I bought my first impact wrench ever, to go with my only set of impact sockets - 1/2” sunex set. I went with the 2555 m12 stubby 1/2” because I settled on the m12 line this year.
I don’t do much car repair but figured since I already had the m12 system and already had the impact sockets (with nothing to use them on), I’d give it a go.
Cool little gun but lacked the torque to do the single job I wanted of it since I bought it 6 weeks ago.
I was taking apart and reassembling a heavy duty 3x3 11 gauge rack with 1” bolts with 1.5” bolt heads.
Was unable to break the nuts, and I didn’t bother trying to use to retighten after I re-assembled because if I need to use a ratchet anyway to get the proper final torque, I seemed like it would slow me down to start the nuts with the m12 stubby and finish with the ratchet. Also I didn’t want to strip the black oxide finish off the bolts and it seemed like it was doing that, even on the one bolt it failed to unlock.
So maybe a dumb purchase for me, but maybe I’ll wind up having some oddball job that it works well for. Cheap enough not to work reselling it, and doesn’t take up much space. But for non-auto work at least, I’m not impressed. All of the auto techs here seem to love it so if it’s that’s your jam it might be fantastic.
I’ve never taken a wheel off my car with anything other than a lug wrench. I should prob rotate my tires soon, so maybe I’ll try it for that. I don’t know if I’ll still need to tighten by hand after? I guess I can do trial and error on the different settings and see what happens with respect to final torque.
I guess worst case scenario I never find a use for it and pair it with the socket for my car and keep it in my cat emergency kit to change a flat tire super fast! I may do that anyway, since if it’s going to be a very rarely used tool for me, no big deal to retrieve from my car trunk in the event I want to use it.
