noise."The Tool Truck · 11:36pm Sep 17th, 2018
Alrighty kids, it’s time to talk about the company store*. I’ve been promising this blog to SirNotAppearingInThisFic for quite some time.
Source (YouTube)
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*I mean the tool truck.
Now, I could get totally lazy here and just link you to one of HumbleMechanic’s recent vlogs (that’s what kids call them, isn’t it?). And indeed, I will, because he covers some of the philosophy of the thing. We’ll get to that later.
In that video, you’ll learn that in the USA, mechanics own all their own hand tools. Well, I guess I told you first, unless of course you already knew that.
In fact, that’s the biggest hurdle to becoming a mechanic. You gotta buy lots of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. You’ll need impact guns and die grinders and air ratchets and sockets and wrenches and hammers and drills and die grinders and screwdrivers and extra 10mm sockets and files and die grinders and you’ll also need nut drivers and air hammers and die grinders and the list keeps going on and on.
You’ll also need a place to put all that stuff. Some kind of toolbox or cart or bigger tool chest.
The automakers won’t be your friends. They’ll install fasteners that are standard and fasteners that are metric; they’ll use Phillips and Pozidrive and Torx and inverted Torx and triple-square. They’ll have line fittings that you need special wrenches for, they’ll invent clever little plastic clips that you get out with panel poppers and oddly-shaped pliers. Just today the other guy was working on an Equinox that has a five point bolt on top of the transmission, just to keep people without the right tool from messing with it.
And a mechanic will be forever buying more tools to deal with all that. For most bolts, there’s a wrench, a ratcheting wrench, a stubby wrench, a stubby ratchet wrench, a flex-wrench, an offset wrench, a shallow socket, a medium socket, a deep socket, and all those sockets are available in chrome or impact, and they’re also available in flexhead. You can get some of them attached to extensions (for spark plugs), with magnets in them, even double-jointed for those really hard-to-reach applications. Plus there are also super-stubby versions for things like putting a mode door actuator in a Ford Crown Victoria without removing the dashboard like you’re supposed to.
For maximum coverage, you’ll want to have a set of 1/4” drive, and 3/8” drive, and 1/2” drive. Plus all those wrenches. So many wrenches. And did I mention flare-nut wrenches? Because line fittings are soft metal, and the ordinary wrenches like to slip on them and round them off, especially when things get rusty. If you’re made of money, you can even get ratcheting flare nut wrenches.
Of course, you can’t always get a wrench down in there, which is why crows foot wrenches exist, both in flare-nut and standard.
Maybe a second toolchest wouldn’t be a bad idea. They sell those on the Snap-On truck. Low, low payments, for a long, long time.
Now, if us mechanics had to drive to Sears every time we needed a new tool or needed to replace one that we’d broken (hopefully under warranty), we’d never get a single thing done.
Enterprising ponies people thought of that.
There’s an old saying, “If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.” (Francis Bacon, 1625); in this day and age, if the mechanic will not go to the tool store, than the tool store will come to the mechanic.
Now, I’m not talking about Amazon, or even the Sears and Roebuck catalog, although of course both of those things are possibilities, and have been through the ages.
No, once a week a tool truck comes up to the shop.*
It’s much like an ice-cream truck, except it’s full of tools instead of ice-cream. Sometimes they have candy, to lure mechanics aboard (although that’s really not necessary [but it helps]).
It’s like Christmas every week on one of those trucks. They’re loaded with displays of the latest and greatest tools, plus of course they’ve got all the staples, wrenches and die grinders and 10mm sockets. Every month, there’s a sales flier, usually covering some of the essentials as well as some of the more specialty stuff. A lot of times if you buy one thing, you get something else for free! Who doesn’t like a deal like that, huh?
Why, I could wear a different tool-truck branded coat every day of the week if I wanted to (seriously, I’m not kidding about that; usually when you buy lots of stuff or are just a good customer, they give you a free coat).
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*There are four major brands that I’m aware of, and they don’t have full coverage in the US: Snap-On, Mac Tools, Matco, and Cornwall.
I’m gonna step back here just for a second, ‘cause not all of you are tool-savvy. There is a difference in brands, in terms of both comfort and reliability. Harbor Freight and their lines of tools are generally about at the bottom of the scale, Sears Craftsman is somewhere in the middle, and Snap-On is generally at the top.
