5 Of Best Icon Tools To Buy At Harbor Freight For Mechanics, According To Users

If you've ever wandered around the aisles of a Harbor Freight, you've no doubt stumbled upon Icon tools at some point. Icon is one of several house brands for Harbor Freight, and this one specializes in hand tools. In general, it makes pretty reliable tools, and we're fans of the brand here at SlashGear. It's part of Harbor Freight's more premium lineup, so they're a bit more expensive than some other tools that Harbor Freight sells. The higher price is justified for things like the fact that almost all Icon tools have a lifetime warranty attached to them. 

So, if you're looking to make Icon your tool brand of choice for your mechanic tools, you're in good hands. The brand sells a variety of hand tools that are good for both general purpose and mechanic use, and there is also a selection of tools specifically for mechanics. There are many tools that a mechanic may want in their tool kit from basic hand tools like wrenches and break bars to more powerful stuff like pneumatic impact wrenches. 

Since Icon sells mostly hand tools, we'll focus on those options for your mechanic needs. If you need fancier stuff like an air compressor, you'll have to choose a different brand since Icon doesn't make those kinds of tools. There are plenty of air compressor tools out there for you to choose from, so for this list, you'll mostly see basic hand tools that would go great in a mechanic's tool kit. 

A good socket set is essential for mechanics, because they make nuts and bolts easier to turn, and if you've ever worked on a car, you know how many nuts and bolts there are to loosen and tighten. In general, mechanics want a socket set that includes both deep and shallow sockets. This is not only for ergonomic purposes, but because a deep socket may not fit in a smaller space whereas a shallow socket may not be long enough to grip the nut being loosened. 

Icon's ⅜-inch set is about as good as it gets here. It's a 54-piece set that includes both shallow and deep sockets in a variety of sizes along with a low-profile, 90-tooth socket wrench that is designed to get into small spaces. Should you not have faith that ⅜-inch is strong enough for your needs, the brand sells a nearly identical, albeit slightly smaller ½-inch socket set as well. In any case, there are usually sockets and extras that you'll want to add to this set over time, but ⅜-inch is a standard size (as is ½-inch), so it'll be compatible with specialty sockets as well. 

If the ratchet isn't quite long enough to suit your needs, Icon also sells longer ratchets in both ⅜-inch and ½-inch variants that should help you get way further into your engine bay for repairs. Icon also makes ⅜-inch flex-head ratchets if you need a little more mobility.

This one is fairly self-explanatory. For the most part, wrenches do the same thing as sockets — loosens nuts and bolts — and each end can be used for that purpose. Wrenches can often get to things that ratchet sets can't and can often grab onto thinner things that a ratchet set would fumble with. Wrenches tend to be for life, and Icon's lifetime warranty does apply to these wrenches as well. 

Icon sells two wrench sets. One is for SAE measurements like 5/16-inch or ½-inch while the other tackles metric measurements. I've seen both needed for car repair work, but in general, I've personally used SAE measurements more often. With that said, even U.S. automakers are using metric more often these days. Both wrench sets contain 14 total wrenches and are constructed from a chrome-vanadium steel with a polished chrome finish. 

Since each set costs $129.99, which isn't cheap, you'll probably want the metric one first unless you know for sure that you'll be using SAE more often. Icon also makes 10-piece sets with built-in ratchets, but those are significant more expensive at $169.99. The highest-end variants you can get are seven-piece sets that feature reversible ratchets. Those go for $199.99. You can go with whichever ones you think are best, but the basic sets are the least expensive and feature the most wrenches in different sizes, so we think they're the most versatile. 

One of the most basic and common things you do as a home mechanic is change your car's oil. Generally, you can change the oil with a basic wrench or socket set. Simply loosen the nut, let the oil flow out, wipe it clean, tighten, and put in fresh oil. However, changing oil filters often requires specialized sockets that come in varying sizes depending on the size of the oil filter. Those are typically not included in traditional socket sets. Thus, Icon's ⅜-inch oil filter socket set is a good place to start. 

