Car tool kit

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Leo99

Leo99

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Drove the wife's Rav4 last week and the brakes felt mushy to me. Didn't have time over the weekend nor the inclination to mess with the brakes on it. Took it to the local shop and they said the front calipers were stuck and the rear brake pads were down to 5%. A few dollars lighter in the wallet and it was back home in the garage on Sunday. Wife leaves for work before me and I notice a nice little puddle of brake fluid on the garage floor. Grabbed some brake fluid and a caliper bleed valve wrench hoping that the shop left that a little loose and drove to my wife's work, 55 miles away from home, to check on her brakes and see if it's safe to drive home. There is brake fluid covering the inside of the wheel but the only about 3 ounces had leaked out of the system judging by the brake fluid reservoir. Then I realize I have no proper tools in my car to handle even an emergency repair. Two out of the three flashlights in my car don't work. At least one of them did. I gave wife my car and took her's back to the shop to get the caliper replaced.

What do you guys carry for emergency tools in your vehicles? All my cars are metric. All the kits I see for sale contain a bunch of worthless tools; endless hex keys or sockets.
 
A baseball bat to go back to that shop with. That is unacceptable for a safety system to be installed with bad parts or wrong.
 
Originally Posted by danez_yoda
A baseball bat to go back to that shop with. That is unacceptable for a safety system to be installed with bad parts or wrong.


For a moment there, I thought you were recommending a baseball bat as an emergency type of tool to keep in the trunk. I used to keep an 18 inch 1/2 inch breaker bar for emergencies in the trunk of the car, would come in handy to remove lug nuts and maybe other emergencies. But that never happened so I stopped carrying it.

Anyway, I have a few sets of tools at home which I don't carry around. My main one is a 204 piece Craftsman socket set and then I have a few other things here and there. I can't decide if I need another bigger set like the 450 piece set or maybe a slightly smaller set. One of things that stops me with the 204 piece set is the weight, kind of a pain to lug around at about 21 pounds, sometimes it's overkill and sometimes you wish you had a few more tools.

I still have some tools from JC Whitney, they had a specialized set of brake tools like an angled wrench to use on a brake bleeder.
 
i have one of the cheaper tool sets from harbor freight , one in each car. The tools aren't all that bad and a decent variety .comes in a nice case I, also keep a 1/2 drive ratchet along with a 19 mm deep well for tire changes if needed, a lot better than the lug wrenches the manufacturer gives with the car
 
Up until recently I carried a ton of tools in a truck bed width box. After changing vehicles I greatly thinned ~ decided what I could tough it out with … for example I have many, many socket sets but chose to carry several sets of combination wrenches that would do lots of jobs but take little space … then screw drivers, vice grips, channel locks, wire cutters, adjustable wrenches, wire brush, hammers, star drive set, hex sets, various types of tape (Gorilla of course) …
Also have a tire repair kit, compressor, and 12 ton bottle jack … long chain, short chain, nylon tow strap …
I'm sure something got left out …
 
I think the chance of having the proper tool to repair a vehicle is very small. Especially with no spare parts.

I think you are better carrying safety items like flashlight, (flares/flashing light/triangle), warm jacket in winter, blanket, water, candy bar, cell phone.

Obviously you need to have a properly inflated spare and tools to change it.

Maybe 1 QT oil.
 
I keep a small Rubbermaid tub in my trunk at all times that contains, among other things:

a small ratchet/socket set
a small set of screwdrivers
a small set of box wrenches
a tire plug/patch set
a quart bottle of oil
a 2 liter bottle of water
a small roll of paper towels
a few clean rags
a few microfiber cloths in a ziploc bag.
 
Originally Posted by bubbatime
For future reference, you paid a shop to fix your car. They should have towed it, for free, to their shop, and repaired it.

On the right path, but... when a Merchant's Tire & Auto messed up my brakes, I had another shop fix it, and went to their shop for a refund. With pictures and a typed-out description of their mess-up on the receipt from the other garage.
 
Originally Posted by HangFire
Originally Posted by bubbatime
For future reference, you paid a shop to fix your car. They should have towed it, for free, to their shop, and repaired it.

