Cheap Ass Tools

Disclaimer: this blog was written for the weekend hobbyist guys.  You professional mechanics that buy the good shit from the start can have a laugh at this one (and at us). 

 

When the day comes that you decide to be a hot-rodding, greasy fuck and turn wrenches, you’re gonna need some tools.  Whether you are a teenager, young adult or middle-aged, you’ll go through the ritual that is picking your first tool set and toolbox.  It’s overwhelming, but we all went through it.  We all also go through the sticker shock of new tool prices. 

 

…And here we go with the temptation of buying cheap ass tools.  It is with this sticker shock is where the temptation comes from.  Don’t feel bad, we’ve all succumbed to the siren-like song of places such as Harbor Freight, with its slogan, “Quality Tools at Ridiculous Prices!”  Sure, the tools look shiny and offer a lifetime warranty, but damn if they work correctly.  Swap meets and flea markets also offer no-name brand tools fresh off the boat from China or Taiwan.  I have a cheap tool set in my daily driver truck toolbox that consists of a bastardized set of Harbor Freight and swap-meet tools.  The wrenches fit sloppily on fasteners and the ratchets skip teeth, but they’ll do in a roadside emergency.  If my toolbox gets broken into or if I lose a tool on the side of the road, I won’t lose sleep over it.  

 

I’ve been lucky with a few cheap tools in my main toolbox at home, where I keep my good shit.  My best cheap ones are Popular Mechanics brand offset box wrenches.  They’ve held up to some pretty good torque, I must say.  Other times, I’ve had numerous tools fail on me.  The most recent event was a cheap ass three-jaw puller from Harbor Freight.  I was trying to remove the crank pulley/balancer from my daily driver, and the thing literally snapped apart and also bent the bolts that came with it.  Pathetic.

 

If you are starting out and ready to stock your new, shiny toolbox, you will fall for the cheap tools.  The experienced will tell you to wait and invest in the good stuff, but you will eat the apple.  I’ve gone through my cheap tool phase, but mind you, I’ve been buying tools since I was 16.  How they hell am I going to afford good tools as a teen?  I made do with swap meet and Harbor Freight shit to work on my first car in high school, but more often than not I mostly used my dad’s tools.  I still feel bad to this day when I used one of my dad’s Mac open end wrench to remove the battery terminals from my car.  Stupid me, removes the + lead first and I arc his wrench.  Sorry dad!

 

Eventually, after your cheap wrench slips off a bolt or your ratchet jumps a tooth and you skin the ever loving shit out of your knuckles, you’ll buck down and start investing in quality tools.  Get a credit card, because you’re gonna need it!  See, this is why young car guys are always broke.  Between buying parts for your project car and buying good tools, you’ll only be able to afford ramen. 

 

There’ll come a point in time when you’ll be ready to start buying shop equipment and metal fab tools, such as a sander, drill press, band saw, sheet metal brake etc.  Again, here’s where the allure to places like Harbor Freight come in.   Why spend thousands for a piece of equipment when Harbor Freight has it for a quarter of the price?  You’ll rethink your decision real fast when the motor fries or the tool just doesn’t live up to your expectations.  Yes, I’m guilty of buying Harbor Freight shop tools, but I spent a lot of time “fixing” them to get them to work decently. 

 

If you wrench for a living, then high-quality tools are a must.  My dad is a mechanic and as such he has all Snap-On, Matco and Mac tools to make a living with.  But for the hobbyist like me, we’ll just have to slum it with the mid-grade stuff, with a few Chinese tools thrown in.  My last biggest disappointment was my Husky air compressor.  Six months old and the motor took a shit.  Luckily it was still under warranty, but I had to drop my compressor off at a repair facility for a month.  Let me tell you, a shop without a compressor is like losing your right arm and leg.  Sure enough, it gets fixed with another motor like the one that failed.  If it shits again I’ll just buy a new US-made motor. 

 

Summing it up, damn near every beginner gearhead goes through the ritual of buying cheap tools, getting frustrated with them and then buying the good stuff a bit at a time.  It happens.  Till next time, try not a skin a knuckle on your shitty Harbor Freight ratchet!