For all the people who torque their bolts the right way, H F has their famous 1/2 drive torque wrench on sale for,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,$9.99, check your local papers for the coupon..........Can't beat the price, I'm going to get me a second one at this price.......

 

That's certainly cheap enough. How well does it hold up and what about the calibration - does it stay accurate over the long term?

 

I got one of them too.

I have a couple of other torque wrenches, but at that price I was looking at it for a ratcheting breaker bar.

I am not sure about calibration either. I have not tried checking it yet.

 

Just bought one on Fathers Day; works great, figured what the hay, for $10, why not?

 

What is HF? Never heard of that store, do they have a website?

 

Harbor Freight. Not sure if they have a website.

 

That's where I got mine.

 

IMHO -- way too cheap to be used on anything important. Use it for a breaker bar or a chrome-plated paint stir stick. It's like those cheap *ssed jacks and jack stands.

 

One of my evil-isms.." I can Not afford to buy anything too cheap"... it usually will cost you more than what you would save by not buying what you should have bought in the first place... I can not understand how so many people can buy into this notion that buying something too cheap is a good thing. I remember my Dad use to buy the cheapest batteries he could find.. 1 or 2 cent a piece ( circa 1960 ).. he always thought it was a good deal until the batteries destroyed enough devices that he finally got the message his son.." ME " was trying to convey.
I don't think it is possible to buy a cheaper torque wrench than this one. Is that what you really should be doing? Harbor freight is not synonymous with quality tools. Now you don't have to buy top of the line Snap-On stuff, but Craftsman tools that are on sale are tools that you can feel confident in their quality.
Of course this is just my opinion.. I think I would be embarrassed to brag about buying tools from Harbor freight. I remember reading about their ( Harbor freight's) Low profile jack. The law suites that were litigated about the cradle cracking in half and killing several people and injuring countless others...

 

Yep, there is a web site.....

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, never heard anything about the jack cracking.......Actually saw what looked like the same jack in a name brand store costing twice as much.....as far as the wrench, I have used it a couple of times and if you go by the instructions that are the same for anyone's wrench of the same type there should be no problems. Maybe they spit them out cheap, but on using a more expensive wrench that I borrowed from my son's garage, where he works at, it was right on the money.

 

I second that buying cheap junk costs you more in the end.

On one of my other vehicles, I cheaped out and bought some econo-line chinese ball joint... they lasted a year. Ball joint failure isnt pretty. Left me stranded and cost me a lot more than if I just did it right and bought Moog parts the first time around.

I wouldn't use this torque wrench on anything important either. Probably calibrated like crap and won't give you an accurate torque.

 

If your torquing stuff with anything other than PROTO your taking a gamble. Thats my opinion. All my other stuff is Craftsman or Snap-On but to torque and torque right.....PROTO. I worked in a machine shop helping out for a couple of years and they all used Proto. I now work in the oilfield and that machinery has peoples lives at stake and guess what they all use? Proto. Its my opinion and I stick by it.

 

we(my unit) use some proto torque wrenches on our helicopter. they do not hold there calibration like snap-on or have tighter tolerences than snap-on. we get ours calibrated twice a year and the proto's are always the ones getting thrown out first. granted ours have to be within 4% of said torque, sometimes even less.

second on proto tools...if you use tools everyday like we do get snap-on better quality and better "feel". proto just doesnt do it for me we have more problems with them than snap-on hands down. but like i said our tools get used all day everyday 5-7days a week 24 hours a day.

i wouldnt get a torque wrench from HF for my personal use...now regular hand tools for weekend warrior wrenching cant beat HF, and i get 20% all the time(wife is a manager at the local one)

and as far as machinest's go, i used to be one prior to my military enlistment and we only used snap-on and starret in my shop..just saying

 

IMHO - with tools, as most things in life, you generally get what you pay for.

 

As a weekend amateur, I use Craftsman tools. They have served me well and are made in the USA. I just turned 60 and now realize that my Craftsman tools will definitely outlast me. Now that's both humbling and rewarding.

 

My HF torque wrench is dead to nut against my brothers Snap-On, go figure.

 

Its always good to defend your mistakes...!
Problem with a cheap torque wench is there is little or no quality control. While major brands offer SPC ( statistical process control )the quality control standards found in good tools prove repeatability and also longevity. Things like iron springs instead of stainless springs will work when initially made and tested but allow moisture, humidity and condensation to effect a cheap torque wrench will guarantee that sooner rather than later it will not be the same wrench you bought last year. It only get uglier the longer you own it.. IN china, there are many levels of quality control from No control to very high quality. China does all types of knock offs... its there mainstay.. they can make a torque wrench look like quality, but because of the cheap labor and cheap material, and the lack of quality, many places like harbour freight can buy the wrench for a few dollars and still make a good margin. If you walk into their store, you do not have top be a technical person, you just have to look at the tools and the packaging and you can see cheap... in other store like the guy talking about the same jack for twice the money.. the only difference in most case is the packaging...harbor freight could buy top quality packaging but they wont even spend the few pennies it takes to upgrade the box... when a company is focused on cheap price, the consumer looses.
Of course this is my opinion.. yours may vary.
Bill aka ET

 

agreed

I was in a bind and borrowed a new HF one from a neighbor

later, found I was barely man enough to break the lug nuts loose

the 90 ft-lb setting was more like 150

buy quality brand name for this important tool

 

HF=human fak...

their stuff is basically cheap chinese creapola...