On the right path, but... when a Merchant's Tire & Auto messed up my brakes, I had another shop fix it, and went to their shop for a refund. With pictures and a typed-out description of their mess-up on the receipt from the other garage.


If the vehicle wasn't safe to drive, I would have called the original shop and probably had it towed to another shop and got it fixed and dealt with refunds afterwards. That was the reason I went to my wife's work to inspect it. My wife works for a law firm and they were all in the know that her brakes were leaking in their parking lot after I told her. I deemed it safe to drive so drove it back to the original shop.

I had a situation 15 years ago with my Saturn. My kids were in the car and complained the car smelled like stinky carpet vacuum. Hmm, that's oil burning. Dropped the kids off at school and saw the oil filter housing was cracked a day after an oil change at a garage near my work. Took it to a Saturn dealer and got it fixed. Took the receipt to the garage near my work. The guy, said to me; Yeah, I heard something and thought I might have cracked it. Here's a check to reimburse you for the repair.
 
You don't need a ton of tools. A socket set, but exchange screewdriver, pliers, hex bits on a holder, and a few other minor tings will get you far.

I disassembled the better part of a Mercedes Diesel engine the other day, including all the accessories mounted on it, with three sockets and two male hex bits.
 
In my experience, what I've needed most for roadside repairs is stuff like bungees or tie down straps for securing mild accident damage so you can limp home. Actual roadside fix-it repairs are less likely, since you usually need parts to fix cars.
 
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I have a fabric tool roll of metric combo wrenches, adjustable wrench, various sizes of philips and flatheads. Jumper cables, tow strap and duct tape. I keep them all in a fabric zip up bag so they're all together and tidy.
 
Brages makes a really good point. Your most likely roadside "repairs" are going to be accident damage, including animal strikes and road debris, and the ever popular "my bumper cover is dragging on the ground and/or interfering with my tires." For the latter I keep duct tape (best case scenario) and a shorty hacksaw (for worst case, it's just a handle really with the hacksaw blade sticking out) and a few spare hacksaw blades in the bag.

I'm also with E365 on fabric zip up tool bags and wrench rolls. Not just smaller than a tool box, but quieter. This is assuming it's not a working set of tools you have out several times a day. Then you need a toolbox. Tools are so cheap nowadays, I keep a complete (minimal) Metric set (wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, sockets/ratchets) in each of my 3 vehicles.

Also safety stuff, I put a reflective vest and 3 flares in each vehicle as well.

Every year or so I take them all out and make sure all the sockets are still there, nothing missing, etc. I'm always surprised to see tools crossed-over, missing, or doubled up. Every dang time. I make sure all the bare metal is rust proofed, pliers and ratchets are still working, etc. It also gives me a chance to go through my latest yardsale finds and upgrade each tool kit or make more complete sets. A good activity for a cold, rainy day when I'm not motivated to do a real car project, but want to do something.
 
Even if there's enough "good enough" tools to fix something, such as an adjustable wrench instead of a socket set, it would probably take a lot longer to fix than calling for help and coming back with the proper tools. And there's only so much a person can fix on the side of the road anyway without new parts.

Other than a handful of basic tools...
duct tape.
I'd say bungee cords and/or some rope, but that's a given to already have in a vehicle to hold the trunk down if hauling something big.
metal coat hanger or similar to act as a bungee cord that won't melt.
A gallon of antifreeze and quart of oil take up trunk space but might save the day some day. Antifreeze is the more important one, and is more easily combined with the duct tape for a leaking hose.

If you plan on swapping on your spare tire if you get a flat, make sure the jack works properly before that happens.
Also, with that...
make sure you can get the lug nuts off. Doesn't hurt to have a metal tube to use as an extension for the often short factory tire iron.
make sure the spare tire has air in it so it's not flat when you need it. Been there...
smirk2.gif

A can of fix-a-flat if hoping to avoid changing the tire.
A 12v portable air compressor, not only to fill up the neglected spare tire, but maybe fill up the regular tire enough to limp the car home or to a tire shop.

And lots of zip ties. Zip ties are the new duct tape.
 
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