Want a decent socket set. I’m not hugely bothered about 1/4in drive, but 3/8 and 1/2 are for me on the bike (forks e.t.c) and the car.

All of the halfords pro sets are lifetime guarantee, I’m told are made by draper (they list draper as the replacement parts manufacturer), but is there a better choice?

Spending ~100 or less. I was going to get the £80 120 piece, is the 100 pound one with ratcheting spanners worth it? Anything else I should consider?

Might be worth a quick look on Amazon at bahco sets but the halfords pro stuff when on half price is good value

Halfords Pro is hard to beat for VFM when they are on 1/2 price offer. There are better sockets sets but not for the same or less money.

However having some older and newer Halfords Pro socket sets I would say the older Pro stuff feels slightly better than the later/current Advanced Pro range. Still can’t beat it for the price though IMHO.

Ratchet spanners. You’ll wonder how you ever managed without them.

I have Halfords Pro type ones from 30 years ago and they’re still doing fine…..only ever burst one open but that was on the end of 6 foot of scaffolding pole on a ridiculously tight hub nut that refused to move!

Mark90 + Suggsy have it – there is better, but not unless you spend a lot more cash.

I’ve used Halfords Pro on serveral Landrover rebuilds and in an industrial environment and am yet to break anything. most of mine is 10+ years old, i doubt i’ll need to replace it in my lifetime.

Ok – that’s settled – so which set?

To answer your specific question: No there is nothing that is better value than Halfords Pro (given that they are always on half price).

Get thee the biggest set they do. 😀

Don’t forget your 10% off if you’re in british cycling.

“No there is nothing that is better value than Halfords Pro (given that they are always on half price).”

unless you working on anything relitively recent in which case your paying for alot of imperial sockets.

the bahco s240 and sl25 represent a better quality more useful spread of kit. ratchets are much nicer to use as well.

although i still have both…..

3/8 is the most important one for me for the bmw

An s240 and s330 together come to £90…

You won’t get better value for money

Facom are lovely, but expensive

This looks great value

I’ve got a 1/4″ halfords pro set which is great, can’t really fault the sockets or ratchet, but the box they came in was rubbish brittle plastic and it disintegrated a long time ago

Should also add – ratchet spanners are wasted unless flex head. Again i have some of both from buying a halfords kit back in the day but i have not used them for many years!

The flex ones on the other hand. Go to spanners.

Once you hae used the bahco ratchets youll wonder why you were fannyig aboot with the halfords ratchets

Another shit thing about halfords sockets is they are bihex and bihex is grim. Flank drive is far superior in most cases unless its a bihex bolt or needs a slim fit socket.

You get a crapload of tools with Halfords Pro but there’ll often be stuff you don’t actually need, tons of imperial in there (the deep sockets and torqs are rarely very useful, but the thing with these is that when they finally become useful, it’ll be at 9pm on a sunday night and you’ll be rather glad you’ve had them clogging up the toolbox for 5 years). All decent stuff, good warranty. Downsides are 12-point sockets, and the shiny finish isn’t as good to grip when you’re cold or covered in car blood, or wearing gloves. That sounds like a nothing difference but imo textured sockets are really useful.

I can’t fault the Bahco kits, they’re smaller but all the effort goes where you need it. Arguably a bit hefty, but otherwise excellent. I prefer my lovely Teng, Facom and old Brittool stuff but it was quite a bit more expensive and really not massively better.

If I had to replace all my tools tomorrow I reckon a lot of them would be bahco. In fact I’ve lost a bunch of my 1/4 inch stuff, I ought to get that wee bahco kit!

Think I’m going to get the £60 halfords set.

There’s almost no difference between it and the £80 one – all you gain are some allen keys and a few more spanners.

Then I can buy some seperate ratchet spanners if I need them, maybe the baby bahco kit to live in the car.

This comes in a little dearer but has a set of combination spanners and flex head spanners. There are a very good range of socket sizes. I tend to use 3/8 stuff for anything from about 10mm -19mm, so I’d find the 1/2 drive stuff a bit clumsy. There are some bolts on engines that you need a 12 point socket for. I recently changed a VW timing belt and needed a 12 point 19mm socket to turn the crankshaft.

