Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I needed a torque wrench to do work on our cars. Well, to be honest, I needed to do work on our cars, and decided that I "needed" a torque wrench. Excuses to buy tools are always a good thing. I was originally just going to nip over to Sears and buy a Craftsman. However, I was horrified to discover how little faith they have in some of their products these days; Craftsman's usual lifetime hand tool warranty does *not* apply to their to torque wrenches, and is instead replaced by a **90-day** warranty. Three months? What on earth?? I guess that's what you get when you outsource to China. (Source as of May 2014: [...] ) Appalled, I turned to Amazon instead. Snap-on is too rich for my blood right now, but I did consider picking up a CDI wrench (and in the long run, still might). Given how often I'm likely to use it, I figured I'd start on the low end of the price scale just to see what was available. I came across this wrench, and although it's not made in the U.S. (manufactured in Taiwan) Tekton is a U.S. company that does appear to be easily contactable in case any questions/concerns pop up. The same can't be said of a lot of the made-in-China stuff. They also appear to keep an eye out on Amazon for those with trouble, which is often a good sign. Out of the box, the wrench comes in a reasonable enough red plastic case. It's not the heaviest plastic known to mankind, but it's not the flimisest either. It seems suitable enough for the purpose, which is good enough. The wrench itself has a decent heft to it, and doesn't give the impression of being cheaply made. The ratcheting mechanism on the head seems smooth enough. One thing that caught my eye about this Tekton wrench is that they filled in the scale on the shaft in black. That sounds like a trivial thing, but that one little change makes reading and setting the wrench infinitely simpler than on other tools. I'm a huge fan of laser-etched sockets with big, clear figures instead of stamped markings (I have a Stanley set that I got for cheap that's etched); they're that much easier to read. Anyway, I tried a couple of simple jobs with the new wrench, comparing it against a CDI wrench borrowed from work. I did a spark plug change and an oil change, trying both wrenches on the same jobs. In general, the Tekton is a solid-feeling tool. The torque adjustment mechanism doesn't feel nearly as smooth as the CDI, but at a quarter of the cost, I'm more than willing to overlook that. The setting locking mechanism is also far simpler than the one Craftsman we have at work (it has some sort of eighth-turn locking collar that never stays put) The Tekton doesn't give a massively audible click when the set torque is reached, but I did find the motion at the set point was quite obvious when I hit it. I couldn't feel any discernible difference compared to the CDI wrench in terms of accuracy. I tried tightening to the two limits needed for the job (13 and 28 ft-lb) initially with one wrench and then checking it against the other (and vice-versa), and found that neither showed much of a difference. Even on the more challenging 13 ft-lb setting (click torque wrenches being notoriously less accurate at the bottom end of their scale) I found no real difference in either wrench's behaviour. Given the length of the handle, hitting 80 lb-ft might be a bit optimistic. That said, I can't think of any job I'm likely to do in the near future that would require that much oomph. Overall, I'm very happy. This appears to be a better tool than I'd expected at this price, and given the cost is probably a better tool than the price deserves. It appears to be accurate enough (with the usual caveats that apply to all non-beam torque wrenches at the bottom end of their range) when compared with a much more expensive wrench, and although I didn't need it for the pair of jobs I've done so far, the facility to switch between standard and left-handed tightening seems like a bonus compared with some wrenches in this price range that just can't do that. My only niggle is with the smoothness of the handle when turned to set the desired torque. For want of a better term, it's a little on the graunchy side. But for that, this would easily be a 5-star product. Even then, given how inexpensive this tool is, it's ever so close to getting full marks, but I like my tools to have a nice tactile feel to them, and this one aspect means I can't quite give it a top score. It works well enough, but it just feels a little off. I'd call it a 4.5 if Amazon would let me...