Cordless impact driver?

[garethj]

Anyone recommend one? It's my birthday soon, so what better present to ask for than something that'll get stubborn bolts off and be a new toy for the toolbox.

 

It's just for home use so none of your ££250 SnapOn stuff, thanks. Can I get one for £80 that's worth having?

[Albert Ross]

I don't think there is one worth having. Impact suggests air powered. Cordless suggests electricity. If you can get an airline-less air powered impact gun, I'd be up for it.

 

They're a bit like gasless Mig. Shit.

[cobblers]

What is it being used for? No electric one I've ever used has had any real grunt - not enough to match a good arm on a 1/2" ratchet. The £250+ Snap on ones are supposedly pretty good though but like you say, its a lot of cash for home use.

 

 

A few of my mates have these: (Which they tell me you can get for about £100 or so with a battery and charger off ebay)

http://www.powertooldirect.co.uk/makita ... 67516.html

 

They are fupping handy (Small, agile and have a decent amount of power) but on any bolt head bigger than a 15mm you'll have get it started with a ratchet. Does seriously speed up jobs though, especially those really long annoying bolts that are tight all the way out.

 

For actually tight stuff, they also have a compressor and a cheap air impact driver too - even £12 aldi ones are from my experience equivalent to an 18" breaker bar or so and will have wheels on and off no worries. Invaluable for strut top nuts on macpherson struts without having to mess about with the pissy 6mm hex poorly machined into the end of the damper rod which will inevitably round off before you get anywhere near loosening the top nut.

 

If you have space even a cheap compressor and a few tools to go with it is a really good investment - Arguably better than an electric impact driver without all that much power.

 

All this said, I have a £12 thing from maplins that runs off the ciggy lighter. Weird piece of kit - it spins some kind of flywheel up over about a second and then hammers at the bolt, and repeats this 3 or 4 times til whatever bolt is loose and then winds it out. Has most wheel bolts off in 2 or 3 seconds and has lasted probably 70 full sets of wheels. It's getting a bit long in the tooth so I'm saving it for when I actually need to shock something off like a top mount nut and I can't just borrow a makita gun or use the compressor at my mates.

[CIH]

We use lecccy Snap-On guns at work and they're great. They're only really weak when the battery gets low.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

I have a rubbish wired 12v impact driver and it does the job, but I agree about them being about as effective as a breaking bar.

[Timewaster]

At work I use a Hitachi cordless. It too is great.

 

bet it cost about 8 bazillion quids though.

[aled]

the last one i looked at with snap on was £385 plus vat if it was £250 i might have had it.

 

a few of the boys in work have them and they are really good, but i use a £11 power bar and an aluminium scaffholding pole.

[garethj]

Thanks kids, looks like it's a crap idea

[meggersdog]

I've got one of those Clarke 24v jobbies from Machine Mart.Still need a breaker bar to crack off wheel nuts and stuff that's tight.It's ideal for weekend tinkering but not really powerful enough to use on it's own.

[Mike D]

As has been pretty much said above, unless it's the Snap On one, don't bother!

[dollywobbler]

Mate of mine managed to undo the crankshaft pulley bolt on my Audi 100 with his Snap-on impact, cordless thingy. They really do have some grunt!