Bryan,
I picked up one of the Harbor Freight (HF) specials "Chicago Industrial" 19.2
Volt half-inch drive cordless impact wrenches. Got it maybe a year and a half
ago (maybe longer) after Peter said that a lot of people were buying them.
Currently $149.99. harborfreight.com
You can't believe their advertising that it puts out 220 ft-lb. Snap-On
claims 210 ft-lb for their 18 volt model. OTOH, I would never use one of
these to do final torque on my lugs anyway. I do them by hand with a clicker
wrench in three stages, once I learned that I wasn't close enough with a
breaker bar to avoid breaking a stud every season or so.... I give them a
quick loosen (by hand, cross-wise) while the tires are on the ground, just
enough to take most of the torque off, then use the cordless to take off/spin
on the lugs, then I hand torque cross-wise. My guess is that without leaving
it to pound on the nut for too long it's tightening to around 60-70 ft-lbs.
The HF on a full charge lasts three events or more if they're reasonably close
together. You can pay $300 for a Milwaukee, even at HF, and the Snap-On lists
for like $470 with battery and charger. Because either one has NiCads you
don't want to recharge it every week, the memory effect will kill it sooner.
And the HF replacement battery pack seems way high at $59.99, but I'll buy one
at the end of this season and still only be up to half the price of the
Snap-On. And the latter's battery pack is $110.
If you're as picky about torque as I am then you could get by with just a
rechargeable drill with an adapter for the nut spinning and not lose that much
time. But on occasion you can use the impact on removing non-lug nuts while
working on your car. It doesn't fit in tight spaces like an air wrench but it
can sure be nice to have.
PaulT
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