Showerthought: Digital torque wrenches are overrated in my book.

Everyone seems to swear by digital torque wrenches these days. I get it, they have cool features and readouts. But I've had two fail on me during critical jobs. One time, the screen went blank right as I was torquing a cylinder head bolt. My old click type wrench has never done that. It's simple, durable, and I trust it more. Maybe I'm old school, but reliability beats fancy gadgets any day.

4 comments

4 Comments

jakeb813mo ago

My buddy had his digital wrench die halfway through a wheel bearing job, same screen issue.

sage6753mo ago

Hold up, does a broken screen really stop the whole job, @jakeb81? It's just a digital readout. The old wrench part still turns bolts, right? Seems like the work could have finished with a regular torque wrench or even by feel for something like a bearing. Tools fail all the time, you just use something else. I don't get why this would be a big deal unless he was totally reliant on the gadget.

logan5253mo ago

Seriously, if the screen's dead, how do you know you're even in the right mode? I had one freeze on me during a head gasket job. You can't switch between foot-pounds and Newton-meters, or recall the last torque. Ended up borrowing a beam-type wrench from a neighbor. Why risk over-torquing a bearing and having it fail in a month?

max_brown2mo ago

Totally get where @logan525 is coming from. When my screen went black, I just kept using it like a regular click-type wrench and double-checked the final torque with a cheap manual wrench I had in the box. It was annoying, but it got the lug nuts done.