Can I torque my wheels with an impact?

We call them a Budd Bar. I don't know what their actual name is but if you sent one of the crew to get one they all knew what you were asking for.
They're great as long as they don't get wallowed out and even then you can shim them a little with pieces of sardine can. Past a certain point, just throw them in a canyon for the archeologists to find someday.

 

I watched a man with a Kodiak service truck and pto driven compressor when his company issued him a set of those. The compressor was set at 200 LBS plus with a 1 inch hose to the gun. He had them on some big machine and wide open on the gun. They were snapping like tooth picks while he was laughing and throwing them back in the box for management.
They have their place but it is not with that guy. He could however put a tire on a 950 Cat loader by himself.

 

OK here is how I do it, milwaukee m18, 3/4 inch

I tighten all the wheel nuts up, so the wheel is on flush, then I go around and hammer on the nuts whilst counting to 5, but when I do this I watch the numbers on the socket and ensure it isn't still moving around.

I worked out 5 secs, as it's the time the socket stops turning, I can't undo the nuts by hand with a bar, but the impact also has no issues taking them off.

Never had a nut come loose, your impact might be different, you might need 8 secs etc, but this is the system I use.

It's more about knowing your impact and building your procedure around that.

I can easily get 80 nuts from a fully charged 8 amp high output battery.

However I do try and space out the work so the gun doesn't get to hot, like I will do 1 wheel, do some other stuff, then do the second 30mins later, if I just blast 3-4 wheels at a time the gun does get a bit hot

 

And this……

 

Yup, have that too. It’s a MUST tool.

 

Had an idiot in the shop try to hold one of those with his hand while using an impact, it didn't end well....

 

I just did mine.. 1/2 milwaukee with 3 inch extension . hammering them on for anymore than 2 seconds i got 1 wheel torqued over 500 ft lbs.. The rest were under and tighten the rest of the way with torque wrench...

 

Years ago I used to get a laugh out of a fellow off road racer that always used an impact to tighten his gland nut holding the flywheel onto his engine.
Torque was to be 350 to 400 ft lbs depending on manufacture.
He would come in every so often with a crank to see if we could fix it and say oh boy this one made so much power it tore the dowel pins apart. We would fix and machine it for larger pins and again try to respectfully tell him to just invest in a torque wrench capable of the task.
This went on for years and he almost never made enough power to need those larger dowels but he would almost inevitably ruin a flywheel and crank once per season.
We on the other hand never lost one using a proper torque wrench and we built 30 engines to his one and made a lot more power.
The thing to understand here is the inconsistency of an air tool. If it has to be right you don't use an air tool!

 

Oh, they will be torqued, you just may not know the what they were torqued to.

 

I use my Milwaukee 1" D-Handle. It has a Torque mode that hits to ~450 lb.ft. and then I follow up with a torque wrench for the final torque.