looking for an impact wrench, and thinking that a battery powered one would be the way to go for track days. Thoughts? Recommendations? Decent options under/around $200? However, question about torque settings. I know that impact wrenches are not very precise on torque for tightening, but are there at least low, medium, high settings? I don't want to tighten my lugs to 400 ft/lbs.

My thinking is that I only need one that goes up to about 300, as my axle nuts are the highest setting I would normally use at 242.

 

I got sick of taking wheels off by hand, and went for a Milwaukee Fuel M18 3/8" impact driver (fuel means brushless). It's not your normal 1/2", but it has plenty of power to take off lug nuts. It'll even take axle nuts off some cars. In Canada it's way above you 200$ price range, but it may be better there.

It has 3 power setting. 1 is for essentially just hand tightening (good for 10mm bolts/nut), setting "2" is great for putting lug nuts on without over tightening, and Setting "3" is great for removing torqued (and over torqued) lug nuts.

I'll take wheels off with setting 3 or 2, put the new wheel on using setting 2, set the car back on the ground and torque with a torque wrench. I generally only have to turn the torque wrench 1/8 - 1/4 turn to get to the set point. I think we found that setting 2 puts the wheels on to about 40 ft lbs.

Battery life is crazy good. using their 4.0 battery pack, I used the gun for an entire weekend without charging it. That would be 1-2 cars changing four tires twice a day. I could have went with a bigger and more powerful impact gun that would have done axle nuts more easily, but it meant that I would lose some of my finesse ability that I have with this gun. I highly recommend it!

 

My recommendation is to buy an impact that you can actually use. I bought an Ingersoll IQV20 that I use for all kinds of projects. 1100LB-FT will get shit to come off. It weighs like 7LB. The battery charge lasts for a long time and can be recharged quickly. I think at this point, the set with the tool, case, battery, and charger is $375ish.

Or buy the cheapest one you can find if you're just doing lug nuts.

A $200 impact is kinda pointless. Sure, it will remove lugs. But so will a cheap one from Harbor Freight. Both will leave you wanting when you need to do actual work.

But in any case...why would you use it to tighten your lugs? That's insanity. Snug the lugs with the impact at quarter trigger. Then hand torque them.

 

I bought a Ryobi recently. Used it this past weekend to swap out snow tires and wheels for the summer setup on two cars. Had no problems. Battery held up fine. Is it the best available? No. But for $130, I'm very happy with it.


Ryobi ONE+ 18-Volt Impact Wrench Kit-P1890 - The Home Depot

 

Look for reconditioned name brand power tools. Lug nuts are best hand torqued, just use the wrench to spin them on. A 1/2" drive isn't necessarily better than a 3/8" for out cars.

-- Chuck

 

My advice is to avoid the small battery powered impact wrenches and spend the extra money to get a full size impact wrench. The small wrenches don't always have enough umph to get lugs off. The full size wrenches are more versatile. Having said that, for causal use on an S2k, you really just need a torque wrench - impact is not necessary.

 

The Ryobi/Craftsman C3 (newest version) are probably the best bang for the buck impact guns. They're within your budget and will be more than enough to remove lug nuts.Tightening should always be done by hand. You can use the impact gun to spin on the lugs, but do the final torquing with a torque wrench. This is not NASCAR lol.

 

This what I have, the Sears Craftsman C3. Its cheap, well made, battery lasts forever, has decent torque. I've used on the S and other cars in the fleet, removing various suspension fasteners, lugnuts, and other.

As mentioned, its very high bang for buck ratio. It can't compare in performance to the big dogs, but for diy, if the C3 can't remove it, not a big deal for my half inch breaker bar and some muscle to break it loose. I'll typically still grab the imoact to spin it rest of way off, as that still saves a lot of time.

 

Milwaukee has the best impacts for the money. They have a medium duty one and a heavy duty one for 1000lbs.

 

FWIW I'm becoming less and less happy w/my dewalt 1/2" 18 volt that's several years old. I don't know if it's getting "tired" or what but doesn't seem to have the oomph it once did. If buying again I'd probably up my game and get the Ingersol mentioned in this thread for track days.

At risk of being flamed....for tightening bolts i bought a torque stick that seems to work pretty well on the daily drivers. I still hand tighten the bolts on the S for track time.