Just the other day, independent mobile tool dealer Matt Sledge witnessed a concerning sight. A brand-new Dodge Challenger was driving down the street in Franklin, Tennessee, when one of the tires fell right off.
“It’s crazy. A little oil lube guy put his wheels back on, he drove two miles down the street, and his wheel popped off,” says Sledge, owner of Techs Choice Tools and Equipment. “I saw it happen with my own eyes.”
It’s stories like this that reinforce the importance of ensuring wheels are torqued properly before a customer is sent back on the road. To do this, technicians need to buy the right torque wrench for the job — and they can turn to their mobile tool dealer to find just what they need.
Types of torque wrenches
There are many different torque wrenches on the market. The very earliest design that is still manufactured and used today is the deflecting beam torque wrench. It's simple but effective, and the cheapest option out there, says Bob Pond, vice-president of sales and marketing at Central Tools. The next is a dial type with a needle that sweeps around the dial.
The biggest problem with both of these is parallax error, which occurs when the measurement of an object’s length is inaccurate because of the user's positioning to the device.
To address that inherent issue, the click-style torque wrench was invented. Micrometer-style click torque wrenches are the most popular — the torque setting is adjusted by twisting the handle until it reaches the correct torque setting on the barrel of the tool. It has an internal mechanism that will create an audible click and a tactile feeling that indicates you’ve reached the torque setting of the tool.
This style of torque wrench is fairly accurate (plus or minus four percent in the right-hand direction and six percent in the left-hand direction) as long as they are maintained and serviced properly, Pond explains. But Chris Morris, product marketing manager at Mountz Torque, says click wrenches are susceptible to over torquing because the user doesn’t always hear the click sound, especially with smaller amounts of torque or in noisy environments. To combat this, Mountz designed a cam-over wrench that uses an internal cam-over mechanism that disengages once the torque is reached. According to the company, a cam-over wrench can be given to any operator with the confidence that they will deliver the correct torque time after time.
“It’s the most error-proofing system you can have. Once you hit the torque and you continue to apply on it, it doesn’t apply anymore torque on it,” says Morris.
While cam-over wrenches are about three or four times the price of a click wrench, another selling feature is that it doesn’t matter where a tech grabs on the handle, the same amount of torque will be applied.
The next style of torque wrench is the click style split beam pioneered by Precision Instruments. It also makes an audible and tactile click sound, but it overcomes many of the problems associated with micrometer-style click wrenches in abusive environments, the company says. All critical parts of the wrench are welded together at assembly, there is no need to “work in” the torque wrench before use, and it does not need to be adjusted to the lowest torque setting after use. Sledge sells these torque wrenches by Precision Instruments to customers that are performing the same torque over and over again.
The next option is digital or electronic torque wrenches that allow the user to program the torque limit. These can be extremely accurate (plus or minus two percent) but they are more expensive.
“There are some potential pitfalls with digital. Automotive tends not to be the most clean and pristine and careful use environments. Things get dropped and moved so the digital controller can get damaged, the screen can get cracked, but if the guy takes care of it, if he’s careful with his tools, it will operate perfectly fine for him,” Pond says.
The newest innovation is a digital torque angle wrench that gives you the ability to get an angle reading. These are used for torque to yield applications which are largely seen for cylinder head bolts or main bearing caps and suspension components.
The GEARWRENCH click-style torque wrench used to be the top seller in this category on Sledge’s truck, but nowadays the company's digital torque angle wrench sells the best.
“Even if guys aren’t using angle, they buy it because they might need it one day,” says Sledge, who serves mostly automotive and body shops on his route in Franklin. He has an employee who runs a second truck with a route in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and he also has a franchise in Ohio.
GEARWRENCH is the predominant brand found on Sledge’s truck and he likes to encourage his customers to stick with the same brand and build off it.
“Brand recognition to me is important and when I organize my truck, I don’t like to carry a bunch of different manufacturers because I want guys to get locked in to that one brand, so I do push GEARWRENCH first,” he says, noting that GEARWRENCH is an economy line and guys can get into a 1/2” torque wrench for about $160.
Sledge is also always asking his customers if they will need torque wrenches that go in reverse because some brands do not offer that functionality.
Why is the right torque so important?
Many users often do a couple extra pulls when using a torque wrench because it feels extra snug and they think that must be good, notes Morris. However, over torquing can cause the lug nut, for example, to stretch beyond its natural ability and it could snap right then and there or in a couple days’ time. Under torquing is just as bad because the lug nut can come loose and fall off.
Pond says engine repair is a prime example of the importance of applying the right amount of torque.
“If you leave them too loose, with engine vibrations the bolt can sort of back its way out a little bit and now you don’t have the proper clamping force of the head to the block and you can get fluid leaks, oil leaks, or combustion leaks, so the job’s going to come back again,” he explains. “If you overtighten the bolt it can’t pull itself back together and it just loosens up or you can snap it.”
One of the biggest concerns of not applying the proper torque is with wheels.
“You hear stories all the time of wheels coming off cars on the road because they’ve either under tightened or over tightened the fasteners at the wheel,” Pond says. “I don’t care how long you’ve been putting tires on cars, you can’t actually judge the tightness of the lug by your air gun. They should be torqued.”
Other torque tools
Morris recommends shops have a torque analyzer where techs can put their wrench on the torque tester daily or weekly and see what the readings are. A best practice would be to do 10-15 pulls on the analyzer at the end of each shift and if the tools all pass, then they can continue using the tool. If a tool fails, then it means it needs to be pulled out of use and sent to the calibration lab for testing.
