My First Tools: A Gear Guide for Car Wrenchin’ Rookies

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This story was updated in November 2022 with fresh information and new products.

From where I’m sitting, working on cars is one of the best parts of car culture. You get to learn new skills, invent new words, and find solutions to problems you never imagined you’d have to face. Also, you get to better understand what makes your car tick. The major road block? You have to have tools to work on your car.

Jumping into the world of tools is intimidating and can get expensive fast. Sure, you could finance your way into a full professional tool set, but that’s probably not the best route for a hobbyist who isn’t using their tools to make money.

With that in mind, here’s a place to get started: a guide to your first tool set, along with some extra goodies you didn’t know you needed.

1. Sockets

You’ll need some sockets. How many depends on a few things, like what you plan on doing in your home garage, drive or rented shop space. With so many options out there for socket wrenches and ratchet handles, diving in without a guided tour is overwhelming. Just doing a little research will peel back the curtain of the various price points, features, and manufacturers.

What I suggest: Buy a set. Buying sockets piecemeal, even entry-level tools, will cost an arm and a leg. Even looking at sets, there are a handful of paths you can take. You can buy complete sets in the three main drive sizes: quarter-inch-, half-inch- and three-eighths-inch-drive tools, or you can opt to find a huge set with a ton of pieces that encompasses all of the above.

Buying a comprehensive set from Craftsman, GearWrench, or your various private-label big-box store is the most affordable and sensible place to start. I took a different path, buying a high-quality three-eighths-drive set, and opted for more affordable tools in quarter- and half-inch. While more expensive, it did render me with mostly complete runs of all the main tools I’d ever need.

You also need to take into account what you plan on dragging into your garage. Considering I mostly work on older domestic vehicles, I could probably skate by with having only fractional tools; if you primarily work on imported or modern vehicles, you'll want metric.

Modern tools have a handful of features that didn’t exist on older tools. The big one with sockets: off-corner engagement. Virtually every decent socket has some variant of off-corner engagement that has a branded, trademarked, and easily advertised name attached to it. For example, Snap-On calls it Flank Drive, SK Tools calls it Suregrip and GearWrench calls it Surface Drive. You get the point.

With all of that in mind, here’s what we suggest for a first set:

2. Ratchets

This is somehow even worse than sockets. Sure, there are fewer ratchet handles that you need, but you’ll probably be tempted by features, designs, and creature comforts available in different ratchets. If you opt for a big set, you’ll likely get some bog-standard, normal-length ratchet handles in the standard sizes.