I carry almost _all_ my car tools in my trunk. This is a lot of weight, but most likely LESS than the weight of an extra passenger.
I carry them on the theory that if I need them, as in something goes wrong with the car while on the road ( where else would it go wrong? ), I'll have what I need with me.
OTOH, I'm using up gas driving around this extra passenger. But I think of it as insurance. Not being stranded...being able to do most repairs at a rest area or some such.
How many of You folks out here carry a significant quantity of tools (extra weight) in your car at all times? I know people with huge toolboxes, and they keep most all their tools in their garage all the time. Lot of good that will do them on the road. OTOH, if a water pump goes out, I don't fancy changing one of those out at a rest stop.
What's your take on carrying tools/parts in your vehicle at all times like I do?
I have a big wheeled bag of tools that stays permanently in the back of my car... mostly duplicates of tools I've acquired through the years. It must weigh over 75lbs.
It sees service several times a month, however, very little is automotive to tell the truth. Most of the time, it's over at a friend/family members place, and they've asked me to take a quick look at something for them. Seems to be mostly electrical, phone and minor plumbing issues.
A couple of things I find especially handy to keep in the bag... a couple of those plastic snap on lid food containers. One filled with misc nuts, bolts washers, wire nuts, butt splices and all that. The other is filled with an outlet tester, 120 and 12V test lights, phone line tester, some misc wire scraps, a small roll of cloth backed sand paper in a 35mm film can, about 10' of .032 aircraft safety wire and a small cheap analog VOM without battery. (Batteries corrode too fast left in the car, it's usually easy enough to scrounge up a AA when the ohm meter is needed.)
A selection of vise grips, and a pair of those giant Channel Locks... you'd be amazed what you can do in a pinch with the big Channel Locks.
The rest is pretty much a big selection of screwdrivers, pliers,fractional & Metric combination wrenches, 1/4 & 3/8" socket sets in old tube socks, claw and ball peen hammer. About a 30' piece of 3/8" rope too. Don't forget the rags...
There is more, but you get the idea... I wouldn't leave home without that bag...
Erik
I also have a pretty nice little HF clamp on vise, and high tension hacksaw
I don't carry *ALL* of my tools, but the passenger side floorboard of my ride does bear a striking resemblance to a combination toolchest/parts store.
Of course, I offer the excuse that I make my living by having the car rolling down the road under its own power, so if something relatively easy to fix breaks, I want whatever is needed to fix it readily available. Brakes starting to grind at 3 in the AM out in the middle of nowhere, with 20 miles of downhill in front of me? Pull that puppy over to the side, plug the spotlight into the lighter socket, pull the spare set of brake pads out from under the passenger seat, and do a pad change right there on the spot. U-joint starts howling in a similar situation? It just so happens that I keep two spares in the glove-box, and can swap in a new one with the driveshaft still on the car in just under half an hour. Alternator goes tango-uniform? Surprise! I've got a spare (and spare belts) in the trunk. (right alongside the ziploc containing a full set of fresh plugs, a plug-gapper on the keyring, the plug wires from the last change, and a fresh distributor cap and rotor)
At one point, I even had a freshly-rebuilt spare carb riding around in the trunk! Never mind the gallon of Delo that fits perfectly into the space between the passenger-side headlight and the front wheel well, right next to the windshield washer reservoir, and the tire-plugging kit tucked into the passenger door pocket, and 12 volt air compressor under the driver's seat, along with the full-size spare *AND* the "donut" spare that are in the trunk at all times.
And then, of course, I've got "The ultimate toolbox" in the console: A fully-charged AAA-Plus card. Saved my bacon a few times now - Ever busted not one, not two, but *THREE* lug-wrenches while trying to break loose a frozen lug so you can change a flat? I have...
Of course, then there was my last call to AAA - No (reasonable) amount of tools and spare parts could have fixed it. Rear countershaft bearing in the 5-speed stick tranny puked, dropping the back end of the countershaft so that it didn't mesh with the output shaft gears, leaving me with 3rd and 4th gear only. Sing along, boys and girls! (To the tune of "Jim Dandy to the Rescue") AAA to the rescue, AAA to the resssscue! Go AAA, Go AAA! :)
(Fortunately, I had a spare tranny sitting in the garage, so about 2-3 hours after the AAA flatbed dropped me off at home, the car was back on the road under its own power)
Amazing! No, I don't belong to AAA. I wonder if that should be another thread.
Breaking 3 lug wrenches? I believe it. The rot they supply with cars these days look like they were made from melted down sardine cans. I threw mine away, a gave the scissor jack to a cop I know for free. IMO, they were real junk. I replaced those things with better equipment. One toy is a 30X torque multiplier for those tight lug nuts. Haven't used it yet, but have it on hand on general principals. But I also have a 3/4 inch socket wrench that can be used for a truck, nevermind a passenger sedan, so I doubt I'll be breaking anything other than wheel studs with that on hand.
