Tool shopping is a dangerous game. Sometimes you walk in for some PB B’Laster and a weird socket and walk out having spent $100, and sometimes you just see stuff that makes the Bud Light “Real Men of Genius” song play in your head. I hit up Princess Auto (basically the Canadian equivalent of Harbor Freight for when you need something Canadian Tire doesn’t carry) yesterday to grab a few sundries, and stumbled across one of the greatest tool sets I’ve seen in my life – the Titan 10×10 10 mm socket set.
Basically, it’s a pack of five 1/4-inch drive 10 mm sockets and five 3/8-inch drive 10 mm sockets, all with different functions. The kit comes with a standard six-point 10 mm chrome socket for standard use, a deep-well six-point chrome 10 mm socket for when you need extra depth, a 10 mm chrome socket with a u-joint for hardware that’s tricky to access, and then standard and deep-well six-point 10 mm impact sockets you can slap on an impact driver and whizz away on difficult hardware with, all in 1/4-in and 3/8-in drives. Obviously, it’s frowned-upon to use the chrome sockets on an electric impact driver as they could snap and take you eye out, but at the same time, I’m not your dad. Just use your best judgement when it comes to stuff like this and don’t say I didn’t warn you.
In case you’re blissfully unaware of how critical 10 mm sockets are for working on modern cars, most cars I’ve owned have required 10mm sockets for fairly basic jobs. For instance, removing the rear fender liners on an E90 3-Series absolutely requires a 10mm socket, as does changing the cabin air filter on a 2003-2004 Infiniti G35. Because of how some of this hardware is recessed, you just can’t get at it with a 10 mm spanner, and if you aren’t vigilant with your tools, it’s easy to misplace your 10 mm sockets, even if you just set them down for a second mid-job.
Hell, there’s an entire subset of memes dedicated to 10 mm sockets and how often people lose them. You’ve probably seen a few float across your social media feeds over the years, all with varying degrees of tastefulness. “I got 99 sockets but a 10 mm ain’t one” is always a chuckle, but putting one of these sockets on the side of a milk carton gets iffy.
This 10-pack of 10 mm sockets would make a fantastic gift for wrench-happy car enthusiasts. Birthdays, anniversaries, bar mitzvahs, weddings, divorces, you name it, a bunch of 10 mm sockets is always useful. Best of all, it’s cheap – around $20 if you look around a bit. While I’m sure these aren’t the highest-quality sockets money can buy, sometimes the quantity is so great that it simply makes up for average durability. I had a few ratcheting wrenches made by Titan and only one broke, and it was when I was doing something stupid with it. So, if you want a vast number of alright tools, you might as well give this tool set a try. At the minimum, it makes for an excellent conversation piece.
(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal, Google, Titan Tools)
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Shopping in general can be a dangerous game… when I was young, my mum once sent dad out mid-morning to get a loaf of bread to use for lunch. He came back 2 1/2 hrs later with a bunch of tools for the workshop and garden… and no bread!
I very much thought dad wasn’t coming home at all in this story so that’s a pleasant surprise.
At least Dad came home
Once a year I buy a fresh one of these sets to keep on top of my toolbox, and I can’t tell you how thoroughly it’s worth every single penny
Harbor Freight has a similar set : https://hftools.com/app58957
I have numerous 10mm sockets… but since I live in the country that created the metric system it’s one of the easiest thing to get.
USA ( and our neighbor the Rossbeefs to a lesser extend ) should fully drop the Imperial system and embrace the Metric one.
( hell for Americans to still use a system that came with the unwashed English they made a revolution to be free of… Even if it got distorted along the way )
As a roastbeef I agree. Sure, the imperial system has some ‘intuitive’ units (I maintain that a pint is a better size for a drink than a demi-litre), but when it comes to actually doing something, metric all the way. If just need to make something fit, I might use inches if that’s what the materials/tools I’m using are made in, but as soon as I need to do any maths, I convert everything to SI.
Did you just call 50cl a demi-litre? That is wildly funny.