From a car point of view, it’s like the difference between a Festiva and a Lincoln Navigator; from a fashion point of view it’s the difference between Gucci and a paper bag.
There are mechanics who are total brand whores, and I’m proud to not be one of them. I’ll buy the tool that can do what I need it to do from both a performance and reliability standpoint, for the cheapest price I can. I don’t care what it says on the handle; it’s just gotta work.
And let’s face it, you’re paying a premium for a tool that gets delivered right to you, twice a week. Even if there was a Sears Craftsman tool truck, stuff would cost more there than it does in the store, I’d imagine. You’re paying in part for the convenience of the tool store coming to you.
There’s a second side of that convenience coin. Craftsman tools famously have a lifetime warranty, and I can attest to the fact that they generally honor that no matter what you did to the tool. Did you know that if you can’t turn a ratchet by hand, you can use a hydraulic floor jack on it? And it might even survive [once, based on experience]. Also, if you break a screwdriver in the middle, you’re abusing it . . . but Sears honored that warranty, too.
Maybe you can actually try and warranty enough stuff they won’t honor it anymore, I don’t know, but that’s never happened to me yet.
But for me, the nearest Sears is 20 miles (assuming it’s still open), and compared to some, I’m lucky. If I break a Craftsman tool, that means I’ve got to take a trip to Sears; it won’t get repaired or replaced before that.
On the tool truck, though, I don’t have to do anything but hand the driver the broken tool. He’ll fix it or give me a new one if he’s got it on the truck, and if not, he’ll order it and I’ll have a new one the very next week. If you’re a really good customer, they’ll even warranty stuff that they’re not supposed to, like little drill bits or an Ez-Out that has been heated so many times it’s turned blue. Or a ratchet that I swear I didn’t use a pipe on; it just sort of came apart.
Once again, it’s probably possible to become persona non grata on a tool truck by breaking enough things. But that’s never happened to me, even when I was on the top ten of warranty claims on the Matco truck.
And now we come to the final “advantage” of the tool truck.
You see, when I go into Sears and want to buy a bunch of stuff, they want me to pay for it before I leave the store.
That’s not the case with tool trucks.
There are, in fact, two ways it can work on a tool truck. The one is basically the ‘store card’ version. I fill out a credit application to Snap-On (let’s say), and they run the numbers, decide how much I can spend on the truck and what my weekly payments are going to be, and of course they also tack on interest. Much the same way a credit card works.
Similarly, they have various promotions. Buy a toolbox, and not only do you get a lower APR, but you also get a free jacket!
And I will say that unlike the cheap stuff you sometimes get with promotions like that, the jackets off the tool trucks are both comfy and easy to wear.
The second way is that you build a relationship with the tool truck driver, and HE loans you the money out of his own pocket.
The advantage of that is that there’s typically no interest.
I want you to think about that for a minute, because there’s so little that works this way in this modern world.
Let’s say that I want to buy a $350 torque wrench. I can just go on the truck, tell the driver that I want that, and he adds it to my tab if he trusts me to be good for the money, and I walk off the truck with my new torque wrench. Done.
This, of course, brings us back to the company store analogy early in the blog. In the eighteen years I’ve been a professional mechanic, I’ve spent between $40 and $70 a week on tool trucks, mostly in recurring payments, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a balance of zero on all the trucks.
If you decide to do the math on that, please don’t tell me what you come up with, because it’s probably more than my house is worth. 
Low, low payments for a long, long time.
What can we learn from this?
A couple of things, I’d say.
First off, the idea of travelling salesmen isn’t unique to tool trucks. Before there were tool trucks, there were people who traveled around selling things--bringing the store to you. I know that there were travelling tinsmiths in Britain that would fix household goods, and I know that back in the day there were travelling painters (we’ll cover them in an upcoming blog post). For some of them, establishing a regular schedule--if they had enough demand in one area--would be the ideal situation.
Second, we’ve got the idea of simpler credit. Rather than FICO scores and complicated applications and offshore banks and all of that, we’ve got a person who decides how much money he’s gonna trust you with--how much balance he feels like he’s willing to carry for you. Essentially, a handshake contract . . . while it’s true that technically he still owns the tool until I’ve paid for it, my toolbox has wheels and if I decided to default, I could just roll my toolbox out the door and head off to who-knows-where, and he might never find me again. Any action he could take would be at best a lawsuit in small-claims court.
