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Everyone has there own opinion when it comes to brand names. I like Craftsman and Snapon. Thats what my tool chest consists of. I also have a few Stanley screw drivers and Durlast sockets which have all served me well thus far.
My box has Mac, Snap-on, Matco, Craftsmen, Stanley (which makes Mac Tools btw), Autozone and Pepboys house brand. I like different features of all the major brands.
mac tools are great. snap-on,craftsman also have a very good tool line. if you start with a set,as you,you’ll probely stay loyal to the mac brand.
over time one finds odds n ends to ad , my modest craftsman chest has a little bit of ; snap on , mac , craftsman , bonney, proto , heyco , hazet , stahlwille.
and a SK 1/4″ socket set that was my dads,must be from the ’50’s. snap-on 1/4,3/8 an 1/2/ clicker torq wrenches are some of the best. there are others out
there very good too. have had both trucks stop at my shops and you can start a good relationship as they are usually the owner/operators.just a suggestion,try not to carry alot of credit and buy what will make you money.Not being a professional, I always look at my tool purchases in this regard….pay good money for good tools when you need to depend on them every time. Maybe not so much when they might get used a half dozen times in my lifetime.
The accumulation of tools is a lifelong quest. Tools get lost, tools get broken, tools get modified to get the job done when you don’t have the specific tool to get it done. I don’t care about what brand tools I have more than that they get the job done and more importantly, that I can FIND THEM. Tool organizers are a must. I hate searching for the right tool when I’m in a junkyard because I have a hundred of them in one metal box and I have to sift through it to get to the one I need ( if I remembered to bring it along…did I? I don’t remember…I thought I did. There it i…nope, that’s not it. Damn it, did I forget to put that in there?
See what I mean? Nothing worse than finishing a job and looking in your toolbox and not knowing if you got all your tools back.
Oh, and make sure you get a good magnetic retriever and extendable mirror set so you can find those tools when you drop them into the engine compartment!
I personally prefer Matco tools to just about any other brand, but that’s mainly due to availability. All the places I’ve worked at, the only reliable tool dealer was the Matco man. At one shop, the Snap-On man would show up, and then not come back for three or four months. I worked at that shop for near as makes no difference 5 years, I think I saw the Snap-On man 30 times. Matco would show up every week. We didn’t even have a Mac dealer there. Once I moved to VA, all 3 shops I’ve been at (same company, I just got transferred to different stores) it’s been the same story. The first shop only had a Matco dealer and a Mac dealer. Both showed up every week, but Mac would show up on my days off, so I bought from Matco. The first time I got transferred, there was a Matco dealer that came every week and a Snap-On dealer that showed up when he felt like it. No Mac dealer at all. The second time I got transferred, Matco is the only choice, since he’s the only dealer that comes to that shop. Just something you might want to keep in mind before spending a ton of money on tools in case you need replacements.
However, my recommendation to you is this. You’re still in school learning how to turn a wrench professionally. Stay off the tool truck until you’ve been a mechanic for at least a year, to make sure that you actually like fixing cars for a living. Buy Craftsman, or Husky, or Stanley, just until the novelty of repairing other people’s junk wears off. I’ve seen other people, fresh out of school go onto a tool truck and then spend tens of thousands of dollars on tools. 6 or 7 months later, when they’re still paying off those tools, they decide that keeping other people’s rust-buckets on the road isn’t fun anymore, and that they’re tired of burning themselves, and tearing their arms and hands to shreds trying to get at bolts that are buried in places where a bolt should never be buried. Well, they’ve now got all that money tied up in tools that they don’t want anymore. It’s a bitter pill to swallow in that instance. I’m not saying that it’s going to happen to you. I’ll put it to you like this. You can buy a 1/2″ drive Ingersoll-Rand impact gun from Sears for about $100. That same gun, with a Matco eagle on the side, will set you back $300. You can but a set of shallow Craftsman impact sockets for that gun, sized 12mm through 22mm, with a 24mm and 27mm socket for $50. An identical set, that says Snap-On on the side, will cost you at least $250, maybe more. Just some food for thought.
One thing you might want to consider is buying ” used ” fact is the major brands are warrantied so if you break it the tool guy should replace it ( perhaps it is a little underhanded to exchange a tool to the truck that you didnt actually buy off a truck but what the heck ) same with craftsman. I don’t know about the area you live in but here in SanDiego there are a lot of guys out of work and they are selling off and or pawning there tools to pay bills. craigslist here is flooded with every type and brand of mechanic tool you can think of. I actually saw an add for a snapon rollaway w/sidebox and top box – completely full of tools- valued at 65,000 dollars- being sold for 25,000. fact is I have bought many a top name tool at swapmeets , estate sales , etc. food for thought.
i like mac tools, i bought snapon for all my sockets/ratchets/ and wrenches. after that everything came from mac. i love snapon precision tools. but mac can be abused a lil, and still work great. everything is made in texas and great quality. for me the problem with most tool manufacturers is that the majority of there line is farmed out to cheaper manufacturers.
i bought all my sets from mac too, fuel/compression testers ect… i love all my mac tools…
gotta admit tho, my box is snap-on, i love snap-on boxes.
