Stopped by a shop in Tulsa and noticed nobody uses air ratchets anymore

I was at a transmission shop in Tulsa last Thursday picking up a buddy's torque converter and walked through their bay. Every single tech was using electric impacts and battery ratchets, not one air line hooked up to a tool. Is the industry just done with pneumatic tools or was that shop weird?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_aaron1mo ago

Heard from a buddy who works at a big shop in Dallas that they switched over to mostly electric stuff last year. Said the battery ratchets have gotten way better and they got tired of dragging air hoses around the shop. Makes sense I guess, but I still see air tools at a lot of smaller shops around here. Maybe it depends on the type of work you do too, like heavy truck stuff might still be better with pneumatics.

amy30218d ago

Read something similar from a tech up in Chicago, said the new electric impacts have way more torque than the old ones now too. Guess it's just the way things are going, air hoses are a pain.

fiona_lewis371mo ago

300 block of main street in my town had three body shops five years ago. Now they're all battery powered. Walked into Napa last month and saw more Milwaukee chargers than air compressor fittings on the shelf. Same with lawn equipment, neighbor's kid mows with an electric zero turn now. Everything's going cordless, just the way it is. Air tools still have their place for continuous use jobs though.