Torque wrench bargain

[Lady Campanula]

I found I needed a torque wrench to put an outboard properly back together again, and I got a bargain at the SBS.

I was charged £20 for a tool that is priced at £80 in Halfords and other car parts dealers, and I was well pleased with the bargain.


Now this Torque Wrench Set is available at ALDI, for £12.99....

 

[saltwater_gypsy]

Middle of the the road torque wrench for £20 at Machine Mart...good value. Halfords can be expensive!!

I see in the Aldi ad. it says..."This Torque Wrench Set is the car mechanic’s dream."...aye right!!!!!

 

[NorthUp]

I put one of these cheepies (looks identical) on a calibrated tester once- I forget the exact figures but at around 80 ft/lbs on the scale, it was pulling over 120.... you get what you pay for with tools!

 

[doug748]

Now this Torque Wrench Set is available at ALDI, for £12.99....


Thanks for the notice on this one, I will be asking Father Christmas for one
- simple to calibrate using a spring balance

 

[NorthUp]

Now this Torque Wrench Set is available at ALDI, for £12.99....


Thanks for the notice on this one, I will be asking Father Christmas for one
- simple to calibrate using a spring balance

I should add- the error was consistent, I just made a note of the discrepancy and adjusted accordingly.

 

[MrCramp]

Now this Torque Wrench Set is available at ALDI, for £12.99....


Thanks for the notice on this one, I will be asking Father Christmas for one
- simple to calibrate using a spring balance

It is not worth buying cheap tools. A torque wrench is doing a vital job, you might as well just guess as use one of these cheap jobs. Halfords might be a bit expensive but the quality is good and their torque wrench should last most people a life time.

 

[Jenaline IV]

It is not worth buying cheap tools. A torque wrench is doing a vital job, you might as well just guess as use one of these cheap jobs. Halfords might be a bit expensive but the quality is good and their torque wrench should last most people a life time.

Please tell me you are joking? Halfords sell cheap stuff expensive... unless you have a trade card.

I have an identical torque wrench to this, lasted many years before it required adjusting. I might just get myself another, cheaper than recalibration

 

[doug748]

It is not worth buying cheap tools.

Well, I have to admit I buy cheap tools all the time. I feel there are a number of good reasons for being and old skinflint. I don't expect them to last or perform as well as expensive ones though.
Occasionally I am staggered by their quality.
I recently bought an electronic caliper, the finish is as per Mr Moore and Wright, and it is well up to the job - 9 quid.
I also got an excellent clock gauge (DTI), again excellent - 8 pounds
Bingo.

 

[Alfie168]

I've got two torque wrenches. The first I have had for nearly 35 years and is just a long piece of metal that bends, with a pointer that points to a scale as it bends. It was very cheap as thats all I could afford, and is probably inaccurate. I bought it when I was a student to torque up head bolts on my motorbike. Its gone on to tighten aluminium heads on three Peugeots, a couple of Ford iron heads, and 2 x Citroen 2CV heads. None of them gave any problems,so it must be alrightish.

When it came to the heads on an Alfa V6 I decided to treat myself to a much posher Draper 'click' type...then I got cold feet and gave the engine work to someone less likely to cock it up...there being rather too many things thrashing about at high revs to trust to an amateur on a four cam 24 valve Alfa......and the Draper torque wrench sits in its nice plastic box...never ever used....

Tim

 

[MrCramp]

Please tell me you are joking? Halfords sell cheap stuff expensive... unless you have a trade card.

The quality of the tools that Halfords sells is very good. I agree their prices are high, unless you get some special offer.

If you were to visit any main dealer garage you will probably find the machanics are using "snap-on" tools, one of the market leaders for quality products. Halfords tools are not far behind snap-on for quality. You are unlikely to find any torque wrenches from Lidl on the premises.

 

[alan_d]

If you were to visit any main dealer garage you will probably find the machanics are using "snap-on" tools, one of the market leaders for quality products. Halfords tools are not far behind snap-on for quality. You are unlikely to find any torque wrenches from Lidl on the premises.

And your point is?

