rev up your engines, today I'm gonna talk about should you buy tools at autozone
now first you have to realize that autozone is an auto parts store mainly
they sell some tools, but that's not their main business, their main business
is in selling car parts for you to fix your car, unlike a place like say harbor
freight tools, all they do is sell tools, they're not selling you a radiator
and brake pads and stuff like that, it's a different business, now I'll start
out with the tools that really overtime you
shouldn't buy from autozone, and that's the cheaper socket sets, if you see a set
of full sockets, I saw one there was $19.99 they're made in Taiwan they're junky
tools, when I was a kid I bought some junky tools to put in the trunk of my
car hey they all fell apart have to use them
a little bit a while to give you an example here's a set of
three eighths inch sockets that I have if I bought each one of these
individually, I would have spent about eighty-eight dollars buying them all, so
if you get a tool set for $19.95 that has all those sockets, a couple of ratchets,
extension bar, screwdrivers, they're gonna be really cheaply made there's no
if ands or buts about that, if you're gonna buy a grinder, I don't advise
buying one of their $29 ones, I did in the past it didn't last long, I got this
Dewalt, yeah it cost a lot more money but it's a really good grinder that has lasted
me years, and if you need oddball sockets like these Torx, get a quality
set, they're tiny in fine, if they're cheap steel guess what's gonna happen,
especially if they're pot metal, you put any torque on them and they just break,
or they strip inside then you have a hard time getting the nuts and bolts out,
get quality ones don't go buy a set of them that are $9.98, they might not even
work the first time especially if you live up north where everything's is rusting
and you try to get it off, it'll just snap
the cheap tool off, and if you want a flashlight that's bright and that last
don't buy those counter ones that they sell
sometimes they're five dollars or six dollars or eight dollars, if you want
quality, get a quality light that's gonna last
for years, this sofirn light I've had it for years
you can see it's beat-up-looking but boy it puts out light basically it's lasted
me four years so far with no problems at all, other than I got to recharge the
battery but it's got this huge lithium-ion rechargeable battery that
still works fine after all these years, when I'm working on a car if that flashlight
breaks in the middle of the job it drives me nuts
I want quality, this thing is like 37 dollars on Amazon, it's worth the money
rather than buying 10 or 20 over the years as a cheap plastic once, the solid
metal one, I've had no problems, I've even run over with an f-150 truck sideways
and it's scraped it a little but it still works good, now definitely don't buy a
vacuum pump at autozone, but that's for a completely different reason and that's
because autozone loans out all kinds of tools absolutely free, including vacuum
pumps, as I said autozone is mainly a company that sells auto parts to people
to fix their cars, they loan out all kinds of tools free, so you can fix your
own car and not have to buy the expensive tools that a mechanic has to buy
let's say you don't have an expensive scan tool like I do that does ABS codes
autozone actually loans free obd2 scan tools that do ABS, because they're in the
business mainly of selling auto parts, so if you use a scan tool, find out that you
need a wheel hub ABS sensor assembly, the tool shows you that, odds are you're
gonna go back to them to buy it, and let's say your cooling system has a leak
and you want to press your test it, well last week my pressure tester broke after
years and years, so I just bought a new set, it was about a hundred and fifty
bucks, do you want to spend a hundred and fifty bucks on a pressure testing system
something you might use four or five times in the next 20 years, I don't think
so, you don't have to buy one at autozone you can borrow it, they loan pressure
testing equipment and let's say you got a bad CV axle, your front drive shaft is
broken and clanking when you turn, hey auto zone sells good ones I buy them all
the time from them, but you have to buy all the tools for pulling the
axlr out, but you don't want to go out and buy one
and guess what autozone loans axle pullers out free too, maybe you need a new ball
joint, but you don't want to buy expensive ball joint pressing tool kits,
they loan those out too, let's say you jack up your car and your wheels got
playing it, you find out that your outer tie rod is worn out, they rent tie rod
removal tools too, and let's say you want to test your battery or you think your
alternator is not charging, do you really want to buy one of these nine hundred
dollar testers like I have, but guess what Auto zones will test your starter, test
your battery, test your alternator all in their parking lot for nothing, hey
there's quite a few times if your a DIY guy that you'd rather just
borrow a tool than buy it, but when it comes to buying hand tools, I got a lot
of their Duralast tools, these things are pretty quality made and as you can see
on the sign, it's guaranteed for life, now I can't truthfully say by my own
experience that they'll give you another one free if it breaks, because I've never
had any of these break yet, and I've been using their hand tools for over thirty
years, there's an autozone that's three and a
half blocks south of me, if I lose a tool or have a really old one that breaks of
course I'm gonna go over there and buy one it's got a lifetime guarantee and
it's a solid steel tool, I used to have quite a few Craftsman tools but the
Sears store is four miles further down the road, so I ended up going to autozone
that's three and a half blocks away and that was a smart move because the Sears
are all long gone now, and the auto zones are merrily rolling along, now I used to
have full set of Duralast that's that little red strip, these are all
Duralast sockets, but if you notice some of them don't have the stripes, now I've
actually never broken in one of these sockets, but I lose them all the time so
I buy replacement ones wherever I can find them, so now you know all about
autozone and tools, when you shouldn't buy them there, when you should buy them
there, and when you should just go over there and borrow their expensive tools
to find out what's wrong, and then return them when you're done and not spend any
money on tools, so if you never want to miss another one
of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!