Even if you’ve been a mechanic for years and have a toolbox full of tools, sometimes you’re missing that one crucial tool for a certain job. I once had to wait for one of the tools trucks to show up to buy a tap so I could install a trailer hitch on a car. I was lucky that the truck was coming that day, but sometimes I haven’t been so lucky.

I was doing a side job on a friend’s car, and was trying to replace one of the brake lines at the ABS modulator. The way the lines go in, there was no way to get any of my wrenches onto the fitting. Because I was replacing the line, I just cut it off and used a socket to remove the fitting, but I wasn’t going to be able to do that to get the new line in, so I ended up having to go buy a set of crows foot wrenches so I could tighten the fitting. The two worst parts of having to go buy a tool during a job are making the whole thing take way longer, and negating a lot of the profit you would’ve made.

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-Dan