For someone who started building an air tool collection over 20 years ago, compressed air tools still make a lot of sense. While I’m not a professional mechanic now, all my tools followed me home, and I use them regularly in my home shop. I maintain my own vehicles and work on others’ cars as a side hobby. Back when I first started buying tools, electric and battery-powered options weren’t always reliable. Today, they are excellent and often outperform even my high-end air tools. However, switching entirely would mean buying a whole new set of cordless tools, which is a significant investment when my air tools work perfectly well. I have purchased a few cordless tools, mostly for tasks away from my garage, like farm work or roadside emergencies. I experienced a couple of trailer tire blowouts on a recent trip and was able to change them in under 10 minutes on the roadside using my cordless impact wrench. Cordless tools definitely make sense today, and if I were starting from scratch, I’d invest more in them than in air tools.
But every mechanic might have their own opinion on this. I’m not a professional, but I have a wide range of tools, both air-powered and electric. I work on cars and various projects around my garage, house, and yard. Consider these points: 1) Air-powered tools are significantly more affordable than battery-powered tools when you compare similar quality and power. 2) If you’re doing car work, you almost certainly need an air compressor anyway for tasks like tire inflation, cleaning parts, and blowing out debris. So, you likely already have a compressor. And 3) car work is typically done in the garage. Freedom of movement isn’t usually a major concern; a 25ft retractable air hose generally covers everything you need. In conclusion, air-powered tools are more cost-effective, don’t require managing multiple expensive batteries and their charging, and the minor inconvenience of being connected to an air compressor is minimal since the compressor is likely already nearby. For tasks away from the garage, battery power is the better choice. Dragging around 100 feet of air hose is a real pain.