I don’t know how credible the £491 RRP on this is, but a £360 saving to £130 sounds good value to me.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bahco-Socket-106-Piece-2-Inch-Drive/dp/B000Y8OFI6/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt#productDetails

Bahco is much better than the Halfords Pro stuff. As already mentioned the ratchets are nice to use. The sockets have a satin finish which makes handling them with oily hands much less frustrating than the smooth chrome Halfords ones.
I have broken a few of the sockets and torq bits. Halfords have always replaced them without hassle but usually from the individual items which aren’t always the same as what is in the set i.e. longer bits or wider sockets so they don’t fit back in the case.
I’d rather have tools that don’t break as nothing worse than being half way through a job and the tool fails so you can complete it. This usually means packing everything away and borrowing the wife’s car if your lucky to get a tool changed, worse case public transport which means wasted time and more expense. This is why most if my Halfords Pro was given to neighbours when I replaced it with Bahco.

Looking at a full halfords socket/rachet set myself to complimant my rachet spanners i got 10 years ago and still working great
I do all my own car and motorbike work so about time i had decent tools for the job

thats a cracking deal mcmoonter…..

id be all over that if i didnt already have more good quality sockets and spanners than i can shake a stick at….. (all with specific purposes)

another issue i have with halfords stuff is that the 3/8s screw driver and torx bits seem to have been made with monkey metal – its soo britle , i guess they got the heat treatment wrong. They litterally exploded.

have also twisted an extension bar but they replaced that after a couple of questions as to “how the ****” it looked like a wroght iron gate twist…real CR van shouldnt do that …..

Quick question as I could do with a socket set.

If I where to buy that nice little Bahco set up there, is there an adapter that I can buy to use the 1/2″ 24mm faced bit that I use for Rockshox forks. Google seems to through up lots of adapters for going the other way.

fathomer – Member
Quick question as I could do with a socket set.

If I where to buy that nice little Bahco set up there, is there an adapter that I can buy to use the 1/2″ 24mm faced bit that I use for Rockshox forks. Google seems to through up lots of adapters for going the other way.

Yes.

I bought a set some time ago, can’t remember where unfortunately that allows me to use any sockets size on any ratchet size (1/4, 3/8 & 1/2)

I may need two adaptors for the extremes but it’s possible.

edited, the Bahco set above is 1/4 and 1/2 drive anyway?

andermt – Member
Yes.

I bought a set some time ago, can’t remember where unfortunately that allows me to use any sockets size on any ratchet size (1/4, 3/8 & 1/2)

I may need two adaptors for the extremes but it’s possible.

edited, the Bahco set above is 1/4 and 1/2 drive anyway?

Nice one, I’ll have a proper search at lunch.

Not the £20 set further up, 1/4 only I think.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Socket-Convertor-Reducer-Adapter-Step/dp/B001TETUYS

Might be crap quality but essentially this is what you’re looking for.

you can fat homer

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4PC-1-4-3-8-1-2-034-DRIVE-SOCKET-CONVERSION-ADAPTOR-SET-/280722912613?_trksid=p2054897.l4275

you use the first two of the adaptors listed there.

i have them for when i’m using my low value torque wrench on big nuts……

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000Y8V8TK?psc=1

This seems to have everything the Bahco 135 quid set has minus a few combination wrenches?

agreee’d continuity.

with the added bonus of that case is robust as hell.

Thats a tempting set to keep in the land rover for “road side emergencys” that will most likely arise from having built my own car….

<slight derail>

I like those tilty heady wrench things in the top left corner… Ages back, I got some allen wrenches just like that, double ended, they’re pretty cheap and nasty (amtools or somesuch) but they’re bloomin brilliant to use, always wanted to find some good ones but never have. If anyone understands what the hell I’m babbling about, any ideas where I might find such a thing?

http://www.tooled-up.com/product/draper-6-piece-hexagon-ball-end-hexagon-key-set-with-swivel-heads-metric/199510/

I’m undecided on how useful these would be. I have a nice set of Bondhus normal long arm allem keys that I like.

Yeah, almost like that but with a different allen head on each end- the 5mm/6mm one is like a gift from the god of tools.

Yeh I could see dual ended ones being more useful.