I think I mentioned this in an earlier blog post, actually, one of the advantages of a small town. When I needed a loan for my roof, I went into the local bank and asked for money. They asked me if I wanted to do a second mortgage, and I said no, so then they asked if I wanted to put up anything as collateral, and I said that I’d rather not. So that’s how they wrote the loan—it’s a personal loan, attached to no assets except my good word.
Third, never underestimate the power of luring people (or ponies) with candy or other free stuff.
Part of the reason that I have so many Matco tools is that the driver in Lansing always had a bucket of Jolly Ranchers on the truck, so it was natural for me to want to go out there and of course when I was fishing around in the bucket for the flavors I liked, that was when he could sell me on a new tool.
And once I owed money to him, it was much easier to keep spending more, especially since it never changed my weekly payment. And I could rationalize that since I was getting the money at 0% anyway, why not keep on spending?
Guarantee you that the Matco driver had made the exact same calculation.
Seems you owe your soul to the company store.
This was a fascinating read.
I have very much bookmarked this blog. I have a strong hunch it'll come in handy soon…
I carry just shy of $10,000 in tools on my small work truck. I have to replace $100 worth of broken tools every week, and a new impact every three months.
Lifetime warranties are my best friends for life.
I am going to disagree with you on HF stuff. No, it is not "pro" level, then again snap on has dropped in quality in a huge way in the last 5 years or so. Rather I will say for the home/semi pro (like me, with a race car), HF hand tools work just fine. Now on the power side i use Milwaukee Fuel series for everything, and I did splurge on a good Mig/Tig/Arc combo unit by everlast.
However, again back to hand tools, a impact socket is a impact socket, they are all made pretty much the same.
Tool boxes, again HF is bringing out some TOP notch stuff now, no longer is it the crap it was even 5 years ago. (I went Husky myself, but again my little 2300sqft shop is just for me and friends to wrench in on our race cars and offroaders)
I end up at Hazard Fraught pretty frequently.
We bought a new paint sprayer from there outright for less than it would have cost to rent one from HD, and the little fucker is still chugging along 3 years later.
I remember the first time you mentionned that tool truck (something about a tee-shirt?), I still find the concept facinating. And convenient.
My cousin used to be a mechanic (He's now a foreman at a big rig truck assembly plant) and he always warned of those places.
As far as I know, he never went into one. Probably for the best.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Next thing you knw theyll be adding clamps and chains and hoists and ramps and rigs of every size to the back of that thing. Why just carry the tools, when you can carry the garage as well.
As an amateur, I'm glad to have access to three layers of tools - mine, my brother's (who is/was a licensed car mechanic) and my dad's (who was a licensed electrical mechanic). One day I'll finally use that manometer, or shop press, or timing light... somehow there's never a Philips screwdriver around, though
Thank you for bringing back some very good memories of climbing in the Snap-On truck and drooling over the tools. There was this NASCAR wrench special that I wanted, but it was just too much money and it was a limited edition so you really couldn't use it any way. Got many a ball cap from our guy, though and I bought two Snap-On Maglites from him the ones that took the D batteries and had 6 cells if I remember and a bunch of ones that took AA and AAAs.He sold Kershaw knives, too and I bought one that had Snap-On it. Still have it.
He was in the business forever and owned his truck and all the tools in it. He didn't have to worry about pushing sales like the other guys did. We bought a two post above ground lift from him to supplement our two poster in the ground in the 90s. It had been installed in '77 when most cars but the Eldorado were rear wheel drive and we needed it to pick up the cars without a rear differential and solid axle housing.
We had 24/7 7 day a week towing so I always shuddered whenever I thought about that truck being in an accident. All those tools flying. Ugh. The tool truck he had had sliding doors that he could drive with open, it was much smaller than the one you've shown and that one was bigger than the one he first had when I was aware of him coming around. When I worked at another shop in the tire dept, a Snap-On truck, a Mac truck, and a Matco truck stopped by. I never bought from the Snap-On truck there, but I did from the Mac and Matco. The Matco guy would really deal. I got more stuff from him than the Mac guy. They came different days, and many of the guys there had tools from all the trucks. The tools in my dad's old box were Williams, Proto, Bonney, and SK as well as predominantly Snap-On.
