Electric impact wrench ok?
 

Canadian Tire is having a sale on an electric impact wrench. Is this ok for light-duty home use? I'm not a mechanic so I won't use it often, but taking off the wheels and putting them back on might be easier with such a tool.

I know there are small compressed air and tank setups but I found them noisy and they would take up space.

I'm hoping this little electric thing may be sufficient.

I hope its got more torque than my arms LOL

Theres one thing with air wrenchs is that they are some powerful stuff.

Most mastercraft/stanley/whatever decent tool brand should be sufficient for tire lug nuts. Just remember to use the black sockets though those chrome ones may break on you

I bought Mastercraft 7.5A impact gun on sales for $45

it was garbage and torqueless...

can't even take wheel lug nut off ( ps: I torque the nut to 80 lb-ft using a torque wrench)

save the money and buy a 18V cordless..

^^ Are u sure? I just bought one and it had way more torque then I even needed, the previous owner was an idiot and jumped on the tire iron to tighten it and it took it off with ease :S

My shop has Snap on Cordless impact and they work awesome. I guess it depends on the brand and how much torque its putting out.

Berz out.

yes for sure
I have exchanged a brand new one
but still didn't produce the torque

as previously said, I use a torque wrench to tighten the nuts in star-pattern.

never use an impact gun to tighten ur lugs. always use a torque wrench.

i bought the same canadian tire electric one, makes taking lug nuts off easy. however the body is so freakin big that its useless in tight places.

ill still stick by the air impact gun, but for quick work, the electric one will do for some jobs.

I have the Mastercraft corded impact, and it buzzed off axle nuts with with ease.

It may not be cool or bling ... but my Princess Auto corded special has yet to fail me.

Hardest jobs it's handled so far are a rotoflex on Land Rover and a control arm on a 20 year old Porsche.

A few times I thought it wasn't going to work but just left it on banging away and they've always come eventually.

Some people here are talking about cordless, while others are talking about corded. I cannot see a corded one as being weak. I have a Mastercraft cordless impact gun and as long as the battery is fully charged, it does the trick. There are limits, of course. I bought the cordless when I had to take apart a playhouse that I built for the kids when they were young. The structure was 14 years old at the time. Quite the structure too, may I add with three sections, a suspended bridge, slide, swings, fire pole, club house on top, trap doors, etc. (when I build shit, it is usually designed to withstand hurricanes). Anyway, I used 1/2 inch bolts that were 8 to 12 inches long inches long. Some of the bolts were extremely rusted/corroded. I used a breaker bar with a pipe extender to loosen the nut on those and the cordless to do the rest. I didn't have a compressor back then and there were no corded impact guns on the market yet. That cordless came in very handy and reduced the tear down time by quite a bit.

Unless you use those torque limiters and know how to use them.

The electric torque wrenches from Princess Auto or Canadian tire are crap, don't bother.

The Princess Auto cordless torque wrench is very good, although I don't think they sell them anymore. It takes off lugnuts off with ease and the battery lasts quite a long time. Rated at 350ft/lbs of torque

Don't buy this torque wrench from Canadian Tire: http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/brows...t%2BWrench.jsp

I've seen it in action and can't take lugnuts off. It is rated at 1050 in/lb which is only 87.5 ft/lbs. Most lugnut are torqued at 80ft/lbs min and with a semi used battery, it doesn't have the power to pull a lugnut off.

This is a really good battery torque wrench, but not cheap: http://www.ingersollrandproducts.com...px-am_en-30712

I use air tools now and all of the ratchets and impacts are from Ingersoll Rand. I'm using a 2135QTiMAX impact. 780ft-lb of torque!! Very quiet, powerfull and takes anyting off with no sweat.

I have IR wrench and impact and they're great. Their better models are made in Japan quality. Expensive.

Funny, I've had one of those for years and it's been fantastic - I'd highly recommend it for a cordless and buy another one in an instant. I used it for everything on my Accord and about the only thing it couldn't handle was the main crank bolt (and that, we couldn't even get loose with a torch, half a can of deep-creep, and four-foot breaker bar with a 320-lb guy jumping on it!). Even swapping out the rear-end, only about half the bolts needed to be broken loose with a wrench, the rest came right out with this gun.

In fact, after about three years of it running great and using it almost daily for work, I went in to see if I could get a replacement for the hex-drive adapter that was starting to wear a bit (hex bits were getting stuck) and they just replaced the whole thing - brand-new impact gun for free, cha-ching! Note: they do have this on sale regularly, I've seen it as low as $120.

^ wow I'm surprised. I've seen this wrench at auto-x events and all of the guys have to use a tire iron first to break loose the lugnuts before using the wrench to twist them off.

It's really handy around the garage for basic jobs, but like someone mentioned earlier, make sure you have impact sockets to go with your wrench.

Metal shards embedded in your flesh wouldn't be worth the time saved.

For the "Drive Way Garage" Makita or Dewalt both make quality 1/2" Drive Torque Wrenches. My Makita has been through hell and back and still throws hard !! Cant count the swaps and tear downs its been through lol...
Funny thing is my uncle used it regularly for years, gave it me, I used it hard for years and its still tickin... good ol Green Kita !!

I'm looking to sell mine (Canadian tire). Used it's once really. It comes with all the accessories. and the carrying case. :) Anyway, if you looking for a heavy duty one you need to find one that runs on a 18.8v or more. DeWalt makes decent ones as well but it'll cost you an arm and a leg much like the Snap-On counterparts. The maximum line by Candian tire is pretty decent. It's not the best obviously but it'll get the job done and it's not that expensive.

If money is not a huge factor, go out and buy yourself a Snap on CT4850HO. They are cordless rated at like 500ft.lbs. you can pick up a used CT3850 for under 200$ off ebay and they are good for up to 350ft.lbs.

I have a cordless mastercraft one, and for anything under 14mm they work awesome, small enough to fit in tight areas, while my Ingersoll 2135QTI max will take off pretty much everything under the sun.

I have one of those mastercraft electric 1/2 ones and its useless. Makes 5 times the noise my Ingersoll air impact does, and still struggles to take lug nuts off that were torqued to 82ft.lbs.

haha, chris, yessss, 2135qti is the shittttt

i guess the question is best cordless electric impact gun

and best corded electric impact gun


but nothing can replace an air impact gun,

you speak the truth! Nothing can beat an air impact. With technology the way it is now, they are super quiet and have some serious power. My biggest gripe with my electric mastercraft one other then the lack of balls was the sheer noise it made. Its this harsh high pitched clanging noise, even my neighboors complained the day after.

By far the best cordless impact is the Snap On CT4850HO. 550FTLBS in a cordless impact. on one charge it can apparently take off like 300 lug nuts. For general use the Mastercraft one works awesome. Almost every tech at my work uses them!

we got one too when it was on sale as well it's a piece of crap, the corded one, it can't even take off a lugnut

the mastercraft one i would not use for lug nuts.. although you can use it to save sometime by breaking it by hand and then using it to spin it off.

i use mine at work all the time.. but only on bolts from 10-17mm

and when u start adding extensions and stuff you loss torque dont forget that..

and i used mine for 2-3 years now.. battery last about 1-2 weeks varying the work load.