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That old steering wheel puller cost me 4 hours
I was swapping a steering wheel on my 91 Miata last Saturday. The rental tool from AutoZone just wouldn't fit right, kept slipping off the threads. After fighting it for three hours I finally gave up and drove to Harbor Freight. Spent 12 bucks on their generic puller and had the wheel off in 15 minutes. Has anyone else found that sometimes the cheap tool works better than the loaner?
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reese5506d ago
Gotta push back on this one man. That harbor freight puller is gonna strip out on you after two or three more jobs, just you wait. The autozone loaner might be beat up from a million other knuckleheads using it wrong, but it's actually built to a spec that works with factory tolerances. My buddy bought the cheap one for his 240sx, worked great the first time, then the arms bent on the second steering wheel swap. The rental tool might take longer to figure out, but it's usually not the tool's fault, it's the person fighting it. Sometimes paying the extra time to make the better tool work saves you from buying the same cheap tool twice.
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spencerw726d ago
Nail it right on the head @reese550, that's exactly what I've been saying for years. The harbor freight stuff is fine if you're doing one job and tossing it, but it's not built to take repeated abuse like the commercial grade loaners. I've seen guys fight those cheap pullers for an hour, then grab the autozone one and finish in ten minutes because the threads actually cut clean and the arms don't flex. The rental tool might look beat up but it's got thicker metal and better heat treating, which matters when you're torquing on a stuck pulley. Most people blame the tool but it's usually the user not understanding the difference between a tool designed to last and one designed to sell cheap. You end up spending more money and time buying the cheap one twice, exactly like your buddy found out.
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