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It’s crucially important that certain nuts and bolts on a car are tightened to a Goldilocks-level of “just right.” If wheel lug nuts are too loose, you risk losing a wheel while driving, but if they’re too tight, you may not be able to remove them to change a flat tire. Other critical bolts include those on cylinder heads and rubber suspension bushings. A torque wrench allows you tighten a nut or bolt to a specified torque by giving you tactile, visual, or auditory feedback when you’ve reached the target setting. Most torque wrenches are ratchet handles onto which you snap a socket, and thus are available in four standard socket drive sizes. Like any other ratchet wrench, the longer the handle and the bigger the drive, the more torque it can deliver. A click-style torque wrench with a 1/2-inch drive is optimal for lug nuts and good for most other automotive applications. Hand Torque Wrench
We examine the best overall torque wrench, the best digital torque wrench, the best budget torque wrench, the best 3/4-inch torque wrench for motorhome lug nuts, and the best 1/4-inch torque wrench for small fasteners.
EPAuto 1/2-inch Drive Click Torque Wrench
Chrome Vanadium steel alloy (Cr-V)
EPAuto 1/2-inch Drive Click Torque Wrench
TEKTON 1/2 Inch Drive Micrometer Torque Wrench
TEKTON 1/2 Inch Drive Micrometer Torque Wrench
LEXIVON 1/2-Inch Drive Click Torque Wrench
LEXIVON 1/2-Inch Drive Click Torque Wrench
Lexivon 1/2-Inch Drive Click Torque Wrench 25-250 Ft-lb
The Lexivon LX-184 1/2-inch drive wrench gives a wider torque range than less-expensive wrenches while still being well-priced for the home mechanic. As such, it can be used not only for medium-torque fasteners like car lug nuts, but for higher-torque nuts such as those on trailer hitches and rear wheel bearings.
Gearwrench 1/2″ Drive Electronic Torque Wrench, 30-340 Nm – 85077
If you want something more whiz-bang than a traditional click-stop torque wrench, the 25-inch-long Gearwrench 85077 has a digital display and a handle that vibrates as you’re approaching the target torque, confirming delivery via a buzzer and an LED. Although its product title lists the torque range in Newton-meters, the wrench’s range is 25 to 250 ft-lb range to foot-pounds, and units can be selected in the digital display. A flex-head model is available at extra cost.
EPAuto 1/2-inch Drive Click Torque Wrench
The EPAuto 1/2-inch click drive torque wrench costs just $27, has a 10 to 150 ft-lb range, and ratchets in forward and reverse directions. If all you need a torque wrench for is wheel lug nuts, or want to buy one for an in-case-of-flat-on-the-road tool kit, this one will work fine.
Best 3/4-inch Torque Wrench for Motorhome Lug Nuts
Best 3/4-inch Torque Wrench for Motorhome Lug Nuts
Neiko Pro 03710B 3/4” Drive Adjustable Click Torque Wrench
If you have a full-sized Class-A motorhome, you may want to check the lug nuts before a long trip, but their 450 foot-pounds torque spec is beyond the range of any 1/2-in drive torque wrench. To get both the torque range and leverage, you need a 3/4-in drive torque wrench with a long handle. There are less-expensive 3/4-inch drive wrenches, but the Neiko Pro 03710B is a whopping 48 inches (four feet) long, and can deliver and measure up to 700 foot-pounds of torque.
Best Torque Wrench For Small Fasteners
Best Torque Wrench For Small Fasteners
Bulltools 1/4-inch Drive Dual-Direction Click Torque Wrench
If you’re working with small fasteners whose torque settings are crucial, you want a compact, easy-to-maneuverer, 1/4-inch torque wrench with as much accuracy in the low end of the range as possible. There’s a digital 1/4-inch wrench from ACDelco with +/- 1.5% accuracy, but at $180, it’s expensive for a do-it-yourselfer. Bulltools has a nifty 20 to 200 inch-pound wrench for $38 whose accuracy spec is +/- 3% (most of the other low-priced 1/4-inch wrenches are 4%).