But really, the whole metric vs imperial always sounds like nonsense to me. The USA is largely metric already in what matters (science, manifacturing, etc), and if imperial works well for the people, just let them have it. I’m from a metric country, I think metric is great, but I don’t see a point in forcing it on people form whom it doesn’t make sense.
Referring to Canadians as ‘Roastbeefs’ is a new one for me.
Apparently it was used as an offensive slang term for the English…
Insert “The more you know” meme here ????
Ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2913151.stm
Do they have a 9/16 imperial set?
Found a few in weird places too, like parking lots and crosswalks.
This is so cool! For decades in my tool box lives a Snap-on 1/4″ drive flex ratchet married to a short extension and a 10mm socket. It’s always ready to use and I have used it a lot.
Thinking of seemingly unusual tools that I’ve used a lot…
You know the hose spring clamps? They’re metal clamps that of course are circular & are shaped to “spring back” & provide even tension through their full circumference…
Well after fiddling with different pliers (for years) I found a “spring clamp tool” in a Sears tools dept. Back BF they submarined their Craftsman brand.
Super useful tool, especially since modern car cooling system packaging constraints are so limited, it has changed removing Saif clamps in tight confins from super pain in the ass to mostly mildly annoying
This is genius, but in addition to the 10mm, I need an 8mm, 12mm, and 15mm, as our Honda uses mostly the first two and my Lexus uses mostly the latter two. I’ve been pretty good about being able to almost always find a socket when it goes flying, but there was one time I couldn’t find a 10mm after wrenching on the Honda. I assumed I would find it somewhere in the garage after the fact, but instead heard it fall on the ground on a busy road during the test drive. It was my favorite 10mm deep socket too…
Your other 10mm deep sockets are gonna start messing with if you’re not careful.
I once got a socket set as a gift and when I opened it the 10mm was already gone. I assume someone had opened up the set in Canadian Tire and taken it. Or, with their generous return policy and often indifferent staff took the thing home, used it for a while and then returned it saying the 10mm was missing back to the shelf it went.
When my father passed away, while cleaning out his house ( in another state), we were donating his tools. Knowing that, I took all 5 of his 10mm sockets from that toolset and brought them home for me.
Weirdly, I feel like it’s always a 13mm in the Porsche. The 10mm is safe. The 13mm is the one voted Most Likely to Fall Into a Wormhole to Hell.
The Citroën DS engine bay is a portal to another dimension, swallowing all kinds of milimeter tools for decades.
Add forgetting to reconnect the hood release wires after having the front fenders off, and you can’t even get in to it again after closing it.
The Porsche 356 has a nice big tool shelf all around the upper part of the engine, and a nice mutter and washer catching bowl under the crank pulley. If only all work there didn’t have to be done on your old weary knees..
Don’t forget your 17mm ratchet box for the top motor/tranny nuts.
Can’t find it now but there was a reddit thead that proposed “where would you hide your keys from the entire force of the FBI looking for 7 days, if you win you get 1 mil”
Dude zip ties a 10mm socket to his keys and threw it in his engine bay.
You crazy kids with all your metric tools, all you need is SAE and a hammer! Now I’ll see myself out.
i plowed the garden one year and lost my wallet. …ten years later while plowing said garden i found it again.
those 10mms aren’t lost they just haven’t found their way home yet.
Wow
Ah Princess Auto. The go to place when Cambodian Tire doesn’t have sales and you need it yesterday.
Hasn’t stopped me from doing that for years at my shop. Chrome Harbor Freight sockets + Harbor Freight 1/2″ to 3/8″ downsizer + Milwaukee 1/2″ 18V impact. Somehow I’ve only broken one downsizer in several years, never broke a single socket.
Not even an eye socket?
Harbor Freight also has a pack of assorted 10mm sockets and some online retailer had a sampler kit with a wrench and sockets all in 10mm. Oddly my modern car wrenching requires a lot of 8mm sockets so I have two 8mm 1/4″ drive deep sockets, and couple of 7mm items.