Several years ago, I was working on installing satellite service for a Snap-On tool truck driver once, at his home. He had the truck parked there.
My Home Depot Husky brand ratchet wrenches (7/16" and 1/2") were wearing out... constant exposure to all weather tends to cause the ratchet mechanism inside to rust and stick in an open position and slip. I didn't have the time to go buy replacements, either...stores are closed by the time my day is done. The company had recently bought a "complete" tool kit for every technician (it was missing several critical tools) comprised of the cheapest of cheap, off-brand, fall-apart-in-your-hands crap good money can buy. So most of us veteran techs were using our own tools still, since we'd paid for them already and they actually worked.
The guy watched for a while, went into the truck, came out, and handed me replacements. No charge. Said I could keep 'em if I'd deliver his flier to my warehouse manager.
Those guys are pretty cool. The prices on the flier were O___o though and the warehouse manager used it as a flyswatter for a while.
I still have those wrenches. They, too, would try to slip after a day in a rain storm, but a spritz of WD40 and they were like new again.
That third pic...
Just like damaged books, that damaged tool does not sit well with Twilight.
My brother just retired. He went to school to become an auto mechanic, worked fixing typewriters for a couple of years, then got a job as an auto mechanic (amazing how that happens) for quite a few years, then moved here to work for a construction company, fixing bulldozers.
Yeah, there's a few 10mm sockets. Most of his stuff is much *bigger* built Caterpillar size. And he had a truck to match, because it's a royal pain to drag the Cat D9 back into the shop.
Meanwhile, I've got a cable tester and a multi-screwdriver at work, and that's about it for my tools.
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I read that comment in the cadence of this song at the 3:30 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVh179oXFao
I actually like most Craftsman tools. I love their wrenches, because they're actually drop forged and they take a lot of punishment. It seems like Snap On wrenches are built to look shiny and pretty, rather than be robust. Sadly Craftsman's been pawned off to Stanley. I don't have much experience with Stanley tools.
Never heard of Cornwall. A lot of the 'other' brands are fading out of existence now.
Harbor Freight has gotten steadily better. There's certain shit I wouldn't buy from them, obviously. Like their sockets that are annoyingly missing certain sizes. I've yet to screw up one of their wrenches, they're actually pretty decent.
I can just see both the confusion and disappointment in that Twilight figuring looking at the broken tool.
Barely mentiined cheater bars, and no mention of the fire wrench at all? What sort of tool discussion is this?
Hmm, now I'm wondering if a Lincoln AC-225-S and a wet rod could be a functional substitute for a fire wrench in some applications...
Clearly some "research" is needed. 
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For anyone who's unaware, Bugsydor is referencing this classic:
(Tennessee Ernie Ford's recording of "16 Tons", if that video is geoblocked.)
If you're willing to pay a pretty penny, you can actually get brass socket sets too. They're more common in oil field areas... but if you need something soft that won't mess up the part you're working on... that's what they're for. Well, that and no sparks if it does slip. Useful of you're concerned a fuel tank or something wasn't cleaned properly prior to initiating work on it...
As Abe Lincoln said, "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." Words I pretty much live by, and from what I've heard of my pure-blooded Irish Grandfather whom I never really got to know, he did too. I spend more time tweaking and adjusting and upgrading tools than actually using them. In fact, when the time comes that I actually need to use a tool, I often can't find it and have to use something else, like using the claw end of a hammer to pull up a stump and roots or a balloon over the top of the fermenting jug instead of an airlock plug.
But I'm referring to IT tools and general house and yard tools. Not automechanic stuff. Any reason why you can't use a single one of those universal spring-pin heads in place of all your different ratchets and different-sized sockets?
images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51kC%2BDG6RVL._SX425_.jpg
I know as well as any to be wary of complex multi-use 'as seen on TV' Swiss Army gadgets and that the more complex something is, the more likely it'll fail or break and that often a single dedicated tool for each task is preferable. That's why Linux has been quietly come into use more and more until now, something like a third of the entire Internet is run through Apache servers and linux-firmwares. (Although Android is a piece of shit that is only Linux-based in a very specific, pedantic sense.)
Frankly, I'm pretty annoyed by whoever decided that we need a specific type of wrench solely for spark plugs.
