I swore off impact wrenches on lug nuts for 6 years, then a guy named Sal changed my mind in one afternoon
I used to be one of those guys who would only break lug nuts loose by hand with a breaker bar, no exceptions. Three years ago I watched a kid at a tire shop in Reno snap a stud off some lady's Camry with a big cordless impact and I swore those things were for lazy hacks who didn't care about other people's cars. Fast forward to last month, my shop got slammed with 14 cars in one day and my foreman Sal, who's been turning wrenches since before I was born, handed me his impact and told me to quit being stubborn. He showed me how to start every nut by hand first, then run it in on the lowest torque setting and finish with a torque wrench, and I kid you not, we knocked out three rotations in the time it used to take me to do one. My shoulders weren't wrecked by 3pm for the first time in forever. I still torque every single one by hand before it leaves the bay, but man, I was wrong about the tool, I was right about the sloppy use of it. Any of you old school guys still doing everything by breaker bar, or did you come around like I did?