Product test: Torque sticks

I had never heard of ‘torque sticks’ until a mate of mine pulled them out of his bag while we were changing a wheel somewhere on the Gary Highway.

They’ve been around for a while by all accounts and when I saw them, I thought, ‘what a good idea’. When I got home I went looking for them and found them at a Total Tools outlet. You generally won’t find them at Bunnings and the like.

Torque sticks are meant to be used with an air-powered impact wrench; if you are using them with a battery-powered wrench, then the more powerful the wrench is, the better and more accurate the torque stick will be.

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I’m still not sure how they work as they just look like a socket-extension bar, but the higher value torque sticks are thicker.

Nobody would recommend these for tightening head bolts of an engine, for example, as that’s more in the realm of accurate (and expensive) torque wrenches. However, for doing up wheel nuts, they seem to work fine.

We tested ours against a high-quality hand-held wrench and found them to be pretty accurate, and certainly good enough for tightening wheel nuts.

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While the 10-piece kit may seem a little expensive, you can find single sticks on the web for $30 to $40 each. As we have a couple of 4WD vehicles and we are often touring with clients who have a wide range of vehicles, we went with a 10-piece kit with torque sticks ranging from a rating of 90Nm to 200Nm – that should cover every wheel nut on common 4WD vehicles we’ll ever come across.

High-quality torque wrenches will set you back more than 300 bucks, and they need to be looked after and aren’t ideal for carrying around in a tool bag in the back of a bouncing 4WD – that’s the main reason we went with torque sticks.

Plus, if you only have one vehicle, you can throw the appropriate stick in a tool roll and not carry the whole kit, which is heavier than you may think.

Available from: www.totaltools.com.au
RRP: 10-piece kit $183