There are certain tools that I recently purchased that had me slapping my forehead with my palm and thinking “You dummy. You’ve been doing things the hard way for so long!” I’m sure this feeling is one shared by you, dear wrenching Autopian members. So let’s try to save younger wrenchers the agony: Here are the tools I wish I’d ponied up for years ago.
Some of these tools are expensive, and my budget meant I couldn’t really afford them. But most of them are on the borderline — they’re tools that I could technically afford, but they’d be painful to pay for. But now, years later, I realize these tools’ true value, and I know for a fact that whatever pain I would have to have endured at the check-out counter would have been worth it.
First off, there’s the flex-head ratcheting wrench:
Seriously, if you have $100 burning a hole into your pocket, buy a set of metric and English flex-head ratcheting wrenches. Having to turn a standard wrench by hand 10 degrees at a time is painful; you have to set it, turn it, reset it, turn it again, reset it. And sometimes the space you have to swing the wrench means re-setting it is a pain in the ass. Just buy a ratcheting wrench; that saves you the pain of continually resetting your wrench on a nut or bolt. You could get a solid ratcheting wrench set, but I find that its utility is severely limited; having that flex head makes a huge difference.
Next up are power tools. Seriously, it makes me cringe thinking about how much time I’ve wasted trying to remove a wheel with a damn half-inch ratchet. Just throw the socket onto an electric impact wrench like the one above, hit the button, and the lug nut will be off in under two seconds. Just buy one of these. Stop using breaker bars and cheater pipes and all of your might to loosen stubborn nuts when you can just tap a button.
Speaking of power tools, just last week was the first time I put my 3/8″ electric ratchet to the test. It’s a bit big, with that chunky battery at its end, but it’s still incredibly useful, especially for smaller bolts that don’t require that beefy 1/2-inch-drive impact wrench.
I have a huge list of other tools I wish I’d purchased sooner, but the flex-head wrenches and power tools are at the top of my list. They make life so much easier!
What are some tools you wish you’d bought earlier in your life? How much time/effort have these tools saved you since you’ve owned them?
Rolling tool chest.
That’s a god dang game changer. No more lost tools, no more walking miles in the shop looking for that specific tool you need once a year, no more lost bolts that you just throw about.
Get one.
Could be auto related one day. I’ve rented the augers from Home Depot and they never work for post holes, especially if your terrain is in CO and rocky like my backyard… I’ve bought several pair of “post hole diggers – clam style” and those blow.
I finally bought a 69″ Husky post hole digger and tamping bar. It was like $40. This thing, it’s heavy and you just sort of drop it in the ground and jam it around. It loosens dirt and rocks and anything buried like a champ, and in minutes you’ve got holes for posts! I’ve also used it as a long wedge to break apart some pallets, tamped down some loose grass spots, used it as a long lever to hold up a sagging shed door to fix the hinges, pried up a lot of flagstone…and the list goes on. One day when my truck gets old enough I can see using this thing as a long leverage tool for removing stubborn rusted parts, shocks, etc!? Anyway that’s my tool contribution lol, should have bought this years ago
Rivet nut setter. I tried the DIY way for a few years with it working about 50% of the time. For $50 from Harbor Freight, it was worth twice that amount in frustration and time saved.
I’ve got a few.
1) Electric Ratchet. I finally got one last year and its been a game changer. I’ve dealt with ratchets that slip gears or pop from one direction to another for years. Now, I can just toss on the electric ratchet and boom. A job is done pretty quick.
2) Extendable handle ratchets. I can’t tell you how many times I’m in the middle of a project and realize i need a breaker bar for this one stubborn bolt or nut, which results in a run back to the tool box, digging around for the 1/2in breaker bar I have, inevitably, trying to find the 3/8ths adapter, and then going back to the project at hand. Its so good to just be able to extend the handle and get that extra bit of leverage without needing to run back to my tool chest.
3) An actual mechanics tool chest. I had a small one for a few years that was never enough storage and was a mess (partially my own design). This meant I had my small tool chest with wrenches, a tool box with specialty tools under my work bench, my mechanics tools in the box they came in, hammers in a cabinet….yeah you get the idea. I scored a narrow but tall Craftsman stackable tool chest at Lowes for a song (like 75% off because it was a floor model) and its changed me. I finally have everything in one place, including all of my speciatly tools, air tools, etc. And its organized! The big bonus is that I have a battery charging area, so I can keep my power tools in there too and have ready access to everything I need for a project. Bonus, for big projects, I can just wheel it over next to what I’m working on.
Tools I already have:
1)ratcheting wrenches, like the above. I’ve had them for a long time, but when I first got them I was like, “where have you been??”
2)Power tools, see above.
Tools I still don’t have:
1)Air, air, air.
Nitrile gloves. About a decade ago, I was visiting my mechanic friend Dan, who swore by nitrile gloves, ever since he was changing his brake fluid without gloves, then tasted the fluid in his mouth, apparently carried by his blood circulation. Worn them ever since.
So many good ideas and tools here!! I tend to think I have a solid tool collection, but now I have a list of new items to check out.
One thing I would recommend is watching comparison reviews of the tools you are considering buying. Since making that a part of my buying process, I have discovered many new quality brands, often at lower prices than I was prepared to spend.
There are may good utube reviewers, but the one I trust the most is Project Farm.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectFarm
A cheap dead blow hammer. Much safer than whacking stuff with a regular metal one, both for whatever you’re hitting and for yourself.
A Dremel. It’s amazing how many PITA situations a Dremel can get you out of.
A motorcycle lift. After 35 years of crawling around on the ground, $400 for a Harbor Freight bike lift table has been transformative.
Similarly, Quickjacks have made working on my car about a million times easier than placing jack stands and executing three separate lifting actions to get the car on them.
Also: electric ratchet and a NoMar motorcycle tire changer.
Getting power tools that all share the same basic battery pack. So not only are they cordless, but means I basically always have a backup battery ready.
Electric ratchet 1000%. Also ratcheting wrenches
Not strictly car-related, but it took me an embarrassingly long time to buy a cordless drill. I think I was put off by complaints about battery life and/or discontinued battery packs, but when I decided it was time to install a doorbell camera and realized the only thing holding me back was my lack of desire to deal with extension cords, I finally bought a cordless drill. What a game changer…it’s amazing how much more stuff you’re willing to tackle when you don’t have to worry about locating an outlet. And of course the battery packs are compatible with the manufacturer’s other cordless tools, so I’ve added even more neat stuff to my collection.
I now have M18 1/2″ impact, a 1/4″ impact driver for woodworking, a light, and an electric ratchet. I was like you, largely dubious of cordless after some bad experiences in the late 90s.
It gave me the confidence to buy an Ego leaf blower, which has been way better than the corded or 2 stroke leaf blowers I owned before.
Same here, bad and expensive experience in the 90s put me off battery powered tools for 2 decades. Relocated about 5 years back and started upgrading my tools. So far, have found Dewalt 20V XR tools to be excellent and am now standardizing on that platform. But, even the much less expensive 20V Craftsman drill I bought 5 years ago to evaluate the cordless’s situation is still hanging in there.