As has been stated, there’s a love of tools, but more importantly, I have a lot of friends like
@Bigblue&Goldie that have a lot of toys in multiple locations. The time saved by having what you need where and when you need it is justification enough. And when you’re dealing with multiple different platforms, you need the variety. I’m always thankful for my ‘well-tooled’ friends (don’t read that the wrong way!
) as they’ve gotten me out of a bind on many occasions!
In my case, I have two teenage sons I am training to work on things. So when I accumulate more tools than I need (replacing what I have with something better and/or multi-location work that I do), I tend to save the excess to give them a boost in the future when the leave the house and finish school/college. Thinking back to my 20s, it took me a long time to accumulate what I needed while working on many things (cars, homes, electrical/electronics, furniture, machining, ...). If my sons can start out with more tools that fit that jobs, such work goes much better and should help them out.
The ones I am most skeptical of that I see here from time to time are people who accumulate big road tool sets to keep in the trunk for car breakdowns. To me, that seems mostly fantasy unless you are diving around in a parts van with jacks, blocks etc. You cannot do much without parts are supplies and it is difficult to know what will be needed before somewhat random problems occur. Plus working on the side of the road is often a bad idea. Conditions are unlikely to be good, and it can also be VERY risky and a bad idea to try to do anything that you cannot finish in a few short minutes.
A funny story on roadside repairs: When I finished college I started working on a lab and had a very old beater car that I got for free since it was such junk. I learned a lot fixing the multitude of breakdowns that it had. Because it broke down a lot and I was young and crazy and was saving $, I had a lot of parts in the back and tools etc (jacks, stands, wrenches, etc) to do real repairs. My boss asked me for a ride one day. Of course, the inevitable happened. The car developed a problem and was barely limping along. My boss was a very safety oriented type person. He nervously asked me if I was a member of AAA. I replied; "No I do not join &*#! Communist organizations. We are self-reliant American men. If it dies, I will fix it, and you can help. I have parts and tools (pointing in the back). " My boss went pale. He never asked me again for a ride. I am not sure how I stayed employed after this and other similar rounds. But, I guess in science, you can get away with some degree of eccentricity and extremism provided you perform well enough on the job.
So I speak from experience on not regarding significant roadside repairs as a good idea. Once I even replaced a failing drive axle by parking my car behind a lab building to hide enough for a few hours behind a dumpster while swapping parts that I biked in. Stuff like that often did not go optimally and even if it did work probably risked trouble (if I was caught by lab security, the lab probably would have had everyone doing extra training on what not to do in parking lots!). Doing such on the side of an interstate ... NO NO NO ... even at my peak level of craziness. Now that I am raising my teenage sons, I try to set a better example on not doing wacko things so they will not try to copy at high risk. My wife would also slowly torture me to death if anything bad happened to them that I might seed via copied patterns. So in recent years, I try to keep within reasonable bounds and roadside car repairs are not on the list.
www.garagejournal.com
Different, yes. Some types/models/sizes Knipex doesn’t offer, yes. Quality product, yes. Generally/ overall better, no. Fit and finish, in my experience, subpar on some models, especially the early ergo pliers.
