Laser Tools Opinions

I've been working on motorcycles and cars for the best part of 50 years. To my mind half inch drive is now only needed for cylinder heads, crankshafts, and suspension. 3/8 drive is *far* more useful and versatile in the increasingly cramped spaces around modern engines. Although I don't have any myself, I was impressed when I watched my mechanic using a "ratchet ring spanner" on one of the drive belts of my fourtrak, which I had found almost inaccesible with normal spanners.

Couldn't agree more. I find myself using 1/4" more and more, too. 1/2" just "feels" ridiculously bulky these days, unless you're playing about with ~17mm heads and above.

And if you think ratchet spanners are magic, try a flex-head ratchet.

A set of pipe spanners can come in useful, too.

Every so often they're 1/2 price in Halfords.

I recently bought some of these. They're brilliant.

They are a useful addition to a full set of tools - but being larger than ordinary ring spanners may not fit a tight space - just when you need them.

I'm *trying* to stop buying car tools, I've delegated almost everything to the garage because I'm getting too old and stiff to be be grovelling around on concrete. Perhaps fortunately, Halfords is no longer on my standard shopping circuit!

:-)

Good quality and good value.

Might have more than you want but has most tools you need in one box.

Biggles

Agreed, that does look excellent value, with both regular and deep sockets in 1/4 and 3/8.

I'm not impressed with the battery life of a stop-gap Aldi cordless, but the tool itself has been fine for two years of intermittent use. Otoh, an Aldi sabre saw has had a lot of use in the same period and it's still fine. The only bugger with the sabre saw is the cost of metal-cutting blades from conventional sources, so I have to keep an eye open for Aldidly blade offers.

A conversation with a former Lidl employee revealed something. When I bemoaned the lack of something that was stocked until then she informed me that each store had a baseline of necessary items and another list of discretionary stuff to stock, depending on assessed local interest, floor space, fast movement, etc, etc. Just so happened the absolutely wonderful tuna pasta sauce didn't move fast enough, so got dropped from that store. At the time, the only other Lidl store was twenty miles away in the other direction from home, and it came as a bit of a relief to find the tuna pasta sauce stocked there. Oddly, the locals in that town liked it more.

The original Snap-On ratchet ring spanners took some beating and most of the imitators are too clunky/bulky/crappy for my liking. I scour autojumbles when I'm near one, to find these things, as they're damned near indestructible and can be repaired easily. Mostly they just need cleaned out.