Put high flow connectors on your compressor and hose, even the HF ones labeled automotive, and you ll be amazed how much better your air tools work.


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I don't have nor want an impact gun. What about "soft sockets"? I've hear mixed reviews.

I have a soft socket that I have used with every 911 wheel removal and re-installation and it has been great for the last 20 years. I never use an impact on my 911 wheel nuts. The lug nuts after all those changes are a bit beat up and I replaced them when I went to my new 17 inch intimation Fuchs.

The last time I had a tire shop do tires they torqued by hand and asked us to return in 50 miles to have them torqued again.

I have had them, and they are fine for hand use. some guys will take a baggie and slip it on the lug nut under the socket to soften the load.

The thing is, if they were over torqued with an impact, often any other method will cause damage. You can break a socket, round the nut, shear off a fancy Porsche nut, I have even broken a 1/2 inch breaker bar. Wrecked a four way tire iron too.

After I sheared two Porsche nuts, I broke out the impact gun and all the others came off with minimal damage and no shearing.

I think I was about twenty when I broke the 1/2 inch breaker bar. It was guaranteed for life, and I broke the replacement as well. After two bars and a day of screwing around, I loaded my engine block into the truck, and took it to a mechanic I knew. He got out the impact gun, and had that crank nut off in 30 seconds.

Impact tools have their place. If I didn't want one, and couldn't get my wheels off, I would probably drive the car to a garage. I hand torque my lugs on everything. It only takes one idiot to mess that up.

Impact tools are great but they are just one more tool in the tool chest. Improper use of a impact gun is just as stupid using a screw driver as a scraper.

My 911 lug nuts will never have a impact wrench used on them. I love it for my El Camino. I still just snug the lugs up and finish with a torque wrench.

One of my neighbors had been struggling with the nut that holds the blade on the crankshaft of his lawn mower. He had tried every combination of wedging the blade and wrench to get it off. He finally wheeled the mower to my house. He handed me some cheap socket and I told him it was not an impact socket. He said to use it anyway. It split into pieces in a second. I got out the proper socket and took the blade off in an instant. He was happy it was off but pissed he had spent 1/2 a day messing with it. I used a torque wrench to tighten the nut.

The proper tool used correctly makes life a lot easier. :cool:

I've done that. Works great, if you can make sure the socket doesn't come off the nut.

When using a cheater bar, make sure that you are always pushing down, not pulling up.

If the socket does come off, you're not having a bar fly up in the air and hit you or something else.

So that would be the 8 o'clock, not 4 o'clock position.

I'll add Big-O Tires to that list of places never to take your car. I once had them install a set of tires that I bought from Tire Rack...big mistake. After I got the car home, I went to re-torque all the lugs like I always do after visiting a tire shop and found them to be all so tight that I could hardly break them. This was on my BMW, which uses lug bolts that screw into the hub instead of the more traditional studs and lug nuts. I found one bolt that had been over-torqued so much that it had completely stripped out the threads in the hub. The tire monkey knew this too 'cause the air gun must've just spun like a top, but he never said a word. Needless to say, I was pissed. The shop lost all their profit & then some after having to replace the hub, bearings and all the lug bolts on that particular wheel.
A woman friend of mine was ripped off at that very same shop a couple of weeks later. She had taken her car in for a tire rotation and they fast-talked her into a new set of tires and a wheel alignment. A job that should've cost less than $50 quickly ballooned into a $600 bill. I had checked her tires beforehand and there was plenty of good tread left and no evidence of being out of alignment.