I dropped $180 on a "lifetime" torque wrench that lost its calibration in 5 months
Bought a no-name 1/2 inch torque wrench off a tool truck guy passing through our hangar in Wichita. He swore it was within 2% and had a lifetime warranty, but 5 months later it was reading 22 ft-lbs off and he was nowhere to be found. I ended up using our shop's $600 CDI to check every bolt again and had to redo a whole gear leg job. Stick with the brands the calibration lab will actually touch, or is there a cheap one out there that holds up for you guys?
That "lifetime warranty" line is the oldest trick in the book, the warranty only lasts as long as the guy who sold it to you sticks around. Had the same thing happen with a swap meet special years back, it read fine on the low end then went totally sideways past 50 ft-lbs and cost me a weekend pulling a cylinder back off. Now I check whatever I own against the shop's known-good beam wrench every few months, takes two minutes and saves a lot of grief. The cheap ones can hold up if you never drop them, but that gear leg redo is exactly the kind of bill that makes the $600 look cheap in hindsight.