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And in the cleansing department, next to the fold down sink and pedal powered water pump, Fairy Liquid, and Swarfega, is a Rubber Duck.
It was accidental, and ended up deliberate.
At least I didnt write it in Pig Pen code.
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Sounds more or less how my company does commercial credit accounts. The customer has to fill out a fairly basic application, which does involve a couple trade references and some personal information so our credit department can do some checking, but outside serious credit problems, or specific bad history with my company, most people get approved.
Most people will be allowed some amount of credit, though the really big customers can have astounding amount. No interest, no fees, no cards, and all you need to do is pay off this month's purchases by the end of next month. If that doesn't happen, we'll get angry and cut the account off. And probably bother you with increasingly pointed messages until such point as we send you to collections. But no still no interest! Similarly, if that limit is passed, we'll get angry and cut the account off (unless a deal can be made with the credit department for being such a good, wonderful customer).
And that's about it. We don't care about milking our customers - too many don't have anything to milk anyways - we just want people to pay for the products they got.
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It’s not far removed from that. I can quit the company . . . but the tool truck can follow me.
Thanks!
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Ponify tool brands and I’d say you’re good to go.
Also, if you think bigger than a wagon, there’s a world of possibility.
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I’m probably close to that in my cart. At least when it comes to replacement cost.
Luckily, I don’t go through tools quite that fast (especially the impacts; those things ain’t cheap) . . . but yeah, lifetime warranties are worth the extra up-front cost.
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HF has gone up some, and with Snap-On, some if it is them diluting their brand with consumer-level stuff that’s got their brand, which I think is a mistake.
Oh, yeah, home use is a whole different ballgame. Those tools generally don’t see the kind of wear and tear that shop tools do, even if you’re careful with them. Someday I should post a pic of my Makita 3/8” cordless impact . . . that thing doesn’t look very good any more, and yet it still soldiers on.
You say that, but I’ve shattered cheap ones before. Expensive ones, too, but that took a lot more work.
Again, yeah, some of the other brands have pretty good stuff now, and I’ve got an old Mac box that’s not nearly as good as anything just about anybody has to offer these days. Still, I’d rather spend my money on a used Snap-On or Matco box rather than a new HF or Husky box. But for home use, I don’t think I would.
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They do have a lot of stuff.
My most common purchase from them is die grinders. They’re cheap, and work pretty well for most stuff, so why wouldn’t I? They don’t last as long as the good ones, but plenty long enough for a tool that doesn’t see extensive use.
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It’s a brilliant thing, and in some ways a real throwback.
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It’s not a terrible deal for what you’re getting (usually); on the other hand, the credit’s usually generous, and if you’re not smart it’s quite easy to get in way over your head pretty fast. Especially since a lot of times with the actual credit (not the truck credit), they’ll keep the payments low by extending the terms.
I’d be surprised if he never did as a mechanic. Because even for a guy who’s frugal and plans ahead, there are still some times where you get in a bind and need something right now to do a job right.
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I sold a hoist to a tool truck once (got $500 knocked off my bill, so it was a pretty good deal). That’s not the kind of thing that the trucks normally carry around, but you can bet that they can get them for you.
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Tools borrowed from family are the best. A couple of weekends ago, things went the other way; I went to my parent’s house and helped my dad work on a classic car, so I brought my tools.
The shop press is really nice for wheel bearings. Press it down until you think something’s ready to break, and then one more pump, and with a loud crack, ball bearings go everywhere. Then it’s a simple matter to put the new one in. Never used a manometer for anything. If the timing light has a dial (the better ones usually do), you can actually diagnose all sorts of things with it. Found a slipping harmonic balancer by marking the inner and outer rings with paint, and then using the strobe light to ‘freeze’ it so I could see the paint marks wobbling around in relation to each other.
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I got a gold-plated Craftsman ratchet like that. One day, I’ll use it for something, and I’ll know when it’s time.
They still sell knives, usually; not so sure about the maglites (probably do, though). Streamlites are nice, too, but not as good as a bludgeon as a big D-cell Maglite was.
Those are the best drivers, ‘cause they’re the ones that will give you deals. Some of the new guys have figured that out, too, but a lot of them are fighting margins and high fuel costs and truck payments and just can’t make the same kind of deals--nor extend as much truck credit, for that matter.