These sockets are specially made for oil filters and have design features that work specifically for the task, like chamfered openings. Otherwise, what you see is what you get here, a set of seven sockets that should correlate with the most common oil filter sizes. They're made with a chrome-vanadium alloy and coated in black phosphate to resist corrosion. 

One of the reasons we recommended the ⅜-inch socket set earlier was because Icon only sells this oil filter socket set in ⅜-inch. We searched high and low for a ½-inch version, but one does not seem to exist. So, if you're wondering why we recommended the ⅜-inch socket set over the ½-inch socket set, this is why. The add-ons are more common for ⅜-inch socket sets, at least at Harbor Freight. 

Cars are complicated pieces of machinery, so naturally there are tools made just for working on them. One such example is the puller set, which helps mechanics remove things like gears, bearings, pulleys, and more, and are heavily featured in crankshaft, alternator, and axle work. They aren't exclusively for mechanic work, but mechanics can get a lot of mileage out of a good puller set. There are hydraulic pullers available, along with other types of pullers, but that's likely overkill unless you're in a professional setting. 

Icon's master interchangeable puller set fits right into a mechanic's tool bag. The kit includes a variety of puller types, including four jaws, three yokes, and multiple pressure screws, all in various sizes. The jaws are also reversible for inside and outside pulling. In total, Icon says there are 64 combinations that offer a maximum of 10 tons of pulling capacity, which should be enough for mechanic work. Like Icon's other tools, everything in here is made from steel with a manganese phosphate finish to help prevent corrosion. 

The master interchangeable puller set is the most versatile set of mechanic-specific tools that Icon offers, but the brand does offer more. There is the Icon serpentine belt tool kit with tools that specifically help you remove and install serpentine belts with spring-loaded tensioner pulleys. We also found an Icon ball joint press. However, we would file these under the category of only buying them once you actually need them. 

The OBDII diagnostic system changed how people repair cars, and these days it's also helping people maintain their vehicles better. For those who haven't heard of it, this system lets you attach a device to your car so that your car can tell it what's wrong. Mechanics use these things all the time and retail stores like Auto Zone will even do it for you if you can get your car there. For a mechanic's toolkit, though, you'll probably want to have one of your own, and luckily Icon makes one. 

The T7 Wired Diagnostic Scanner works like you'd probably expect. You can connect it to your car and see what's wrong. It supports the OBDII, CAN, and DOIP diagnostic protocols, along with fully bidirectional OBDII support. That means it can read codes, clear codes, graph live data, perform resets, relearns, and other special functions. That should cover just about everything you would need for car repair, maintenance, and just looking to see what your car is even doing. 

The T7 is one of only a few tools that Icon sells without a lifetime warranty. Icon guarantees this one for one year. In addition, new purchases get one year of free updates to the software with a subscription update model available afterward. The subscription can be pretty expensive, but the device will still function if you let the subscription expire.

Mechanics use a lot of tools. Many of them are your basic things like wrenches while others are more complex like a serpentine belt puller kit. For this list, we wanted to pick tools that would be usable in every mechanic's toolkit. After all, users may love all of the above products, but if you don't need a ball joint press, then why does it matter if people like it or not? 

Once we figured out the tools, it was just a matter of pointing you at the ones that people liked most. Every tool on the list above has a 4.6 rating or higher. The lowest rated thing on the list was the T7 scanner tool at 4.6 while the highest were the basic wrenches at 4.9. Usually, we write these articles to talk about what users liked about them. However, in this case, it was all the same stuff. The tools worked well, were durable, and had lifetime warranties (except for the T7). For the T7, people said the scanner worked as intended and was cheaper than many other bidirectional scanners on the market. 

That made the list pretty easy to make overall. After all, every mechanic needs a wrench and by all accounts, Icon makes good wrenches. In fact, looking around, we didn't see any Icon products with a low rating. So, for this writer, it was just picking five tools I thought would be useful in any mechanic kit. They're all highly rated.