In my opinion yes a halfords set is all you need for domestic car servicing etc but I have tried using them on choppers (farming kind not bike) and you soon see the quality's not as good as some cheaper sets. By cheaper sets I mean those bought from a reputable dealer the example I gave above SBS services are people that order parts for tractors, cars etc. so not everyone knows about them but there stuff is often better quality and cheaper in fact costco do a good quality set also. All I'm saying is you can get a similar if not better quality tool for cheaper from places other than halfords that's not to say there's are poor quality. In the end tho you can't beat the ol air wrench.
Fair enough. I've heard that the Halfords sets are made by Snap-On, but this might be some kind of myth. It's possibly a little unfair to compare them to the heavy duty farming stuff, which from my expedience are much bulkier and much heavier. Ultimately you can break anything with enough punishment, and growing up with my dad I can vouch for that. He's an impatient farmer who's unwilling to take his time to do jobs properly (his workshop is a complete mess, with spanners all over the floor and rubbish piled in the corner), and he breaks or misplaces everything. Then again he has been known to use 20ft pieces of metal pipe as breaker bars so it's not unsurprising that he breaks things. As a kid growing up, I used to buy him a new set of spanners for Christmas every year because he'd have lost most of them, there bust be spanners everywhere! As a really organised person (I put everything back in its place) it's massively frustrating. Takes ages just to find the tools before being able to begin a job, really would be easier and more efficient to spend 10min as the end putting everything away, but alas I've given up trying to tell him! Not had any experience with an air wrench. I'm going to treat myself when I've got the money.
I snapped my Halfords 24" breaker bar removing a hub nut of all things. my Draper Impact gun socket was fine. As said different tool for diferent things i had anpon tools when i worked at a garage constantly breaking the sockets as my gun was aimed at HGVs not cars so had to much poke. Touch wood ive not had a problem with the mix of MAC, Draper and Sealey ones i have now
As in wheel nut? I've had plenty of problems with wheel nuts before. I blame damn garages tightening them too tight with their air wrenches. Took my rather bulky friend to undo one of mine when I last checked my brake pads, because my weight jumping up and down on the wrench wasn't enough! Also helped a woman changed a tyre where the wrench that came with her corsa (I think) wasn't secure enough to undo a couple of the nuts. Used the one from my car and all was fine, although they were far to tight. Not sure these garages think about people trying to get them off again, especially if it were at night in poor weather.
The hub nuts actually that massive nut you see in the centre of the brake disc I was changing a cv gaitor so that had to come off too. I've taken to carrying a proper wrench in the car now its far better than what you get in the spare wheel kits. Garages often overtighten bolts to be fair its easy just zip it on with the airgun an its done. What your meant to do is nip the nuts on with the airgun then torque them to I think 120nm using a torque wrench
it should be enough for a cars lugs though... on a lot of hondas and toyotas i've worked on have torque specs of about 80 ft/lbs(or approximately 108 nm for you folks)
IME I've only found tightening torques for wheel nuts at <100Nm, and not heard of passenger cars having more than 150Nm specified, which is irritating because a lot of garages etc whip up the nuts with an impact gun to 300-500Nm in some cases. Totally beyond anything a nut that size is usually rated to.
An ATS monkey did that too my old volvo before i could stop him, I heard a defintive pitch change to the gun as the RPM slowed and then rapidly increased! Yes he'd gone and stripped the thread then offered a repair with a helix kit! Words along the lines of "Feck off i want a new hub you nub!"