If the driver’s smart, the tools are all fastened down. If not . . . well, yeah. Flying objects in trucks are bad news.
He probably had a step van, like a Chevy P-30. Those were popular for decades; simple and reliable. I’ve got one (only one sliding door, sadly).
We’ve currently got two trucks, Snap-On (Monday) and Matco (Wednesday). Never had a Mac truck at this shop, but I did at Firestone. The guy was so irregular, though, that nobody would buy tools from him, because you never knew when you’d see him again. That happened with our old Snap-On guy, too. I liked him, but he wasn’t reliable, and I might be sitting on a broken tool for a month until I saw him next, and I can’t have that.
I’ve got mostly Matco, then Snap-On, Craftsman, some S&K (not much), and a few other brands tossed in here and there, mostly because I was either desperate, or it was a good deal.
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That’s one of the advantages to buying your own tools; you get what works, rather than what the bean-counters want to buy. When my former manager got a different job that bought tools, he thought that they’d be the best of the best. Obviously, they weren’t; they were merely sufficient.
That’s really generous! Odds are that was a couple hundred dollars in ratchets, at least if you’d bought them yourself.
Yeah, that stuff ain’t cheap.
My ratchet wrenches get rust in them all the time (especially the sizes I don’t use all that much). Every now and then, I’ll oil them and watch the rust pour out of the mechanism. Good tools seem to take that abuse quite well.
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The funny thing is that I was really happy that it was the ratchet that broke and not the bolt I was turning with it.
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It’s funny how while auto mechanics sort of have the same job as truck mechanics, our tool kits are very different. Cars rarely have fasteners bigger than about an inch, whereas that’s just getting started on a lot of heavy equipment. And of course it goes the other way, too; every now and then I have to fix something electronic on a car (or at home) and dig out things like 00 Phillips screwdrivers, or single-digit Torx.
Must be nice.
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The old square-bar ones were hell on the hands when doing things like alignments, though.
True story, we wore out a set of Craftsman Pro wrenches at the shop.
I haven’t broken a Snap-On wrench yet (although in all fairness, I don’t have very many). Haven’t busted a Matco, either (well, except the ratcheting ones, which I break a lot), but a few of them are bent.
Stanley’s okay. Not great, just okay. As long as they keep the lifetime warranty, though, they’re probably still worth it.
I think that Stanley owns Mac Tools, too. Maybe soon we’ll have all the Mac trucks re-branded as Craftsman.
Their wrenches aren’t terrible, and they’re certainly cheap. (The hammers suck, though, unless they’ve got better ones since last time i looked.) I’ve got a set of fractionals, since I hardly ever use them. Not sure how well they’d do with the wrench bender attached, though.
ntxtools.com/Merchant/graphics/00000001/MKP-745100.jpg
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Twilight ought to be amazed, ‘cause I broke it without using a cheater pipe.
And recently, one of my co-workers broke the head on it taking off a lug nut.
It’s gotten its revenge on me, though; I’ve got a nasty scar on my thumb from the flex-lock failing under pressure.
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We’re only talking about the trucks here, not creative ways to break tools.
I’m not entirely sure what a wet rod is; however, electrical heating appliances do exist, and I have one. Hardly ever use it, but on some occasions it saves my butt, so it was probably worth buying.
Take pictures.
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There are special soft sockets for lug nuts that won’t damage expensive rims.
We’ve got some expensive gloves for working on hybrids, and also a few insulated tools. I have brass drifts for things where you don’t want sparks, and a nasty Stanley screwdriver I use for driving off fuel pump lock rings that I jokingly call ‘non-sparking’ (I’m still here, so it hasn’t yet :P). For most of the stuff we work on, reasonable precautions prevent fires and explosions; in an oilfield, it’s a whole different animal.
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Two reasons--they’re rarely robust enough, and they don’t fit in small spaces. It’s not a bad tool to have as a standby, but it’s not going to take the place of a proper set of sockets.
Also, you can’t do things like this with one of them:
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In most cases, you don’t; any deep socket of the right size is going to work. But it won’t hold the spark plug in the socket while you get it in place . . . especially if you’re paid by commission, that’s a big deal. Just today, I used a collection of rather expensive and specialty tools to knock out a 3 hour spark plug job in just under an hour.
