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Rant on Buying a Torque Wrench: How Frustrating!

ShadowsPapa

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One thing to keep in mind. A couple of people have made mention of Taiwan made wrenches.

Taiwan is not China. Taiwan is an ally. So if you are trying to avoid buying from a potential enemy, you are fine with Taiwan.
Love my Ion flex-head torque wrench. GREAT reviews, and it works well. The flex head means you can even do lug nuts where a standard wrench just doesn't quite make it and you need a 1" extension or a deep socket.

Taiwan stuff isn't like 50 years ago, either, and neither is Chinese. In some cases, their technology and manufacturing processes rival ours, or surpass ours, and I have solid examples of that. The difference these days is the labor costs, not the lack of technology. The Chinese are doing things we are struggling to catch up with. They saw the changing world coming and rushed to educate people in tool and die and get them to work - in the USA, too and die is a dying trade. Even the colleges around here are shutting down programs for tool and die, and struggle to get people into CNC trades. Educators are complaining - no one wants the dirty, noisy work when they can get rich in tech and an office.

Anyway, I have lost count of the torque wrenches I have - S&K, NAPA, Proto, my smallest click-type is Snap-On I bought years ago for transmission work, a 1/2" drive Craftsman beam type and those never go bad, a couple of the beam type the names are worn off the chart. I put the Icon among the best of those I have, if not the best 1/2" drive click type I have.
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Didnt read the while threadā€¦but man dont over think things.

Harbor Freight torque wrench is inexpensive enough to not care if it breaks, and its worked for every job for multiple years.
 

Bantam

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I didnā€™t read through all of the comments but it didnā€™t look like youā€™d originally looked into Proto. Itā€™s what we use at work, probably around the cost of the others youā€™d listed, and made in the states.

That said, I use a $20 Harbor Freight one at home as others have mentioned as well.

ETA: SP - Iā€™m currently an apprentice tool & die maker. Thereā€™s two companies Iā€™ve worked for (literally down the road from each other). The first one I worked at shut down their entire apprenticeship program (tool and die, grinding, and CNC programs), many of their laid-off people going to one of the other manufacturing places nearby.
The place Iā€™m working now is trying hard to find ways to automate as much as possible, not due to labor costs but due to not being able to find workers.

Sorry, carry on šŸ˜…
 

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In3briatedPanda

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Those are measured in ā€œugga duggasā€ if Iā€™m not mistaken šŸ˜‚
my impact does ugga chuggas, not 'click click' like my torque wrenches. One of mines goes 'beep beep' but i prefer 'click click'. i guess i could ugga chugga some intake or head bolts. Spark plugs get at LEAST 6 ugga chuggas. :LOL:
 

ShadowsPapa

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I didnā€™t read through all of the comments but it didnā€™t look like youā€™d originally looked into Proto. Itā€™s what we use at work, probably around the cost of the others youā€™d listed, and made in the states.

That said, I use a $20 Harbor Freight one at home as others have mentioned as well.

ETA: SP - Iā€™m currently an apprentice tool & die maker. Thereā€™s two companies Iā€™ve worked for (literally down the road from each other). The first one I worked at shut down their entire apprenticeship program (tool and die, grinding, and CNC programs), many of their laid-off people going to one of the other manufacturing places nearby.
The place Iā€™m working now is trying hard to find ways to automate as much as possible, not due to labor costs but due to not being able to find workers.

Sorry, carry on šŸ˜…
DeeZee a few years ago was at their own expense sending employees to college courses (night class) for CNC machine and tool and die. A friend who had great interest in CNC (was IT, tech person, could code routers and switches) decided to take some of the courses and came back every week reporting on how tough it was to get people interested. He heard from the college instructor and the DeeZee employees.

Anywho - my Proto is old and in dire need of calibration, but the cost of calibration is making me think - have it done as a sort of backup or spare, or what......... It's a nice enough wrench, although an older one, and I've had some Proto stuff from years ago I've not been able to break yet (if it will break, I can do it)
I may have the NAPA wrench calibrated as it had been owned and used by my first boss in auto repair many years ago. Andy was a fantastic boss, I learned a lot from him and he treated me like a son so the wrench is more than just another tool in the drawer.
 

MPMB

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my impact does ugga chuggas, not 'click click' like my torque wrenches. One of mines goes 'beep beep' but i prefer 'click click'. i guess i could ugga chugga some intake or head bolts. Spark plugs get at LEAST 6 ugga chuggas. :LOL:
once the impact socket stops turning it's tight enough.

if using a standard socket, once it shatters, it's tight enough.

as far as HF tools go - anything with moving parts is a hard pass. Torque wrench blew apart, guts flew out, tossed it. Flat ratchet (10mm of all) blew apart tightening a bolt. How tight can you go with a 10mm? With a Pittsburgh Pro: not very.

In 15 years of racing, we used Craftsman & Gear Wrench for 90% of our tools, the rest were "better" (Snap-On, Cornwell, etc). We had 1 breakage in all my time - a 3/8" drive Allen socket.
 

ShadowsPapa

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once the impact socket stops turning it's tight enough.
My Milwaukee would bust bolts if I had it on the high setting and used that rule. That's why a friend and I have them - we can disassemble an old muscle car that's been sitting for years, rust or not. Who needs sprays! It will either come loose or break. If it breaks it simply speeds up the disassembly process and if going together, do not forget to back it down a setting or two!
My cordless Milwaukee did stop just shy of the 190 pound/ft needed on the LCAs. Didn't have to turn that torque wrench very far which was fine, it saved a lot of time and effort.

HF has come a very long way in just the last couple of years or so. There's still cheap crap I'd not touch - their metal stamps (number and letter stamps) go flat if used on anything other than aluminum, but some of the other stuff I have that people said would be one-time use, I'm still using, several uses later. I wouldn't buy cutting tools like saws or taps and dies, drill bits, that sort of thing but other tools, depending on what they are and what they are used for.......... "it depends".
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