Decided to buy some new sockets......

[boohocky]

I've decided to buy some new sockets for my personal use from Snap-On, and I decided on the deep and shallow metric 6pt set. Now i'm really stuck on whether or not I should jump on the SAE set also? I've noticed in the last 3-5 years that I have hardly touched my SAE tools. Most cars are now converted to the metric system when it comes to fasteners.

I guess my question is, other than the older american cars and machinery, does anyone really use SAE tools enough anymore to justify the cost of purchasing a brand new set? Or will my craftsman stuff be enough to get me by on most of the standard fasteners I come across?

 

[blacK20]

My standard stuff still gets used. Are you getting the snappy tools at a discount? If not then just buy the metric stuff first and see how that goes.

 

[TWX]

If you have redundant tools in your Craftsman set so that if one breaks you can finish the job before having to go in to exchange it, I wouldn't bother replacing them. If you find frequent failures causing problems with completion then get another set.

I'm slowly adding to my metric stuff, but it's slow going. Even "nut and bolt" stores are still reluctant to carry fasteners that are on thousands or millions of vehicles that are metric. Very annoying.

 

[Farmer Joe]

I'm pretty new to this profession, but I have also noticed that my metric tools pretty much handle everything I do at the moment. I'm mostly a lube and brake tech, and I have yet to need SAE size wrenches or sockets. Of course, I do usually get to work on the newer vehicles which were quoted a short waiting time, so I have to work quick, but i'm almost 100% sure that I've never rounded off a bolt because of using a metric size when I shoudl have used an SAE. I've only had to borrow an SAE sized wrench once when I was doing an alignment on an old american vehicle, don't remember which though. I do believe that its important to have SAE sizes available though, so I already have my shopping list written up for this coming weekend, I'm going to sears to purchase a couple of socket sets, and a the largest sae combination wrench set I can find. This way I can have them available in my toolbox whenever needed, even if they occasions are rare.

 

[BrokewrenchLS1]

Either brand would work fine for either size type (imperial or metric); but if you don't see much imperial, spending a couple hundred dollars on a redundant socket set is a couple hundred dollars you couldn't spend on more useful tools.