My buddy's dad called me out for using vice grips on every bolt

I was over at my friend Dave's place last Saturday helping him pull the transmission out of his 78 Ford F100 in his driveway. His dad came out and watched me reach for my worn out vice grips for the third time to get a stubborn bolt loose. He just laughed and said "son, you're making every job harder than it needs to be with those things." Then he handed me a $7 can of PB Blaster and a breaker bar and told me to stop being a caveman. I have to admit, he was right. I've been so cheap about buying basic tools that I was fighting every single bolt when I could have spent 20 bucks and saved myself hours of cussing. Has anyone else had an older mechanic call them out on something stupid they were doing and it totally changed how you work?

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michael5191mo ago

That PB Blaster is basically magic in a can, I swear by it now. Vice grips have their place but using them as a crutch for everything just wrecks your bolt heads and makes life harder. I had a similar wake up call when an old timer watched me round off a nut with a cheap adjustable wrench and just shook his head at me. He handed me a six point socket set and told me to never touch that adjustable again unless I was fixing a sprinkler. Sometimes you dont realize how much youre fighting your own tools until someone shows you the right way.

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