“A lot of tire shops and automotive places don’t do that. Most of them we found are using time-based intervals" for sending the tools to the manufacturer's lab for verification, says Morris.
When selling torque verification tools, Morris recommends pushing ones to your customers that have a pass-fail indicator, such as a red and green light, have the ability to set tolerances, and can capture data.
“If all the shops can capture data and send it to the corporate office, then they can start to analyze trends with tools, trends in shops. It also helps them with future purchases with tools and shorten the calibration cycle,” he explains. “If they are noticing 50 out of the 100 tools are always out of torque six months before they are supposed to be, then we need to shorten our calibration intervals.”
Sledge sells torque sticks (also known as torque limiting extension bars) to his customers which are added to the end of an impact wrench to tighten to the estimated torque. Not too long ago, Firestone mandated that all its technicians use a torque stick and then follow it up with a torque wrench to make sure every lug nut was torqued to the right specification. Since then, torque sticks have gone up in sales a lot as many other automotive shops started to follow that same mandate, says Sledge. But he still often has to take the time to educate his customers on the importance of using torque sticks.
“A lot of them think it’s the old fashioned way to ratchet down with the impact [wrench] but the impacts are becoming so powerful now that you could break a stud on a rotor,” he says.
He pushes the Astro 78818 to his customers. It’s a four-piece torque stick with four-piece protective lug nut and socket for just $88.
It’s important to know where your customer is on the torque spectrum. Ideally, they should be buying a torque wrench for their job, but it’s better to use a torque stick than nothing, so you can use that to ease them into this product line.
Torque multipliers may be another product your customers are interested in, especially if they work on heavy duty equipment or in industrial applications. A multiplier includes a set of gears that take the amount of force putting into it and multiply that force to a certain amount coming out. For example, if you have a torque wrench at 500 ft-lbs and take a torque multiplier with a 4:1 ratio, you will get 2,000 ft-lbs out.
“It really comes into play in places where the amount of torque you need to apply really exceeds what you can get in a torque wrench,” says Pond.
Selling torque products
If someone has a question about a torque wrench, the first thing Sledge does is rip it right out of the box. He takes it out, shows the customer the quality and comments on its craftsmanship.
“When you give that to the customer, they automatically see value in the physical aspect of it,” he explains. “And ours [GEARWRENCH’s] has nice colors on it; the buttons are really, really nice.”
Putting the wrench in the customer’s hands helps make the sale, rather than just giving them the box.
“It’s a psychological thing. Generally, if someone is interested in something and you put it in their hands and let them hold on to it and don’t take it back until they are forced to give it back to you, they automatically get a sense of ownership of ‘I already have this in my hand, this is mine, and I’m going to put it on my account,’” Sledge says.
He also has a torque indicator mounted on the wall of his tool truck, so he can check a torque wrench right there on the truck.
“It also gives you the chance to show it off, so if you want to set your torque wrench tool to a lower torque, it shows them what a digital torque wrench does, how it peaks and vibrates. It’s all about demonstration,” says Sledge.
Another tip is to have both torque testers and the torque wrenches in stock on the truck and displayed side by side, says Morris.
“Have it right there front and center,” he says. “Then you’re soft selling two different elements: you’re soft selling the torque measurement aspect and whatever tool you’re demoing. If they are only interested in that tool but you also use the torque tester, they might ask questions about that, or if they are there to learn about the torque tester, vice versa, they see the tool you’re using on and see how it’s performing and ask about that as well.”
Torque wrenches are not often an impulse buy, says Pond, but it’s still important to have a couple of different sizes displayed on the truck so customers know that you carry them.
But the best sales tip is to ensure you understand what your customer will be using the torque products for and getting them the right tool to suit their needs. For example, torque wrenches come in a variety of different sizes. Your customer might need a 250 ft-lbs wrench because they are doing a lot of tire, wheel, and suspension or a 100 ft-lbs because they're doing tension work or transmission.
When a new product comes in, it never hurts to mention it to the customers on your route, says Pond.
“If you happen to mention, ‘Hey, we have this new torque wrench’ and the guy was maybe thinking he has one he needs to replace or he wants another one because the shop is getting busy."
Another sales tip is to focus on selling products that can be serviced easily, which is not likely the case for many import brands, says Pond.
“There may not be reliable parts availability, or in some cases the third-party repair houses may not want to work on it because they just don’t want to have to deal with having a repair warranty with a wrench that’s coming from God knows where offshore,” he says.
How successful a mobile dealer is in selling torque products is driven by both the kind of work the customer is doing and how important they view proper torque values in creating an accurate repair job.
“Some guys really see how important it is and they adhere to it 100 percent and they have one torque wrench to cover all the different ranges of the type of work they do,” says Pond. “But some guys will say its really important for me to torque if I’m doing engine work, but they don’t worry about it too much if they’re putting tires on.”
No matter what he’s selling — torque related or not — Sledge says attitude is the key to his success.
“It doesn’t matter if you had a bad day at the last stop, you have to turn a smiley face on at the next stop. Everyone who sees you has to know you’re having the best day ever,” he says. “I am very energetic on the route and constantly showing them something new.”
He also makes a point to call his customers by name and have a personal relationship with all of them. At the end of the day, he is selling a service to them that they can’t get from online retailers.
“Yeah you’re getting it for $7 cheaper online but you’re not getting the service I’m providing to you. I know your name, you break your tool, you give it to me, I take care of it, I’ll send it off,” he says. “I do have competition from the internet, they do sell the same stuff, but guys say they would rather buy it from me because they like me.”