My air tools stay home, as does my rather large air compressor, although I have a little tire-inflating one I carry in the back seat. That weighs next to nothing, but my experience with them is that they don't last long if used regularly, so save it for emergencies. Last time, something in my tiny air compressor motor went tango uniform and kept blowing fuses in the vehicle. I never took the motor apart to see what the problem was, but rather just bought a new pump. I wouldn't have had parts for the older model anyhow.
I am encouraged to see some other people feel the same way about this idea as I do. My idea is it isn't going to do you any good at home when you're not =at= home, but 200 miles away.
That's what I wanted to know. Curiosity, you know, as when I see a lot of people open their trunks at the grocery store to load their food bags their trunks look empty...and I am left wondering what they're going to do if they get caught out in the rain? Call AAA? _Most_likely_.
But I know that most of the people on THIS n/g are motorheads, and are a little more independent in that regard. Then again, you can't take it all with you ( well you could, but it would leave little room for
*cargo* ).
My guess is that most people are depending on a tow truck to bail them out if they get into trouble. I'm also guessing they have a credit card or two to pay the $$$ it is going to cost to get their problem fixed by somebody else. Then again, they probably have the $$$, whereas I don't.
If I break down somewhere, I don't even have enough money for a hotel room for the night. At least, not at the moment. Nevermind a tow and a repair that isn't under warranty anymore ( my car is more than 36 months old, so the *normal* warranty has expired and I'm just on the emissions warranty at this time ).
I almost did that with my Rangerover, but there wasn't space.
These days I carry the toolkit that came with the car, and a cellphone. Cars just don't break down these days (compared to 20-some years ago) and if I can't fix it with one wire or one hose clip, I'm almost certainly looking at a towtruck, even if I had brought a full toolkit with me.
Off-road is different, as then you're looking at survival ablative impact damage.
All good choices IMO. Especially the cell phone for when things really go wrong ( hoping they don't, but there aren't any guarantees ).
I suggest adding some kind of tire repair kit to what you mention above. My experience driving around on a donut spare mini tire isn't suggestive of a safe way to get home, especially if you need to drive on a high-speed highway.
The kit can be anything from foam in a pressurized can to a plug for radial tires (my choice), but if you cut the sidewall, you'll have to go to the spare. I've repaired full size tires in my garage in the middle of winter with the plug kit. It isn't hard to do. But you'll need a portable air pump cause you have to empty the pressure in the tire when you ream the hole for the plug.
I didn't get a toolkit with my Merc Sable. Just a junk scissor jack and a junkier lug wrench.
Depends on if you are in the boonies or in the city when the car takes a dump. If an alternator or starter begins to get flakey, you still have some time to get to a parts store and after paying a core charge, do the work yourself somewhere, IF you can get out of the weather. That's always a problem...lying in slush under a car in the winter trying to swap out a starter motor or such. I've done it, but it isn't pleasant.
I would think off-road would be a matter of life and death, in winter or midsummer, when weather could end up taking your life from dehydration or freezing.
I was driving down the highway, and there was a VW bus by the side of the road with people staring in the engine compartment. Since you don't see very many VW busses on the road these days, I pulled over and asked if I could help. Now, for clarity, let me say that I drive an early-eighties BMW to work every day which was not cared for well by the previous owners and I am slowly working out various problems.
I asked if I could help, and the guy asked if I had a wrench. "What size?" "Ten." "Ten millimeter?" "Yeah." "Open-ended, box, socket, or spanner?"
The man looked at me like I was out of my mind for driving around with a full tool kit in the back of the car. Given the car I was driving, I would have been foolish not to have it. Given the car HE was driving, I thought he was out of his mind not to have a full toolkit....
And in the end, I was especially glad to have penetrating oil too.
Yep. I keep a can of PB Blaster in the trunk, along with WD40 and silicon spray. I guess I should toss in a bottle of Mobil 1, =although=, my car doesn't burn any oil, and I've been looking at a full dipstick since I put the stuff in 4,000 miles ago. OR, maybe I topped it up once and can't remember. At any rate, it's cheap insurance the way I figure it.
But it isn't cheap to _buy_. That's the rub. If you're going to have a comprehensive kit in your boot, it is going to cost some bucks. But we all have kits, in this newsgroup, so the only question is leave it home or take it with you? I decided take it with you is the best idea. What good is fix a flat going to do me sitting on my desk at home when I have a flat in the next state over?
I've still got some little odds and ends I would like to have, and pick up an item or two each month if the budget can afford it. These are not snap-on quality, but they work, they get the job done.
Sure if I did this for a living, and used these tools on a daily basis, for 8 hours or more a day, I would want the best tools money could buy. But the stuff I have is *good enough* for the occassional use it is going to get. The idea in my mind, it is better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it handy.
Now the weather this winter is going to go down to 20 below zero. I wonder how my electronics diagnostic tools are going to hold up. I expect they will, as most of the control systems in my car are electronic and they work just fine in sub zero weather.
You were nice to stop and help that guy out. Most people are in too much of a hurry, unprepared themselves, and/or just don't want to get involved. My attitude is sort of...if the guy is depending on people like ME to save his butt, he made a big mistake. A stranded lady on the other hand gets full service if she wants or needs it.
