10 Harbor Freight Hand Tools Every At-Home Mechanic Will Want

Having the skills to do your own vehicle maintenance or repair tasks at home can be enormously beneficial, especially with the high cost of labor these days — average labor rates exceed $100 per hour across the country. Furthermore, the dollar savings are tangible but knowing a job is done to your satisfaction brings with it intangible benefits that only you can realize with a job well done. However, knowing how to perform a job is not the same as having the ability to do it, as a lack of proper tools can throw a wrench, or lack thereof, into your plans to skip the service department.

Most home mechanics who possess the skill to do routine maintenance and basic repairs likely already have some assemblage of wrenches, hammers, and screwdrivers, whether they are shiny matched sets or a menagerie of pawn shop rejects. But having the right tool for the job is one of the key differences between a novice and a pro. I have been wrenching on engines small and large for a couple decades, and have a wide selection of tools at my disposal for nearly every job. I have also found that Harbor Freight is generally a good affordable option to the pricey tool trucks. And for the home mechanic needing to expand their basic set, these hand tools from Harbor Freight are indispensable additions to any toolbox.

The ratchet, when paired with corresponding sockets, is one of the most useful and important tools in a mechanics toolbox. For removing and installing the myriad bolts holding together most machines, nothing works better. Furthermore, most basic mechanic's tool sets include some number of ratchets and sockets that will help in doing jobs with generally exposed nuts and bolts, aka fasteners, that are accessed in a straightforward fashion. But sometimes, the placement of fasteners is less than ideal.

While cordless electric ratchets are nice, for those hard-to-reach fasteners, a flex head ratchet can be a lifesaver. With a hinged head, bolts in tight spaces can be removed with leverage gained from having more room with which to move the tool itself. This can be helpful when working with bolts behind an engine component or under something where access is limited, such as an intake manifold. Harbor Freight offers a variety of flex head ratchets, including one from its ICON Professional line. The ICON ½-inch drive version retails for just $49.99, and thanks to its lifetime warranty, it can last for the rest of your natural life. Also, its 90-tooth mechanism with precision machined gears will provide precise and smooth ratcheting action, making it a worthy investment over tools at half the price.

Ratchets and sockets are indispensable necessities of a well-stocked toolbox that should form the basis of a mechanic's collection. But when an expansion is due, adding a breaker bar, aka breakover, is essential. This tool works just like a ratchet without the gearing. The drive head is fixed and the bar is generally longer, providing more strength and rigidity for breaking loose very tight fasteners, the reason for its name.

Difficult and stuck fasteners are a common problem when doing mechanic work. Most every mechanic has used a ratchet with some kind of pipe to extend the length for more torque to break loose a super tight bolt, but this is a good way to damage your tool. Ratchets are not designed to handle that much force, and a breaker bar is ideal. Once the bolt is free, a ratchet can be used to quickly turn it the rest of the way out. Harbor Freight offers a wide range of breaker bars, and the ICON 1/2 in. Drive 25 in. Professional Breaker Bar is an excellent choice for the aspiring or burgeoning professional with an extra $39.99 to spare, a significant savings over a comparable Snap-On for $168.50.

Some tools you should have at your disposal are those you don't know you need until you have them. A perfect example of this is a good set of hooks and picks. These seemingly innocuous tools can be the difference between a quick and successful repair and a drawn out, frustrating mess.

The ICON Professional Mini Soft Grip Pick and Hook Set, $19.99 at Harbor Freight, features four comparatively small tools with pointy ends at various angles that have dozens of applications. These come in handy when working with wiring and picking out particular wires in a harness or when trying to get a plastic panel positioned in place just right, for example. Harbor Freight offers these premium picks in its ICON line along with several variations of cheaper tools for just a few dollars in some cases. It is helpful, however, to have a few sets of varying length picks because you never know when or where they will come in handy, and you will be thankful to have them when that time comes.

While most people would likely associate the use of a measuring tape by carpenters, mechanics encounter countless scenarios in which a measuring tape is also useful. While many machined surfaces and mechanical adjustments, such as steering and suspension, require precise calibration, other tasks may not. Just knowing, for example, if a truck will fit in the shop, through the door, or on a lift is crucial when dealing with oversized vehicles, and a tape measure is an invaluable tool. Custom shops that build speaker boxes or install other accessories built from wood products use carpentry skills, and dozens of other ballpark measurements can help move a job forward.

Measuring tapes may feel like something you can pick up cheaply without concern for quality. However, investing in a good one will pay dividends when it comes time to put it to use. Harbor Freight sells cheap measuring tapes, and they even include some hidden features. But for a small increase in expenditure, I recommend one of decent quality with additional features. Fortunately, the HERCULES 25 ft. x 1-1/4 in. Magnetic Tape Measure is a fine specimen of above-average quality that will only set you back $17.99. Able to withstand impacts from falls and including a double-sided magnetic hook on the end, it, or one like it, is a tool every home mechanic should have in their box.

