How much abuse will a Craftsman TQ wrench take?

Firestone rotated my tires on the company vehicle about 2 weeks ago & I
had reason to try to remove a rim today. After failing to even budge the
thing with a 1/2-inch ratchet, I began to wonder just how tight those
lugnuts were. Tough on the torque wrench but sometimes you just gotta
know. In this case all the wheels were fastened at better than 250 ft/lbs.
The Craftsman TQ wrench gave up the ghost on the last wheel.....
And they won't replace it- only 1 year warranty on torque wrenches
I had a chat with Firestone just before lunch, we'll see what (if anything)
they'll do.

Ya know what would be cool... if you took the rest of that wrench apart so we -I- could see the guts of one of those things.... im just sayin'

250ftlbs!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
What did they use to get that THAT tight? A 10-foot peice of pipe?

When confronted they denied using a speed wrench ("we hand torque
all wheels") but I know & they know that it was an impact gun......

few questions for you first up is do you have aluminum wheels? if so ive put on wheel ligs hand tight before and because of the reaction between alum wheels and steel lug nuts and studs it wont ever come off.

Also it always takes more torque to take something off then it does to put something on so maybe those 2 factors is why they were so hard to take off or they are idiots which could be true

Yup, it's got factory aluminum rims. (the seats of the lug nuts don't have
anti-seize on them but the threads do)
Called a friend of mine that maintains our race-cars at the track and ran it
by him. With a 3% error at the wrench & needing over 250 ft/lbs to back
the lug nuts off- we're talking far above and beyond what you would expect
to need in increased torque to remove a nut due to just the expansion
of the aluminum from heat.

I've probably had fifty or more people bring thier cars to me for lug nut removal.I have always taken a propane torch & heated the nut for maybe a minute and they usually screw right off without much effort.Of course you're going to come across that one in a hundred that you have to wring off & end up replacing the stud. Calspec

Thats the reason why we used torque sticks at Ford. They are a wonderful invention

i heard about torque sticks and that they actually work anyone know how they work at all just curious?

They are designed specifically for those meat heads that use a 1/2 inch impact for everything. Just a steel rod with 1/2 inch sized on one end, then varying socket sizes for each of the 6 sticks. Regardless how much force you put on them with the impact, they are designed to flex in the shaft to only allow a given torque.