When I did the wrench turning thing for a living..... it was all Snap-On tools. Very high quality, but, most certainly a premium price....... Not worth it if you don't do that sort of thing for a living. (unless you have large piles of money you don't know what to do with....)

At home, I use craftsman. Sears is everywhere, and the tools are lifetime warranty. (hand tools anyway....) I have yet to break a craftsman tool in reasonable usage. Bear in mind, I HAVE broken a few during UNreasonable usage... (eight foot breaker bar on a half inch rachet.....)

 

++Craftsman.

My father once found a Craftsman screwdriver on the side of the road, bent and with a broken handle from being bounced down the highway. Just for giggles he took it with him on his next trip to Sears and they replaced it. He told the salesman he was just joking around and had found it on the road and the salesman said, "Hey, you brought it in broken, so the replacement is yours."

Most of my Craftsman hand tools are over 20 years old, some are over 30 (garage fire took out most of my first set) and aside from some minor surface scratching on some of the sockets and a small ding or two on the ratchets they all look brand new. I'll bet that the clown who stole all of my metric wrenches and sockets 18 years ago is still using them, too.

 

If you are looking into air tools don't get a compressor from Walmart. My first compressor was a 4 gallon one we use for air guns when roofing but it sucks for impacts and stuff you would use automotive wise. It would take off lug nuts good but tightening them down you could only tighten for maybe 4-5 seconds then needed to wait another 30 for the compressor to catch up. I scored a 60 gal compressor for $250 and love it.

As for Walmart air tools, you get what you pay for. I got a sander from there and it actually isn't bad for the $30 I paid for it (I think). My grandfather gave me a CH impact, not sure where he got it from but it works good. It does lug nuts good and I used it when I changed my tie rod ends. Check Sears to see what they have, I got an old model Craftsman ratchet for $30. Keep you eyes open on ebay as well, I got a Kobalt air cutoff wheel for $20 that was only used three times.

 

I use snap-on tools at work [It took a lot of money to fill that toolbox!!] at home I buy craftsman tools, ratchets are junk!! kobolt from lowes is good for a good price, some of them even said product of snap-on on the package.

 

Kobalt is the lesser brand of Matco, I believe...I know blue point is the lesser brand of Snap-On(I know, as I bought a few blue point tools off the traveling Snap-on guy here in town.)

 

Another place to get Misc. tools is local pawn shops. The ones close to me always seem to end up having IR, Snapon, Mac air tools on the shelves. I picked up a IR 3/4 impact for $100. They will always have the Chinese cheep tools in there next to the good ones.

 

how easy is a pawn shop? never really thought about that. i think im gonna stop by sears tomorrow just to see if they have any deals. i can at least get a small set to keep in the truck and do basic "under the hood" work.

 

Normally just go in and ask if they have any tools. Then just look at what they have and see if the prices are reasonable. If they aren't just say thank you and leave.

 

so i guess it doesn't matter if the tools are just a mix of all brands. i was thinking i had to stay with one brand the whole way. by the sounds of everyone on this thread, some brands make better ratchets but maybe their air tools suck. i'm sure this thread will help out for when i start buying my tools. i have stanley wrenchs already. are c clamps a necessity? the reason i ask is bc i don't have little tools like c clamps, punches, chisels, and pry bars yet. i figured a screwdriver would take the place of most of these.

 

When you put new break pads on the easiest way to compress them to put them back on is to use a c clamp. A chisel makes it easy work to get off a stuck on hub if you don't have a air chisel and pry bar are never a bad tool to have. I picked up a 4 pack of different sized pry bars from Advanced for something like 8 bucks. Those little tools are usually cheap and never are a bad idea to have.

I started out with no tools when I got my truck about a year and a half ago. I picked up a Stanley socket set along with a screw driver set. That held me over because at that time I didn't know anything about vehicles and when I wanted something done I went over to my friends house who had a lot of stuff and knows quite a cars and trucks. Over time when I'd do something at his house like new break pads, if I used a tool there I didn't have I picked one up and over time stuff starts building up.

A few months ago I got a whole Craftsman tool chest from my grandfather that had all sorts of stuff like a million and a half sockets, ratchets, nut drivers, wrenches, etc. Stuff I'm starting to buy when I come across them are air tools since I finally got a compressor that can run them.