Any thoughts on these versus the pneumatic variety?

I'm just looking for some help with wheel/tire rotations and basic car maintenance and am not really interested in investing in a whole compressor/pneumatic system.

My cheapo portable air compressor is good enough for topping off the tire's air pressure by a pound or two every few months. Beyond the impact wrench and filling tires, I'm not envisioning a lot more use from an air compressor. But please enlighten me if I'm missing something.

If I was to go electric, any thoughts between corded versus cordless?

I already have some Milwaukee 18v cordless tools and I see they make an 18v impact wrench. I found these on eBay (new) for ~$150, and Northern Tool has them closer to $200.

Milwaukee Cordless Impact Wrench


Does anyone know how long the battery lasts on one of these. On the drill, for instance, it seems I can go maybe a week in-between recharges with fairly decent use. Will I be recharging the battery after each lug or can I take off and replace all four wheels without an issue? The corded ones seem to cost pretty much the same.

 

I have a dewalt 18v one. I use it for light work or when I'm too lazy to turn on the compressor. It does the job and it's great for road trips. Makes you feel all powerful knowing you can change a tire in under 5 mins.

For your purpose as stated above I would def invest in one of these.

In terms of corded vs. cordless. I don't own many corded tools anymore. I think that with technology cordless tools are slightly less or equal to corded in terms of power. But we live in a wireless world. Cords are for old timers, I always tell my pops that. He flipped on em the other day cause I had all 3 cordless drills at my apt to do some work. old man had to find the corded and find the chucks as well. he lost big time.

 

Why not just use a good torque wrench? Impact wrenches should never be used to tighten lugs anyway. I picked on up for $30. Once the lugs are torqued to spec, the wrench makes the effort of removing them the next time a simple task.

 

impact wrenches are great for taking off nuts and getting them through the threads, use the torque wrench to tighten.

its not the issue of needing power to remove them so much as is saving your ass from having to twist a torque/lug wrench round-n-round

i find this method works just fine as compared to the anal "torque wrench only" method this forum convinced me to waste my time on for so many years.

 

I've been doing with hand tools all along -- and would still use the hand torque wrench to do the final tightening.

 

OK, well if that's the case then... get an impact wrench.

 

oh, and, i'd go corded if you can. cordless tools are weak. i just picked up a cordless weeder, hedge trimmer, and circular saw... they all fucking suck. cordless tools are weak.

 

Do you guys have any recommendations on a corded impact wrench?

 

Milwaukee, Bosch, Dewalt, Craftsman, Snap-On... can't really go wrong...

 

A cordless drill is nice to have, but I still use my corded drill for the heavy duty stuff. I only own a cordless drill, the other stuff all have cords (hedge trimmer, circular, sawsall, etc).

If you're only going to use the impact in the garage/driveway a corded one is probably a better bet.

 

Thanks

 

I just did some work to my ride last week. My neighbor turned me on to electric impact wrenches. Corded gets the job. He has a cheep one with a 3 year warranty that he got from Freight and Harbor Tools. It works like a charm!