I carry a small old metal toolbox, about 12"x9"x9". In it are enough tools to do just about anything except remove the transmission. It has saved me more than once. I also keep record of all my tools on an excel spreadsheet and when I travel for the company (about once per month) I take a copy of the spreadsheet and stop at pawn shops in industrial areas to replenish lost and broken tools.
I used to. Now I carry a cell phone. My other strategy is to have multiple cars. The Beretta and the truck are both 16 years old so they need repairs on a regular basis, but if properly maintained they don't leave me on the side of the road, and you've always got one running vehicle when one does break. And with one kid and another on the way, I'll probably be adding a Subaru wagon over the winter to the "fleet" so I have two spare cars and the Beretta can be "retired" in a year or two.
I just found that either nothing happens, or when my car breaks, it's not something that can be fixed on the side of the road - (timing gear)
OTOH, if it's a project car like my buddy's Nova that seems to require perpetual attention, we don't go to 7/11 without a full trunk of tools.
Right. But on the other hand, why should I drive around with twenty pounds of standard wrenches when the car I am driving is all-metric?
And what about things like taps and dies that probably ought to be kept inside and out of the weather?
For some tools, I will keep a good quality one at home and a crappy emergency quality one in the car.
Some things I keep a bunch of. For example, I have a high grade Beckman DVM on the bench at home, plus a couple good Fluke portables. But ALSO I went and bought a box of ten cheap $10 Chinese DVMs and have them in every glove compartment, every suitcase, everywhere. They aren't as accurate as the Beckman... hell, I wouldn't trust beyond the second digit at best.... but they're there.
If it was a late model SUV, I wouldn't have stopped. Air cooled VWs, Model As, Citroen 2-CVs and the occasional Hawk I'll stop and help.
Now you have me thinking about all the stuff I don't have in the car: spare battery charger ( I've got lots of extras but not in the car ) extension cord for above charger... tow line/strap, although I saw on Google Video of a car being torn in half by a tow rope that was attached at a bad attachment point. The truck pulling the car through a snow drift took the entire rear end off, including the trunk and rear quarter panels! ;-\ leaving the front end of the vehicle still in the snowbank. Be careful if you have a plastic car!
spare blanket spare water spare food bars
extra flashlight
let's just say I'm already short on trunk space, because this week's groceries spilled over into the back seat ;-|
I used to go the pawn shop route until I found out I can buy New at Harbor Freight for less than really used at the pawn shop. I've never seen anything at a pawn shop that I thought was a bargain.
Yah, I've got a cell phone, but who to call? Myself? I can call a tow truck. That's $220 to take my car from Downtown Chicago to my driveway, and that's just for the tow. It's probably more expensive now...that was some time ago.
So far, I've only had to replace fuses, light bulbs, adjust cowl hold downs, and replace a broken wheel stud or two. Plus a serpentine belt. Nothing major yet. Surely the day I take my tools out and bring them in the house, is the day something bigtime bites the dust.
Chevy Nova? I had a Pinto at one time that was like that. Which car would you say was worse...the Pinto or the Nova. I vote =both= were a communist plot to destroy our car industry.
Not really relevant, but one time I was moving from Michigan to Virginia. I had all of my "prized possessions" and essentials in the car with me (read: my collection of tools, and a couple changes of clothes.) Of course, the same car that I'd been driving to work every day for years had an alternator failure on the Ohio turnpike.
Having all my tools with me helped the poor bastard that had a flat tire and pulled over at the same place I did (he needed a breaker bar and "cheater pipe") but changing an alternator at the side of the road in the pouring rain was a bit much for me (it's underneath the engine on a VW Scirocco with A/C.) I wimped out and had it towed to a shop.
Yes it is spot on relevant, because sometimes even if you do have the tools, the weather won't let you do the job if you can't find shelter and work space and lighting for the repair(s).
Then again, I don't have a choice. I'm cash poor and car rich. So rain, sleet, snow, arctic express, anything short of a tornado or a flood, I've _got_ to do the work myself, if warranty won't cover it.
So that means I have to stuff foul weather gear into the vehicle, some kind of emergency heat source, some kind of emergency lighting ( I have flares, but they don't light up the work area ), and so on.
I get anal about pre-winter maintenance, but -still- that's no guarantee I'm not going to have any problems as the vehicle ages. Preventive maintenance can only take you so far. Hitting a pothole in the middle of a highway at night, or rolling on to *black ice* ( look it up in Google ) can ruin your car and ruin your day in a heartbeat. BTDT. I guess I'm getting paranoid again. Time for another pill.
Lucky you. My Merc Sable is both metric and English. Now that you mention it, I'm taking my vernier calipers out to the car tool box. Sometimes it is hard to tell which is which.
True, but there are metal ammo boxes at the surplus store that you can seal and put dessicant into.
Good idea if you can afford it.
Good idea. You only need 1/10th of a volt resolution anyhow.
It is always a hazard to pull over *on the road* to help anybody. Some drunk or drowsy driver could end it all for us in the blink of an eye. Its a judgement call each of us has to make.
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