EPAuto 1/2-inch Drive Click Torque Wrench
Chrome Vanadium steel alloy (Cr-V)
EPAuto 1/2-inch Drive Click Torque Wrench
TEKTON 1/2 Inch Drive Micrometer Torque Wrench
TEKTON 1/2 Inch Drive Micrometer Torque Wrench
LEXIVON 1/2-Inch Drive Click Torque Wrench
LEXIVON 1/2-Inch Drive Click Torque Wrench
Torque refers to the amount of twist on an object like a nut or bolt. In the United States, torque is measured in units of foot-pounds (foot-pounds). If you weigh 150 pounds and stand on the end of a two-foot wrench attached to a lug nut, you’d deliver 300 foot-pounds of torque. Many lug nuts have an 80 ft-lb torque specification, so they can be tightened properly by, for example, hanging an 80-lb weight on the end of a 1-foot wrench. Most people don’t keep calibrated 80-lb weights in their garage, so they use torque wrenches. (Foot-pounds are also a measure of engine power, more important to many than horsepower that provides the oomph that gets a car rolling.)
A torque wrench is a wrench that delivers a pre-set amount of torque to a fastener, and tells the user when it’s reached that value. To do this, it uses one of three primary methods. “Beam” torque wrenches employ a simple pointer on a scale. The downside is that you have to look straight at the pointer and scale to read the torque value, which is difficult while, say, tightening a wheel. Beam wrenches are still available, but they have largely been supplanted by click-stop wrenches which use an internal spring, ball, and detent. When the specified torque has been reached, the ball pops out of its detent, and a sharp “click” in the handle is felt. Electronic wrenches instead use a strain gauge and report the arrival of the target torque via vibration, beep, indicator lights, or all three.
Torque wrenches are primarily referred to by the socket drive size. Like ratchet wrenches, they come in 1/4-inch, 3/8-inch, 1/2-inch and 3/4-inch drives. The bigger the drive and the longer the handle, the more torque they can deliver. Most home mechanics will find that a torque wrench with a 1/2-inch drive and at least an 18-inch handle is the best choice for lug nuts, cylinder heads, suspension bushings, and other likely uses. If you’re rebuilding an engine, a 3/8-inch drive wrench is a better size for rod and main bearing end caps, but its shorter handle isn’t optimal for delivering torque to truck lug nuts, trailer hitches, or other high-torque fasteners. Fine assembly work such as small fasteners on critical pulleys, or compression of cork gaskets on finicky vintage cars, may require a 1/8-inch torque wrench for accurate low-torque delivery.
On click-style wrenches, it’s important that, after using it, the torque setting be turned down to relive tension on the internal spring. The calibration of most click-style wrenches is claimed to be good for 5,000 clicks. It’s also important that the wrench not be dropped. Torque wrenches can be recalibrated, but the cost usually exceeds that of a consumer-grade wrench. If you have questions about a wrench’s accuracy, an effective method is to test it against another torque wrench.
The short answer is yes. Most experts agree that a torque wrench should be calibrated once a year, or after 5,000 cycles or uses. Sooner, if it’s regularly used in temperature extremes or if it has been dropped.
That said, most consumers will will never go through 5,000 cycles if they’re only working on their own vehicle. Furthermore, sending a consumer-grade torque wrench away to a lab to be calibrated may be more expensive than simply replacing the old wrench with a new one.
Nearly all torque wrenches are ratchet handles, so you need a set of sockets to go with them. If the wrench has a 1/2-inch drive, you need 1/2-inch sockets. An extension is sometimes needed to reach a lug nut without having the wrench scrape against the wheel or tire. Drive adapters can be employed to use, for example, 3/8-inch sockets on a 1/2-inch drive torque wrench, but the higher the torque, the better it is that the drive sizes of the wrench and socket match. If you are replacing a cylinder head, certain head gaskets require an “angle torque” method where you torque each fastener to a specific value, then tighten it further by rotating it a specific amount (e.g., 90 degrees). Some high-end digital torque wrenches have this functionality built in, but for others, an inexpensive torque angle gauge is necessary.
Stainless Steel Adjustable Wrench Rob Siegel has written the column The Hack Mechanic for the BMW Car Club of America for 35 years. He has owned more than 100 cars, is the author of eight books, and lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with one saintly wife, one wonderful black dog, two questionable black cats, and 12 cars. He’s mainly a vintage BMW guy and pleads insanity for the ’74 Lotus Europa Twin Cam Special.