Date: 11 February 1982 1125-EST (Thursday)
From: Gary Feldman at CMU-10A
To: Craig Everhart at CMU-10A
Subject:  torque wrenches
Message-Id: <11Feb82 112514 GF20@CMU-10A>
Origin:  C410GF20 at CMU-10A; 11 Feb 1982 1141-EST
Remailed-To: Harry Bovik at CMU-10A
Remailed-From: Craig Everhart at CMU-10A
Remailed-Date: Thursday, 11 February 1982 1417-EST
Via:     C410CE10 at CMU-10A; 11 Feb 1982 1523-EST

I bought the bottom of the line Sears torque wrench for <$20 (less than
half the prices you quoted).  It is a simple, beam type wrench.  It is
more durable than the more expensive types (fewer mechanical parts), not
as easy to use (you have to be able to read the scale, and stop turning
at the right point; better wrenches can be preset, so that they automatically
stop at the required torque), and not as precise.  However, all of the
torque requirements on my car are sufficiently vague (e. g. 11-14 ft. lbs.
for my spark plugs), so that the precision of the cheap wrench is
more than adequate.

In other words, torque wrenches are so cheap that there is no reason for
not buying one for even trivial maintenance (especially replacing plugs
on an engine with an aluminum head; aluminum is real soft).

    Gary