mike wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Wrench
pt=UK_Home_Garde
Coming to this thread a few days late...
I had this problem a week ago. Returned to parked car in late evening to find I had a flat tyre. 12 miles from home - first attempt was to inflate tyre with 12v plug-in electric pump (I always carry it) so that I could get home. Going flat again when I got home and with early start the next morning would be unable to visit tyre dealer for puncture repair, so change the wheel it had to be.
Some years ago I bought a 12v impact wrench from Aldi - if memory serves, it cost GBP 14. Comes in a neat grey case with assorted connectors and sockets. It's still new - I had never used it and had to retrieve it from the shed. I thought it would be easier than using a hand wrench...
It sort of slowly wound itself up to speed, then hit the nut. And again, at intervals, slowly, rather than the machine-gun like noise of 'similar' tools at a tyre dealer. No joy.
I ended up loosening the nuts with an extending telescopic-type wrench (again, I always carry it) that I paid about GBP 7 for a few years ago. Once loosened, I did remove the nuts with the impact wrench.
So, my experience is that it's not a very helpful tool - too feeble to do the complete job, and I could have done it using my wrench that I had in the car anyway.
My recommendation is that you carry a 12v typre inflator pump in the car - very, very useful. This will almost always get you to home / tyre dealer / garage where someone else can do the hard work.. Also carry an extending wrench (mine takes 1/2" sockets and came with two double ended sockets for most size wheel nuts). Works well, but getting soemone else to do the dirty work is much easier :)
The electric impact wrench isn't man enough to do the job for well tightened wheel nuts. Others have pointed out eBay variants, but they all look very much like my Aldi PowerCraft jobby...
Hope this helps