I started with the Craftsman line 20+ years ago and I’d say about 95% of what I own are US-built Craftsman and Craftsman Professional tools that were built in the 1980’s and 1990’s. I went to Sears a few days ago, and found that pretty much everything from Craftsman has been outsourced to China and unfortunately, the quality of their tools has taken a nosedive. Of course, this means that their lifetime warranty is worthless since if one of my nice made in the USA wrenches breaks and I bring it in for a replacement under their lifetime warranty, I’m going to end up getting a piece of junk as a replacement tool. I was looking at their new stubby wrenches and am shocked that they had the nerve to stamp Craftsman on them. They’re so thick, I don’t think they’d be useful in a confined space, which is what they’re designed for. My old stubby set is about 1/3 less thick and actually feels heavier.
MAC is doing the same thing as Craftsman; they’re now offshoring many of their products to China (so is Snap-On, so is Matco, etc., etc.) One of the few brands that still makes tools exclusively in the USA is Wright Tools. I’ll try not to sound like a commercial, but they really are fantatic quality tools, but you do pay a premium for them. You get a tremendous discount from MAC Tools when you go to school because they want to get you hooked on the brand. A lot of mechanics (ETCG, being the wise among us, is exempt from this) are very loyal to the brands they picked up in school, so MAC is counting you to be a loyal customer for life. MAC makes good stuff, no doubt, but it’s not as good as it was 5 or 10 years ago, before so much of their line-up went offshore and they closed down American plants that had been churning out great tools for generations. It’s a shame, really that you’re entering the game at this point in history, since you’re not going to benefit from a reliable tool source. It’s going to take another 15 or 20 years (maybe more) before China catches up and makes consistent high-quality products like the US was making a few years back. The inexcusable thing about all of this, as far as I’m concerned, is that MAC and Craftsman and Snap-On still charge out the nose even though their overheads have been reduced by over 60%. If they’re going to offshore their manufacturing, then the consumer should at least reap some benefit from this. The corporate greed is almost too much to take nowadays.
If I were just starting out, I’d go with a Wright Tools apprentice set. As professional tools, they’re competitively priced and are a superior tool. They offer student discounts (though not as good as MAC’s). At the very least, you benefit from the fact that they’ve been building quality tools in quality plants for a lot longer than MAC or Snap-On (or Craftsman) has in China.
I blame Bob Villa for all of this. D:-)
Snap on is what i prefer although i do have some mac tools.
but for lab scope and scanners snap on all the way!!Quoted From Ironman:
Snap on is what i prefer although i do have some mac tools.
but for lab scope and scanners snap on all the way!!True, I love my ‘ol MTG-2500.
Anyone else here use Kobalt Tools? I bought a socket set on sale a few years ago and I loved it.. Now I have the big 227 piece set they sell… and I love it never had a single problem .. hope to start getting more into Mac and Snap on tools in the future as I switched my major and starting Automotive classes next Fall
My choice brand is Snap-On but I own mostly Snap-On and a few Cornwell and Craftsman tools. I’m lucky though to have Snap-On, Mac, Cornwell and a few other independent tool guys come to the shop where I work, but no matco guy because he became one of the independents, now everyone at work with matco stuff cries because when they break their matco tools theres no one that comes regularly to replace them lol.
The tools don’t make the Technician, The Technician makes the tools. My friend’s dad has probably $50K invested in ALL Snap-On at work. I don’t think he even has a Blue-Point Tire Gauge. But I’ve seen him work magic with Shuck’s (Now O’Reilly’s), Husky, NAPA, and other junk.
Buy something with a Lifetime warranty. Even if it’s outsourced to China, you can get a replacement with no questions asked.
I have almost all Craftsman. I did however, get a smokin’ student discount on a MATCO MDTECHPLUS DMM. About 55% off. WyoTech was NOT happy when they heard that I went behind the back of their beloved Snap-On.
I *WAS* going to buy a Snappy ETHOS. I walked into the lunch room and there was Mr. Snappy. I says: “How much for an ETHOS, fully decked out?” He tells me: “They’re about $1250.” So I asked about the discount: “Around $750-800.” He tells me. “Plus you get a $400 Snappy gift card.” I says: “I’m not interested in the gift card. Put it towards the ETHOS?” And he said: “Can’t do it. You have to use it to purchase more Snappy.”
I went back the next day and asked: “How much is that ETHOS, if I pay you CASH?”
“Well, depending on your credit score, I should be able to find a good interest r…”
“I’m paying you in *CaSh*. How much?”
“$700. But I suggest you order it before graduation to get the latest software updates and…”
“I don’t need 2012 model year stuff. H3ll, most 2008 stuff is under warranty.”LONG story short, I’m looking for a competitor’s tool.
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