Talk:Lug wrench

July 2015

Regarding the "citation needed" note for the statement about the general public's common misuse of the term "tire iron" to refer to a lug wrench, all you have to do is search google news for "tire iron" and note all the stories talking about people using a "tire iron" from their trunk for one purpose or another (violence, breaking something, etc) - yet tire irons haven't been in common use for cars since' the 50's, and it would be a highly rare circumstance that any car on the road today had a tire iron in its trunk - in some cases, if you look closer, or if there are pictures included, you can confirm that the item being used was in fact a *lug wrench* and not, in fact, a "tire iron."

What is the proper way to add a citation for this?

172.8.112.65 (talk) 14:46, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Citing sources and Help:Footnotes are the places to start with citations.

We can't really provide a proper citation for an analysis you or I did based on how many items turned up in a search. This violates Wikipedia's policy of no original research. I have deleted the claim from Tire iron and Lug wrench that this is an error, and that it's common. We need a third party source who tells us it's an error. See Wikipedia:Search engine test for more discussion of this.

It's too bad that no dictionaries cover this alternate usage of tire iron; I even checked 6 or 7 slang dictionaries and found nothing. Based on what I've seen, I think that "tire iron" is said when the tool pulled from a car trunk is used as a weapon, and "lug wrench" is said when it's used on wheel lugs. But that's only my original research and we can't put it in an article. Hopefully we can find a good source to make a clear statement on lug wrench vs tire iron.

I'd also note that while cars don't come with tire irons, most cars come with a single bar with a lug wrench on one end and a pry bar on the other. The pry bar is not a tire iron; it's for removing hubcaps, but the tool looks almost the same as a tire iron and it's understandable that it would be described this way, especially in the context of an improvised weapon, not changing a tire.

It's amusing that Dictionary.com defines a tire iron as a tire removal tool, and all 3 examples they give are of a car's lug wrench being used as a weapon. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:55, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

This discussion drew me in despite my original plan not to bother. Wikipedia has articles on both of these tools. There should be {Distinguish} hatnotes on both that link to each other. I added them. — ¾-10 02:07, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

British lug wrench

What kind of a tool is described here? --Espoo (talk) 06:06, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

LUG WRENCH and TIRE IRON

The terms LUG WRENCH and TIRE IRON are very different. The items they refer to are somewhat different, but very related in the minds of ordinary folk; they are all one category. Ordinary people are not at all clear about which words to use for which. They will often think of just one term, when they are seeking info about the other kind of thing!

The readers would be best served if these two articles were merged into one, so that they would always have immediate access to the info they seek.

Lacking such merging, merely starting each of the two separate articles with a simple NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH before the lede is not working very well. The new reader needs pics, not words. Each article needs a pic of the other thing, to lead the new reader to what they seek. The new reader comes to these articles because they do not understand the names. They immediate skip over NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH because they are indeed very much confused; they need more effective help. Finding just a pic that does not match what they seek leaves them lost and adrift.

I don't feel very optimistic that these sorts of improvements will happen. Maybe the best we can hope for is if someone would make one great master photo of all of these types of tools, that we could try to get into each of the related articles, with captions to tell the proper terms for the different tools, to aid to linking to the relevant article.

• www.walmart.com/ip/K-Tool-International-KTI-71940-4-Way-Sae-Tire-Iron-Lug-Wrench/41081565

K Tool International KTI-71940 4 Way Sae Tire Iron / Lug Wrench

It is easy to show that lug wrenches are commonly also referred to as tire irons. We should not allow formal dictionary definitions to divert us from being responsive to common usage.-71.174.185.30 (talk) 19:54, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

You know, the profession of lexicographer is to find out what the common meanings of words are. It's the fundamental purpose of dictionaries. It's not easy to believe that anonymous people on the internet can do the lexicographers' job better than they can. Regardless, the way Wikipedia works is we find out what the general consensus is among the most accepted mainstream published sources, and we summarize that. So it always comes down to the question of whether you have sources to cite or not. Sometimes I don't agree with the mainstream consensus, but nonetheless that's what you will find in Wikipedia. Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:34, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Dennis Bratland never heard of it, so it can't be true. QED. Autists ahoy. 2601:547:C000:D240:AD4B:1053:7C5A:5989 (talk) 13:54, 1 May 2021 (UTC)