imagine this, a one and a half inch nut in the teeth of a impact socket with one inch drive, at the end of a 5 foot long breaker bar, with a 300lbs man jumping up and down on the very end of the handle...

and instead of loosening the nut, the breaker bar breaks right where it goes into the socket.

THAT was excessive force.

( it was the rear axle bolt on a 1974 VW super beetle)

Wow, I'm surprised you didn't flip the car over! Yeah, I've broken a couple of breaker bars on axle nuts, and I thought I was going to break one on the damper bolt on my Integra.

If you look at the bearing caps here http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10263088/ I was trying to remove those bolts with that ratchet sitting there, but I had to switch to a foot long 3/8 ratchet and actually grunted to loosen most of them.

cheater bar

cheater bars make everything easier