Tool Connection explains why factors should only stock brands that their customers trust.
Motor factors may already be familiar with Tool Connection’s consumables brand, Connect Workshop Consumables. Claiming to offer the UK’s most comprehensive range of workshop consumables, it offers over 4,000 products. For all kinds of consumables, including trim clips and sump plugs, garages no longer need to visit the main dealer; instead, motor factors can offer a more comprehensive range at a massive cost saving. From this perspective, it’s a win for the customer and a win for the factor.
With tools, it’s exactly the same; factors need to stock brands that their customers trust. These brands have to include the tools that customers actually need, as well as offering a constantly updated range of special tools that are designed for today’s motor vehicles. Laser Tools regards itself as one such brand. The company is, alongside its range of traditional hand tools, well known for its range of special tools that are designed to make easy work of the jobs that can sometimes be difficult or awkward. These tools are the result of feedback from the sharp end of the automotive industry — the technicians that work on today’s motor cars. When a problem is identified on specific vehicles, Laser Tool’s engineers devise a solution that aims to be both cost-effective and a means of making the technician’s job easier.
The company’s range of engine timing tools is constantly being updated; when vehicle manufacturers introduce new engines, its engineering team immediately begins on the design of the relevant timing tool kits.
Trusty tools
Laser Tools has highlighted a few of its tools that it claims to be real timesavers in a workshop
● The Universal Ribbed Drive Pulley Puller is a universal puller kit designed for ribbed pulleys that drive serpentine belts. The adjustable puller body is designed to maintain symmetry when adjusting, with both clamps moving equally when the adjuster is turned.
● Two sizes of centre force screw are provided, for deep or shallow pulleys. Similarly, two sizes of slide-on clamp are provided. Therefore, with the adjustment on the main puller body, and the different lengths of centre force screws and slide-on clamps, the puller will fit many different sizes and configurations of pulley. Applications include a water pump pulley, an alternator pulley, air conditioning pulleys, crankshaft pulleys, etc.
● Modern brake pipe cutters can be quite small and compact, but there are many instances when technicians are working on a car where there is still not enough clearance to turn the cutter around the whole circumference of the brake pipe. Laser Tools’ Mini Brake Pipe Cutter is claimed to solve this problem with its ratchet mechanism. By simply sliding the cutter over the pipe, the handle gives excellent leverage, and even if the space is really restricted, a few turns of the handle will quickly and cleanly cut straight through. It is self-adjusting, so there is no need to keep tightening the blade down onto the pipe as you are cutting.
● With increasing numbers of hybrid and electric vehicles on the road requiring maintenance, workshops are investing in new skills and technology to keep pace with this growth.
To make it easy for workshop owners to decide on basic requirements, Laser Tools offers a number of starter packs:
● The Workshop Safety Pack, which is designed to make the working environment safe.
● The Vehicle Safety Pack.
● The Personal Safety Pack, which protects the technician.
● The Safety Tools Pack, which is designed to provide workshops with a base set of tools that are certified for use in a high voltage environment.
