The Best Halfords Tools and Garage Kit in 2026: Our 6 Picks

This is the set that covers most home car jobs without the bulk of the 200-piece version. It has 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2-inch drives, standard and deep six-point metric sockets, 100-tooth ratchets, universal joints, an 18-inch breaker bar and combination spanners. The case measures 390 x 570 x 130mm, and the guarantee covers the tools but not the case or foam inserts. The product page showed £250 when we read it, while the socket-set listing showed it reduced to £125, so check at the till.

Its low reviews are few but pointed: two buyers had the smallest ratchet fail straight out of the box, another found the spanner jaws roughly finished, and one complained there is no ratchet screwdriver to use the bits with.

Checking tyre pressures is the car job people put off, and a pre-set inflator makes it a two-minute task. This one runs from the 12V socket on a 3m cord, so there is no battery to forget to charge. You set the pressure, it stops when it gets there, and Michelin quotes accuracy within 1 PSI up to 50 PSI. It weighs 700g, includes Presta, needle and inflatables adapters, and has a one-year limited warranty.

Read the limits. It runs for 10 minutes before needing 15 to cool, and it is not suitable for space-saver tyres. Several low reviews say the valve connector has no lever lock and leaks air unless held at the right angle, and one buyer found it hard to use with arthritic hands.

If you take wheels off, you need a torque wrench to put them back on properly, and this is the right size for most cars. It is a 1/2-inch square drive with a 40 to 200Nm range (30 to 150 lbf.ft), works clockwise and anticlockwise, and Halfords states accuracy of plus or minus 3% of the reading to ISO 6789-1:2017. It comes in a foam-lined box.

The catch is in the guarantee. The lifetime cover on Halfords Advanced torque wrenches depends on producing a valid Declaration of Conformance, the old calibration certificate, which the page says is valid for 18 months from purchase or recalibration. It also starts at 40Nm, too high for small engine and bike bolts. Its handful of reviews are all five stars.

The scissor jack in your boot is for emergencies. For anything you plan to do on the drive, a trolley jack is quicker and steadier, and this is the cheap, sensible one. It lifts 2 tonnes through a range of 14 to 34cm, has a 6.7cm saddle, rugged wheels, a clip to store the handle and an automatic safety overload valve. Halfords gives it a two-year replace-if-faulty guarantee.

Its reviews are almost all five stars; the one three-star review calls it slow to raise. The bigger limitation is the 14cm minimum height, which may not slide under a lowered or sporty car; Halfords sells a low-profile version for that. A jack is for lifting only: never work under a car held up on one.

Buy these with the jack, not later. They are a pair of welded steel stands in bright orange, each rated at 1,000kg, with a wide base, a load pin on a safety chain and three height settings between 26.5cm and 36.5cm. They were £20.99 when we checked, reduced from £32.

We found no low reviews; the four-star ones simply call them fine for home use. The weakness is in the specification. Three positions is not many, so the setting may not match the height you need, and the top setting (36.5cm) is above the 34cm maximum of the trolley jack above. The rating is 1 tonne per stand, so a heavy SUV calls for the 3-tonne pair. The page lists no guarantee period, unlike the jack.

This is the set Halfords calls its best seller, and it has more than a thousand reviews on the product page. Over the 150-piece set it adds 72-tooth ratchet spanners, nylon-coated alloy wheel-nut sockets, long and short hex, Torx and spline bits, and sockets from 4mm to 36mm (deep ones to 27mm). It has the same lifetime guarantee.

The weaknesses are size and the case. It lists a weight of 21 against the 150-piece set’s 11.5, and the case measures 630 x 480 x 100mm. The few low reviews complain that the case is flimsy, will not close properly or lets spanners fall out of their slots, and one owner says the bits rust quickly. The case and inserts are excluded from the guarantee.