Of course people who use tools in the course of their daily work need ones that will be durable and easy to use, but different considerations apply if one is buying a tool for a particular job but expects to use it infrequently thereafter. Like Alfie168 I bought a bendy torque-wrench with a pointer when I was a student, to tighten the cylinder-head bolts on a Mini in my case, and in the succeeding 40-odd years I have used it on perhaps half-a-dozen occasions. If I was doing something now that was very torque-critical I might buy a better one, but if it was that critical I would probably pay a skilled person to do it for me. Meanwhile I still have my torque-wrench for the odd occasion I might need it, and I certainly do not wish I had bought a Britool one 40 years ago, even if I had been able to afford it.

 

[Avocet]

Might be worth mentioning that whilst a pretty inacurate torque wrench might have been OK on something like an old Mini - where at least no matter how far out it was (within reason!) you'd at least have got an even clamping force, modern engines are far more delicate and leave far less room for error. On my wife's car's cam bearings (also an Alfa at the time), you didn't have to go much over the specified torque to strip the studs out of the head!

 

[Jenaline IV]

The quality of the tools that Halfords sells is very good. I agree their prices are high, unless you get some special offer.

If you were to visit any main dealer garage you will probably find the machanics are using "snap-on" tools, one of the market leaders for quality products. Halfords tools are not far behind snap-on for quality. You are unlikely to find any torque wrenches from Lidl on the premises.

They are not called Halfrauds for nowt.

I have broken many a halfords tool, yet some of the cheap tools I have picked up along the way from places like Lidl have lasted 10+ years so far. I have an identical torque wrench to the one that is being discussed here and it has rebuilt a rover K engine, a 2.0 vectra engine plus a number of other jobs too numerous to list over the past 5 years. Just because it's from lidl doesn't mean it wont do the job.

 

[MrCramp]

And your point is?

People who know what they are doing don't use Micky-Mouse tools.

 

[DeeGee]

I have one of those bendy jobs with a thin pointer on a curved scale. I have had it for so long I have forgotten when I got it originally! I liked the simple fact that a peice of stell that fat and that long will always bend the same amount, now or in 100 years. I remember checking it out against a calibrated spring balance and determining that it was not worth drawing a calibration curve, it was quite close enough.

But then, I wasn't using it on someting delicate like a mini or an alpha, but on my lovely Lotus Cortina, with double o/h camshaft under which were placed fat drums which contained fine clearance setting shims. So any time the valves got a bit noisy, it was off with the camshafts, and the torque had to be just right or the valve clearances would go out again!

Incidentally I thought the only REAL differences between Mr Mouse's tools and Mr Superb's were the dimensions and the way the tool is made. IIRR the best spanners are drop forged (?) and the cheap Far East products these days are made some other way... I am sure someone can pick up on this. I know that my cheap FE spanners have simply broken in my hand from time to time.

 

[MrCramp]

I have one of those bendy jobs with a thin pointer on a curved scale. I have had it for so long I have forgotten when I got it originally! I liked the simple fact that a peice of stell that fat and that long will always bend the same amount, now or in 100 years. I remember checking it out against a calibrated spring balance and determining that it was not worth drawing a calibration curve, it was quite close enough.

.

Lots of folk bought these bendy jobs which I suspect will retain their calibration reasonably well. The job advertised and debated about is not the same design. It is this
http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/special_buys3_15822.htm?WT.mc_id=2010-10-04-14-05

They fail and fall to bits, I have been there and got the T shirt!!

 

[Ubergeekian]

It is not worth buying cheap tools. A torque wrench is doing a vital job, you might as well just guess as use one of these cheap jobs. Halfords might be a bit expensive but the quality is good and their torque wrench should last most people a life time.

I bit the bullet and bought a proper Norbar a few years back. Absolutely brilliant quality, and not desperately expensive.

Please tell me you are joking? Halfords sell cheap stuff expensive... unless you have a trade card.

Halford Professionals stuff is absolutely excellent - I believe Facom make it. Their cheaper ranges are nothing special, but the pro stuff is well worth paying for.

They are not called Halfrauds for nowt.

I have broken many a halfords tool...

I've broken one - a 6mm spanner which lost one side of its jaws when I was trying to free the height adjustment system on the DS. I walked into my local Halfords, showed it and was out with a new replacement - no receipt, no questions asked - in under a minute. They really do mean that lifetime guarantee.