Testing the World's Most Hated Tool

Are universal sockets as bad as people say? We bought a bunch of Gator Grips to find out how useful they REALLY are?

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[bglz]

Prospective buyer to hardware store owner:"Are these things any good?" "Hell, they must be, we sold 10 of them to one guy this week!"

[boblundgren]

My wife bought me one several years back. I thanked her and threw it in with my tools thinking it was junk and I would never use it. Well, several weeks ago I needed to remove a square head plug on a mower engine and nothing I had would fit to take it off. Found the gator grip socket and it worked perfectly. It won't replace a whole socket set but it's great to have for oddball stuff.

[ChannelJeffrey]

I know there are kind of goofy, but I do carry one in my motorcycle toolkit. I think it would be a better tool if the pins had a hexagonal profile instead of circular.

[iamjacksyoutube]

It works well enough for light duty work when you dont feel like grabbing the whole socket set

[lewtown]

This saved me a trip to the store once after sitting in my tool box for years unused. It's good for low torque bolts if you cant find a socket or something. For big jobs, just use a standard socket

[williambarnes]

So the verdict seems to be that the Gator Grip _does_ work on _almost_ everything.
*Once.*

[stephanreyes]

I love having mine. But I don’t use it for heavy duty stuff. I pretty much only use it for those hooks or other abnormal fasteners that you normally wouldn’t be able to use a drill with.

[broceratops]

This is seriously one of my favorite videos. Hella funny. I come back to it every now and then

[liquidrepublic]

I've had limited success with this tool. It's useful occasionally for jacked up bolts and things like ceiling hooks (as seen on tv!). But they are definitely not a do-it-all replacement tool by any stretch of the imagination.

[markdaga]

The gator grip is a pretty good “office tool.” I worked in a restaurant and we kept one in the “general tool drawer” because nobody was responsible enough to keep up with all the sockets in a set, but having one wrench with the gator grip on it in there worked pretty good for the one-off situations where we’d need to fix a filing cabinet or shelf in the closet or something small like that, because people seemed to at least be able to toss that single tool back in the drawer without losing it.

[awesomeferret]

This is fascinating. I wasn't expecting the worst part of the product to be the durability. It's actually not even close to useless like I thought it would be.

[Kevin-jbpv]

These are good for stripped or otherwise fucked up bolts and basically nothing else. I do have a set for exactly that reason and they get used about once every year or two. They suck for everything else, but I'm always glad I have them when I need one.

[keithbaker]

I'm surprised he didn't immediately lose the socket after using it for the 10mm lol 😆

[pythosdegothos]

These are very useful for removing or installing odd shaped things like loops, rings, hooks, etc. I would not use this for regular nuts. At my aviation job this is actually the only tool that quickly removes the cargo net anchors in the baggage compartment of the Cessna 172 S. No socket fits those things, and removing them with the shaft of a screwdriver, or other such thing is a royal pain in the ass, as the eye bolt is mounted in a locking socket. I is just great for oddball applications.

[STILLPOUR]

I’m nearing the 20 year mark having the same one. It stays in the to-go tool bag and has definitely saved me countless times and is still fully usable. I definitely recommend it to have in a tool box cause you just never know

[arthurmadsen]

I bought one of those special sockets when i was a little kid and i honestly love it. I have used it for many different bolts hooks screws and other weird shapes. They do break but i still have one ive used for years and it helps with a lot off shapes which is all i will use it for. The first group of stuff they tried to use it on is basically all i have it for

[royevans]

I heard the guy that invented this thing now has enough money to buy himself a decent socket set. For realz. 😁😁

[joshalsabeh]

Oil Filter wrenches would be sick to see.. the three different kinds of them as up against each other

[walthodgson]

When I was a teen in the 70's and frustrated working on my car, losing sockets on my sloped driveway, I imagined a tool EXACTLY like this. I don't think I ever told anyone about it, but then a few years later saw this on the market and I was extremely bummed that I hadn't tried to patent the idea. Story of my life.

[KenzieTrinityDeasy]

I love using mine. I use it everyday, never had a problem with it. I would highly recommend this if you need a good paper weight