Hello,

For infrequent use,
1. Will I likely be okay with a c.£60 rattle gun?
2. Any recommendations?

Ta

You get what you pay for! I suspect a decent 3/8” drive will have more torque than a cheap 1/2”

Lidl PASSK 20-Li is good for the money (same tool as the draper stormforce one) and £60 with battery and charger, they might have some still in stock in your area.

If you've got dewalt 18v batteries already(ideally 5ah or higher), then a dcf899 is among the best you can buy and around £150 for the bare tool.

I've got the dewalt at work, if it won't undo a bolt, you'll need to get out the 3/4 breaker bar out and undo/snap the bolt off!

The lidl one is ok for everything on the striker and saves carting the work tools around, also saves using the compressor at home instead.

Dave

I recently picked up a fake makita. Totally against my normal "buy makita, buy once" attitude towards powertools, but when fitted with a genuine 5 Ah Makita 18V battery this will actually undo wheelnuts (if they weren't done up by a gorilla giving it all the ugga duggas ;-))

Not bad for 30-ish quid if you already have the batteries. I actually tried a genuine "200Nm" Makita before and it wouldn't touch a wheel nut.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=dtw285z&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=makit a+compatible+impact+gun

Lots of them about, all similar as far as I can see.

I went for the Clarke mains powered one. I appreciate it's not a battery one, but it's also not air driven one. It's 'ok', it helped me separate an MX5 driveshaft with the help of a hub puller and it can undo hub nuts fairly easily. The main issue is that it's really heavy, I mean properly 'almost uncontrollable' heavy.

I would have preferred a battery powered one, but checking the torque capacity of the Clarke against similar priced battery ones the numbers won out.

I recently bought one of these Ebay link realy wasn't expecting much from it & bought on the basis that I always have an air powered one to fall back on, but I have actually been quite impressed. Does it do 530Nm like it says? Not a chance, I doubt it does half that, but it's sturdy & manages wheelnuts as long as, like Sebastian says, a gorilla hasn't been at them

It's also a lot more compact than the air one & I don't have to bother putting the compressor on & messing around with air hose to use it - it was actually under £35 when I bought & the battery must be worth that on it's own - lasts for ages!

One thing to note is that the size of the battery can have a big effect on the performance of the tool.

I have the Ryobi three speed one and it works significantly better with a fully charged 5Ah battery over a fully charged 4Ah.

Might be worth waiting for black friday/Christmas sales to get a good deal?

Hope that helps

I keep getting torn with this question as well. The only time I've borrowed one it failed to undo even a slightly rusty nut (Makita). I have a pneumatic and it won't touch wheelnuts torqued up with a torque wrench. Seems to be one of those tools that *should* be ace, but never seems to work out for me, and I can't see a cheap one touching even the easiest of nuts.

I bought the Lidl 400Nm impact gun and I am very impressed with it for £60.

It has taken the crank pulley bolt off my zetec without even breaking a sweat. It will happily take off my wheel bolts torqued to 120Nm. It comes with some long reach impact sockets and it has a built in torch/torque selector which for the cost seems like a good addition.

I bought it just for the occasional use, I typically prefer using hand tools but for the time when you have quite a few bolts to get off it definitely saves a lot of time.

"and I can't see a cheap one touching even the easiest of nuts" - well, all I can say is that the £35 one I bought (now around £43) from Ebay, is waaaay better than I expected - will it last remains to be seen, but initial impressions of both performance & build quality are good

My thread:
http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=215614&page=1

I just wouldnt bother with a cheap one.

I have a Ryobi one, but as said it needs a 5ah battery to tackle the heavy jobs, 2.5ah does wheel nuts ok.

Don't have an impact driver myself.

Audi mechanic neighbour swears by his Ingersol Rand one, but it cost him close to £500. He uses it all day at work though so in a different league IMHO. His comment the other day was all the internals are metal with no plastic and the whole thing is serviceable. Again if you're using it for a work tool then I guess that is what you need.

For home/DIY use I'd probably budget £60-£100 and maybe look for battery interchangeability with other cordless tools.

Lidl guns are USELESS