Quote:
Originally Posted by pylon
Seriously guys, get one of these (on sale for $90):
http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/ma...l#.UnFZW1OQN5Y
And the cheapest one of these you can find ((this one is 30 bucks):
http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/ce...l#.UnFZ1VOQN5Y
You will be able to to bolt your winters on and off for the next decade, without having to make an appointment. It takes me about 30 minutes to do mine. Less time than driving to a tire shop and back. I went with a corded electric impact gun I bought at crappy tire 15 years ago for 30 bucks on boxing day, and at least with corded, you don't have to worry about the battery wearing out on something you will use twice a year.
Any moron can do a wheel swap in under an hour if you have the right gear.
edit: Never tighten them with the gun, I use a torque wrench, but usually 'snug' is adequate if you don't want to buy a $150 wrench. |
You can even skip the impact wrench and just go with the torque wrench. It really doesn't require more than a one-handed pull to loosen or tighten fully, and once slightly loose, you can take the socket off and hand-loosen or tighten to speed things up. The impact wrench will do it slightly quicker (and you get to feel like a pit crew - ta-ta-ta-ta-vrooooooo), but since you should manually tighten with a torque wrench anyway, the impact wrench is an extra bonus. My impact wrench is also an el cheapo air version, and my compressor isn't overly large, so that could explain why I don't bother with the impact wrench.
They've got sales on torque wrenches all of the time, like this bad boy:
http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/ma...-0588562p.html
Very similar to what I have. $65 on sale from $144. I'm sure that there are cheaper out there and would do the job as well. Then buy a cheap deep socket set, and you're ready to roll.
Pylon is right - it is the way to go. My father-in-law is even a mechanic, and I can pull up to his garage any time and have them swapped. But loading them into the car, driving over there during business hours, driving back, loading the other ones out, etc. is takes much longer than just doing them myself. Just put the hockey game on the radio and you'll be done in no time.