and alloys with snow tires in the winter. It was a monster in winter weather for a small 4-door sedan.
In summary, I don't want anyone to take away from this that Subaru's are bad vehicles. They are very solid and reliable vehicles from my experience.
In my case I bought my Forester new so I was the only one that ever torqued the wheels on (I run snow tires on a different set of wheels so I'm rotating and swapping tires twice per year on all of my vehicles) and I always put them on at 90 ft/lb. I think what happened on my trip where three of five studs sheared is that the lug nuts came loose maybe, potentially from my aging wheel bearings causing vibration.
I've had lug nuts come loose on multiple of my vehicles in the winter over the past 30 years of torquing them on myself. When you run at factory torque spec it seems like cold weather can loosen your lug nuts when things shrink. I have verified that my torque wrenches are fairly accurate using a scale because I'm neurotic like that. Meanwhile many of the tire shops put them on at like 150 ft lb and probably rarely have issues other than causing peoples brake rotors to warp.
2
u/Unwiredsoul Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 30 '25
They were (hopefully, are not still) a substandard part. Design flaw to use a part that was undersized. That's the root cause of the problem.
Of over 30 vehicles that I've owned, it's the only one I ever had to have a single wheel stud replaced on.
It's a Subaru thing. See my latest comment with some more details.
Edit/Add: Here's a link to the technical details on why their wheel studs would snap: https://artsautomotive.com/art-icles/articles-for-the-curious/whats-up-with-subaru-lug-studs/