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Oh, no, it was just two wrenches. The 7/16" and the 1/2" were all I carried with me of my set, because that was 99% of the bolts on our equipment. And the other 1% were 13mm that the 1/2" could more or less work for.
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A lot of commercial accounts do work that way. We have a fairly similar arrangement with our most common suppliers. In fact, the guy that stocks most of our consumables became our supplier because he was the first who was willing to extend credit when the owner opened the shop.
A lot of that surely has to do with the volume you push, too. We’re into one of our suppliers four or five figures per month, so they’re willing to give us lots of credit so they get those purchases. After all, if they don’t do it, someone else will.
With a regular income stream, you don’t have to anyway. I have to imagine that some of the bigger customers are basically the ones who are paying the supplier’s overhead; everything after that is gravy. One of the shops in town didn’t have an alignment rack, and so our shop did all their alignments at a reduced rate . . . ultimately, they were the ones who paid for our alignment rack; everybody else’s alignments were just profit for us.
4940182
Oh . . . shoulda read that better. Still, Snap-On, that isn’t cheap.
Worth it, though, when it keeps working.
This is a cool piece. I'm surprised mechanics who are employees have to own all their own tools. If you needed a tool for a job and you didn't have the correct one (broken/missing), would a co-worker loan you one of his? What about your boss?
I remember you said in an earlier post mechanics were in some demand. If a new employee (with training and certifications) wanted to work at your shop, would your boss loan him tools to get started?
4940192
Yeah, that’s the general way it works.
In general, yes. Shops often supply some basic tools for oil changers and tire changers, and if the mechanics get along, they’ll loan each other tools when needed. Right now, we’ve got a guy from the other shop helping out, and since he didn’t bring all his tools, he’s borrowing a lot of mine as needed.
Basic tools, yes. We actually have an extra toolbox of shop-owned tools which has most of the essentials in it. And there’s every possibility that as mechanics get more in demand, tools might be provided, or a gift certificate to the tool truck, etc.
4940174
Well, you generally don't use the fire wrench on tools (though that would definitely break the tool), you use it on particularly rusted-solid things that even the cheater bar doesn't help with. Does tend to mean you need to replace the studs too and not just the lugnut in question though, when used on those... I wouldn't be too surprised if some tool trucks had at least some of the parts (tips/nozzles, valves, regulators, &c., maybe even the hoses) for one, too.
As far as the electric substitute in question, I imagine that it would more likely than not work, even if for no other reason than that on further thought on the subject it's basically a (very) crude version of this...
4940205
Not intentionally, but it happens.
Ooh, not ideal for lugnuts on cars . . . best to avoid, especially because I wouldn’t trust the stud after that. But if it has to happen . . . I’ve torched lug nuts out before when there weren’t other options.
Typically, yeah, they do.
Well, there’s more than one occasion when melting it off is the solution. A part that’s a puddle on the floor is a part that’s removed. You can’t put it back on (obviously) but for some things that’s okay.
4940207
Not ideal, no, but when the other options just don't work, it will get the job done. Though generally there's not enough of the stud left to hold things on afterwards even if you did (somehow) still trust it anyways... (I have no idea if those sorts of things are hardened or not, but yes, it'd definitely anneal them if that is in fact the case. And that would be bad. And even if you had a decent heat-treat oven to try rehardening them (assuming they still have enough carbon), the time and energy used on it would be worth more than the cost of new studs, not to mention how heat-treat has a habit of warping things out of tolerances... That and I imagine that replacement studs would carry far less liability than retreated ones. Though on further thought, they're likely not hardened (at least not a lot), because that would also make them much more brittle...)
4940147
Far as I know, he just borrowed the odd job tool from the other mechanics he worked with.
Odds were good one of them had what they needed.
~Skeeter The Lurker
4940213
That’s the thing. Maybe if it was something that was simply impossible to get, it might be worth the effort of trying to save them, but in most cases studs aren’t that expensive, and all things considered, the labor to install them isn’t overly high, either. Tops, a few hundred bucks per wheel, and in most cases considerably less; you can usually find a way to snake them in there. And then you don’t have to worry about a critical part of the car coming off and all the damage and potential liability that might entail . . . the last car that we fixed that that happened to, it was about $1700 in damage, between mechanical and bodywork. Just not worth it in the long run, and if there are customers who want to take that kind of risk, I’d personally rather that they were somebody else’s customers, not mine.