The combination wrench is one of the most basic tools we have at our disposal for removing and installing hex-head fasteners. With a closed, or box, end on one side and an open end on the other, these most basic of tools remain irreplaceable for performing a variety of functions when working on any machinery.

Although wrenches have been used by humans for thousands of years, standardization of them began in the early 1800s. Since then, many innovations have come to the wrench to make them ultimately more usable and flexible for a variety of applications. One of the most innovative and helpful is the flex head wrench. The box end of these wrenches includes a hinge allowing the angle at which it can be applied to the fastener to change up to 180 degrees. Harbor Freight offers both its Pittsburgh and Icon options of wrenches, and which one is better is up to your personal needs, but the PITTSBURGH Flex-Head Metric Ratcheting Combination Wrench Set is a fine choice for novice mechanics for just $29.99.

The extent to which most people are familiar with pliers likely relates to the cheap pair of common slip-joint pliers or needle nose pliers buried in the "junk drawer" that every kitchen seems to have. Yet, these are just two types of pliers among an endless list of possible plier varieties. With so many specialized uses and unique applications of pliers existing, it would probably be impossible to list every kind of pliers in existence, but your toolbox can still benefit from a wide range.

One sort of pliers that you will find in every professional's box that maybe won't be laying in the bottom of a kitchen drawer features some kind of bend in the jaw. With something like the QUINN 8 in. 45° Bent Long Nose Pliers, small and difficult bits become easily accessible around a corner or across a curved and tight location. When getting at metal tabs or pulling apart wiring looms under a car or deep into an engine compartment, bent pliers become a necessity, and Harbor Freight carries dozens of varieties to help you complete your work.

A significant part of automotive work involves electricity, and the ability and knowledge to perform electrical repairs is crucial to keeping a properly maintained automobile. My forte has always been in doing electrical work, especially custom wiring in applications such as audio system installations. While doing electrical work can feel daunting, having the right tools for the job makes a world of difference.

For wiring repairs, having a good cutter and stripper is paramount. Many combination tool kits that come with a variety of crimp-style connectors also come with a wiring stripper/cutter, but that one should be thrown out for being the most abysmal tool made. However, spending big bucks won't be necessary to replace it, as Harbor Freight offers a perfectly good DOYLE Professional Wire Stripper and Cutter for just under $10. It uses spring action with overlapping cutting teeth for the insulation, making a stripped wire easy, even in tight spaces. You can spend more to get a more refined piece of hardware, but this one will work for most run-of-the-mill repairs.

Sockets and wrenches can handle the bulk of the fasteners that you have to tackle, but sometimes, a nut driver is preferred. For straightforward applications in which fasteners require light torque to remove or install and where there is ample room in which to work, the nut driver is ideal.

Basically built like a screwdriver with a socket for the tip, a nut driver is an essential part of a professional toolbox. The main advantage of using these is to save time. Removing interior panels or ignition coils are just a couple of jobs that benefit from using a nut driver. The array of situations in which this set of tools can be helpful and speed up a task is endless. Fortunately, they are also relatively affordable, with the 7-piece ICON Professional Hollow Shaft Metric Nut Drivers costing just $29.99. For a professional grade tool set, this is an excellent value.

Even the most basic of toolboxes will have screwdrivers, so you don't need me or anyone else telling you to get a set. However, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of different kinds of screwdrivers, and there are also prices ranging from $1.25 at the Dollar Tree to a Hazet 24-piece set for $475.00. For the home mechanic, Harbor Freight's Pittsburgh brand should do just fine.

If you want a unique screwdriver set with an extremely useful added feature, try a PITTSBURGH Bolstered Screwdriver Set. Some clever folks have discovered that you can use a socket on the end of a screwdriver for more torque, including one clever Tik Tok creator, to use on stubborn screws. However, the PITTSBURGH Bolstered Screwdrivers provide a hex head on the end for just that purpose, and guarantees that this tip will work without possibly damaging a soft plastic screwdriver handle. For just $12.99, you can save some cash to invest in Harbor Freight's 24k gold-plated ⅜ ICON ratchet for whatever reason you might want to do that.

The T-handle might be the unsung hero of every toolbox. Combining facets of a screwdriver with a ratchet, the T-handle offers the perfect mix of high torque and speed for certain applications where that will come in handy. Removing valve covers with a couple dozen smaller bolts that are tight, but not so tight you really have to use a ratchet. Being able to spin them out quickly with a T-handle makes the job go quickly.

The PITTSBURGH SAE and Metric T-Handle Ball End Hex Key Set is particularly helpful on cars that use hex bolts frequently, such as BMW. It seems most BMW cars I have serviced used mostly hex bolts, and these tools will come in very handy if you own the Ultimate Driving Experience. Furthermore, they will also be more useful than the wrench you get next time you buy furniture from Ikea and attempt to decipher the pictorial instructions for your new Fjördklůrg.