mrcheerful
. wrote:
"dave" wrote in message
...
I've been toying with the idea of getting an impact wrench. (battery
elect.
driven). I do the (all too) occasional work on the car etc and have heard
how
useful these thing are supposed to be (eg getting rusted nuts off etc).
From
what I can see though, it'd be tricky to get something the size of the
wrenches
I've seen anywhere near an exhaust nut!

Still, I appreciated views on;

The general usefulness of impact wrenches
Any recommendation as to make/model (£100 limit for me)
1/2 or 3/8?

Mostly people buy half inch drive ones. I use half and three eigth ones
everyday, it depends on your working practises and socket availability.

The cheap battery ones that clip on your car battery are not very good. the
rechargeable ones are better, but you need to spend 200 quid, a cheap air
powered one is better again at about 30 quid, but a really good air one is
200 !!

If you have a compressor then get a cheap air one, and a cheap set of impact
sockets, otherwise I recommend you save your money.

I'd go along with that.

I've worked on cars for 20+ years, and never needed or felt the
requirement for a cordless impact. I have used an air impact fairly
regularly though.

There's times when only an impact will loosen something, e.g when it's
hard to stop something turning and you don't want to damage the
component, e.g. gears or clutch plates etc.

Exhaust u bolts, forget it. Angle grind them off and put a new one on !

I'd also be wary of a cheap impact, it might not have the power you
need. If it were me, i'd put the money towards a small compressor, that
has many more uses, and you can then buy a air impact (and all the
other useful air accessories ..)

Cheers

Paul.