My old socket set has finally had it. 24 years of abuse has killed it so I need another. I've seen one on
eBay at £49 including postage. 94
piece set, 1/2" drive for the bigger sizes including torx and screwdriver bits.
Bargain or cheap tat? I want a set that will last but are not expensive. DIY use only. What do you think?
depends on your usage, have a look at Machine Mart they do sealey Draper and others or even Halfrauds their proffessional range is not bad.
Your big names are gonna cost u way more Fakem, Snap on etc.
Other brands makita, Stanley, draper are okay for home usage
i'd be looking at halfords pro. sure they might cost a bit more (maybe not much more actually) but they have a lifetime guarantee! can't argue with that
Halfords proffesional set, I would also ignore 1/2", just get 3/8" and 1/4" drives as a set, so much nicer to use.
For sockets larger than 24mm get some tough 1/2" air sockets and a big breaker bar, once things are moving use the 3/8" stuff.
I have taken a few ratchets back, never quibble and sometimes forget to keep the old one so you can grow your tools.
Only really return them after heavy abuse TBO, its pretty good stuff.
My mate has loads of snap on, he justs loves the label, when he tried to hand back some sockets that were worn out they declared that they had
'had there life', so now when worn he cracks them in a vice so that they will honour the guarentee!!!
Wouldnt be on my shoping list.
Pay a little more and get a brand name.
halford professional 150pc set should be on offer for 99 quid at somepoint and has almost everything you need with a lifetime warranty.
Thats where my money went!
Socket set. That reminds me of a funny story....
My cousins washing machine had packed in, so his wife called out an engineer to take a look at it. He pulled the washing machine out and after
checking a few things out he asked her if they had a socket set. She replied "Yes, there's one in the living room underneath the TV.
I'll go and get if for you" and then came back with one of these;
She couldn't understand why the engineer started rolling around laughing 
Phil
You could buy them thinking that they might just be a bargain cos they are cheap and you seem to get a lot for your money.
But if they were any good they would be made by some company that you have heard of. They aren't and they will be rubbish.
Halfords professional gets my vote for reasonably priced tools that last.
Cheers
Mark
I don't like shopping at Halfrauds,....
But, I bought a professional sockety set. Look out for their offers
No regrets so far, good value for money, and much better than my old set
GeorgeM
I bought a Bahco set from ebay for £50 and it has a set of combination spanners and some swivel head box type spanners along with 1/2" AF and metric and 1/4" metric. The same set fetched £87+p&p listed by the seller a couple of days later. These are Bahco under another name.
quote:
Originally posted by smart51
My old socket set has finally had it. 24 years of abuse has killed it so I need another. I've seen one on eBay at £49 including postage. 94 piece set, 1/2" drive for the bigger sizes including torx and screwdriver bits.
Bargain or cheap tat? I want a set that will last but are not expensive. DIY use only. What do you think?
The Bahco ones I bought are hex and not bi-hex, I don't think they are low end sockets though. I prefer hex as they don't round nuts off as easily as bi-hex. Here is one same or a 1/2" drive set.
I bought some from Argos (30 quid at a guess) about 10 years ago .... not had a problem with them.
Another vote for the Halfords 150 piece.
I got mine over 8 years ago and it’s been heavily used for all 8 years.
I regularly put a pole on the end of the ratchets and have never managed to kill one.
The only little quibbles i have are
The alen and torx ends are a bit brittle and snap sometimes on really tight bolts.
Their new gay signs in the shop saying life time warranty only valid with purchase receipt. (Well if they had told me 8 years ago that i needed to
keep it then i would have kept it.)
I once got a worn socket replaced and the woman in the shop asked am I using them for professional use. My reply was yes. She said the warranty
doesn’t cover professional use, I quickly pointed out that you can’t call them professional tools then, as it would be miss representation of the
product and offered to call trading standards. She changed it pretty quickly.
Overall it’s a bloomin good tool set. Yes the dicks in the shop can be a pain in the ass when getting the odd bit swapped out. But name another
place where you can take a broken tool on a Sunday afternoon half way through a job and have it swapped free of charge. That is what won it for me
hands down over any other set.
[Edited on 30/8/09 by ashg]
I like single hex its down to the quality 
quote:
Originally posted by big_wasa
I like single hex its down to the quality
cheap socket sets did me for a few years tinkering on my motorbikes - it was actually an argos tool chest with 100 tools included or something - but
as soon as they start getting serious use, the rachet breaks which renders them useless.
On the plus side, i now have Halfords Pro socket set, but also all the sockets from the old set which can be handy when I misplace the right size
socket!
Kamsa make the best sockets.
Don't go near Halfords Pro range ---- I bought a set for a special job, two of sockets were so badly over size I binned them on the first
day.
Draper tend to be very variable on quality some of the stuff they sell is almost first class some other stuff in their range is very poor.
[Edited on 31/8/09 by britishtrident]
quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
Kamsa make the best sockets.
I have had a kamasa 1/2,3/4 and 1/4
drive set for 20 years and other than replacing ratchets that my brother
borrowed and lost at work it is still
fine.I replaced with sealey from machine mart,that was 4 years ago and they are still perfect.
Andy
I use silverline ratchets only cos my lad can get them for me trade, had my sockets for years just replace the ratchets every few years.
tony
halfords pro for me as well! get a trade card that halfs the price on some items also check there sale bins regulary as the tools with marked packaging end up in here!
Another vote for Halfords 150 piece set, cost me £99, no problems whatsoever.
Britool at Screwfix. Half price brings it into my (Under the SWIMBO radar) price range.
My kit as slowly moved over to the Halfords Pro, not broke a thing yet and until recently they where in regular use in my old day job as a service
engineer.
My son in the trade can get sealy at trade prices, imho not as good as above.
Easy to use, well made, look and feel good.