Over at Amazon, they’re having a pre-Black Friday 2020 sale on quite a few Gearwrench mechanics tools and accessories.
A lot of the Gearwrench sale items are on tool kit add-ons – socket sets, bit sockets, adapters, and so forth, that you can use to fill in holes in your existing kit.
Advertisement
Me? I need ball hex bit sockets. I’ll be buying a different brand as soon as my industrial supplier runs their Cyber Monday coupon, but that’s because I’m buying for business use and not personal, and I can justify the premium for USA-made tools.
But for personal use, I’d more strongly consider this Gearwrench set at maybe 5/8ths the price. Actually… I need SAE sizes. I might need some metric sizes, and this Gearwrench set could provide those sizes and more, and at lower pricing.
As an example, this set is $36 right now, and priced at $44 elsewhere (such as Home Depot) and way higher elsewhere.
Torx bit sockets and many others are included in this sale.
They do have some sets as well, such as this Gearwrench 84pc bit socket set in 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ sizes.
If this doesn’t suit you, they also have a smaller bit socket set on sale. Ignore the pass-thru if you don’t have a compatible ratchet – these can also still be used on traditional 1/4″ and 3/8″ drive wrenches.
Swivel impact-rated sockets? They have standard on sale as well, and at what looks to be really good pricing.
They also have some individual sockets and bit sockets on sale as well.
I’m going to take a good long look at the 4 pages of Gearwrench sale items, and recommend you do the same if like me you’ve got a couple of “I wish I bought that sooner” items on your wishlist.
You might want think about what you need first, before looking at the sale list. My list would have included hex bit sockets and impact sockets, but now I’m wondering if I need swivel impact sockets and locking extensions.
What are you buying, if anything?
Also, please let us know about any good deals you might be coming across these days!
Nathan
of course now I’m curious which ball end hex sockets are you buying. I need a set too and I’m looking at some Bondhus products.
Meanwhile on the other gear wrench stuff – they look decent prices and they make a good tool. Alot of my speciality auto sockets are gear wrench becasue I can find them easily. Things like O2 sockets, oil pressure switch etc – they even make a kit of these. Great buy, fyi.
Thanks for the find.
Stuart
Proto, specifically their 7pc SAE set. I’m waiting for a good Zoro or MSC discount.
It’s ~$57, and if I can get it for 20% off, that would be ~$45.60. Amazon has the Gearwrench set at $44.61, and so there’s not much incentive to buy the imported set over USA-made.
For the metric set, that’s on sale right now at just under $36, which is better than the Proto price of $66. After coupon, it would be $36 on sale for the Gearwrench, vs $52.80 for the Proto. I use hex keys a lot and bits in socket holders on occasion, but I mainly need the length and torque of bit sockets for inch-size fasteners. So in that case, I might go with Gearwrench. I use 3, 4, 5 mm a lot, sometimes 6mm. Maybe the price difference isn’t all that much, but a $17 difference is still nearly 50% more.
I do use metric hex bits with torque wrenches on occasion, but not with straight and not ball end hex bits.
I also bought Wera bit sockets recently on sale.
With Proto, I bought a 1/4″ bit socket (3/8″) drive for $12.50 via Amazon when I needed it, and it’s seen a lot of use over the past 3 years, so much so that I’ve missed not having it in other sizes. I maybe should have gotten the set at the time, but didn’t know I would like it so much.
Jerome Jr
I will be adding more Gear wrench stuff to my chest, they have excellent customer service. Thought i’d share my experience with Apex customer service. Around 2012 I received a Gearwrench ratcheting combo wrench set for xmas. My father bought them from Sears or Sears hardware when they were open. Anyway when I started to remove them from the packing I noticed that the chrome finish was flaking off. Long story short I put them away in my chest and rarely used them since I had another set. So first week of October I was reading reviews on their tools and ended up sending Apex Support and email. Filled out their forum and mentioned the store. Apex support Team got back to me and sent out another set free of charge and didn’t want the defective ones back. I received a newer version of the wrenches on Tuesday. Anyways Im very pleased with Gearwrench standing behind their products and their support team. Just thought i’d share my experience incase someone else would encounter the same thing.
Nate B
Throw some heatshrink over those flaking ones and it’ll totally change their ergonomics!
Scott
Looks like it’s going to be an expensive holiday season. Some nice deals in here on things I’ve wanted to buy for a long time but haven’t mustered up the wallet share. I’ve been wanting a set of line wrenches for a long time, didn’t even know flex heads existed – ordered!!
Of course I wanted standard so I went with the 5pc kit ($54) without plastic holder instead of 6pc metric ($67), price per wrench still roughly the same just no holder, I’m ok with that.
Also grabbed the 8pc reversible ratcheting wrench set, 84pc hex/ball socket set you listed above, and (I THOUGHT) the 3/8″ passthrough socket set, though my Amazon order isn’t showing this one now. Hmmm
Thanks Stuart!
Stuart
You’re welcome!
I also came across two more Gearwrench deals, one on wrenches and the other on pliers. I haven’t compared prices on these yet, but a few immediate stand-outs from my wishlist look to be on sale by ~10%.
Gearwrench Wrench Deals
Gearwrench Pliers & Screwdriver Deals
Regarding Amazon – sometimes they split an order up based on whether they ship together or separately. I have also been seeing that “add to cart” now seems to require two taps or clicks in some cases, leading me to think I’ve added something to my cart only to find out I didn’t.