Yo,

Its my birthday coming up in a week, and my folks have been asking me what I want.

Being a geek and earning a decent wage, I tend to buy everything I could ever want, but never things I actually need!

The need for organising tools has become apparant though, as over the last 5 years on playing with cars, I've very quickly outgrown the Halfords Pro tool-kit that my sister got me for my birthday, and now have boxes, bags, sweet tins, bread baskets full of tools, and no real order. Finding the right tools quickly is a proper pain in the arse, and my area in the unit is like fooking beruit!

The criterea I have for a tool-chest is as follows

- Reasonable quality (gotta last for at least 3 years)

- Lots of storage space (goes without saying)

- Ideally not top opening, especially top opening, which lock the tool-chest, as the top of a toolchest, is the ideal place to keep pots with nuts/bolts in etc, and its a pain to move them all, just to open the chest.

- if its big, it needs to roll

- doesnt need to lock, i trust everyone who is at the unit, and we all borrow each others tools, and always put them all back

I dont mind buying 2nd hand and am always keeping an eye out on ebay, but have no idea about which makes are best to buy.

Obviously snap-on are the daddy without question, but 2nd hand they hold thier value like nothing else, and £350 wont get me much.

I have been pointed towards a roll-cab from CostCo. Its 350 notes, and seems to tick all the boxes, think its made by CSPS but I've not heard of the company, and can find little on the internet bar highly varying reviews, either by fanboys of expensive stuff, or those who have bought it with no other benchmarks to compare against

Halfords are also doing a Pro 7-Drawer Chest and Pro 5-Drawer Tool Cabinet only £199.99 when bought together

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/...||sor||Price||1

which would leave me £100 spare to buy the light-weight jack

or do I just deal with the lack of tool organisation, and put the 300 quid towards getting the Mk2 turbo properly mapped on a rolling road?

Answers on a postcard please!

difficult one

But., I'd go for organised tools.

I'd go for this http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/...l-chest-cabinet

Leaves you with around £130 to play with.

Or you can just search eBay and your local Gumtree for used deals.

The costco one doesn't look bad actually.

Like all roller cabs it depends on the quality of the bearings.

Maybe find a ebay one which is going cheap near to crimbo but I can't emphasise enough the importance of organised tools, it'll give you a warm feeling.

i've got an american pro one topbox and rollcab for "home" use and the draw sliders are rubbish.

I have a 2 other Mac ones and a tote for travelling and they are really good.

I have an American Pro tool box...it has ball bearing roller drawers and is a quality bit of kit.

halfords cant go wrong best investment this year for me by far

I bought one of the halfords cheap ones when it was half price cos I was fed up with tools being everywhere. Probably won't last long but definitely glad I got it, so much nicer having tools in one place, although I'm already need more space

Halfords ones, the little ish ones are only £60 atm...

Might get one if they are the same price in the new year :)

Fed up of just having 3 tool boxes full of stuff lol

I need one. fed up of having a floor covered in tools and no work benches.

Halfords ones, the little ish ones are only £60 atm...

Might get one if they are the same price in the new year :)

Fed up of just having 3 tool boxes full of stuff lol

Aye thats the one I've got, drawers aren't the best, roller bearings would be nice but for the price can't really complain.

That costco one looks really good tbh and not only supplies you with space for tools etc but also with a handy work bench.

similar cabinets from snapon will set you back hundreds more so definately worth 350 notes

Two guys at work have the same CSPS one, seriously quality bits of kit. Dunno much about the actual brand though. do they do smaller cabs at costco?

iv got the clarke ball bearing stuff - its brilliant - dont get anything with friction slider drawers as when you fill it with tools the draw moves more sluggish then a 1ltr firing on 2 cylinders, make sure you get ball bearing ones.

think about space aswell as they are quite big and deep aswell - the halfords one seams like a good deal there mate - having all my tools organised properly makes a massive difference - unfortunately i have to many tools and they still aint organised as I've filled the box to the brim - so get one which is also big enough!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SEALEY-Top-Chest...=item5890dedb53

or one of these practical and yet very attractive

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Pink-2-Tray-Stor...=item5d319203bc

Sorry to bring up this thread to the top again but just got a £100 machine mart card to buy myself a new tool box I'm going to put about 200 - 300 towards it to get myself a good one is there any that are recommended? I would like one of the balp bearing ones but unsure which

Clarkes boxes are good, had mine two years and its still good. fair price. the cosco box looks good though.

I started off with a clarke roller bearing top and bottom box then part ex'd it with local snapon dealer against a bigger snapon toolbox. I quite like the look of the costco box though, you can never have too much organised space, and that's a bonus having a worktop on the top too!

Yeah my dad got me this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SEALEY-Top-Chest...=item5890dedb53

which to be fair i've pretty much filled already!

bought some drawer liners and socket trays with rails from machine mart yesterday and got all my sockets fitted on there.

Just need to get couple of magnetic strips for putting the ratchets, extensions and spanners on and i'll be a happy bunny.

getting me the lowloader clarke jack from machinemart on a VAT free day.

Still really wanted the costco one, but to be fair, organising all my tools made me realise how many duplicate sockets and spanners i have, mainly chrome vanadiums from my first ever toolchest, so I'm probably going to bin them all and just stick with the halfords professional sockets and spanners which have done me proud for the last 5 years.

Just want to replace the ratchets at some point soon with snap-on, as in 5 years the halfords one have taken a beating!

I have quite a bit of snap on stuff(bought on offer only),but then i also like halfords professsional and even machine mart stuff (got a torx/allen/spline set that I've used lots over the years) Sometimes its not worth buying really expensive tools when they're not used that often. Vat free days at machine mart are very handy.

Sealey stuff's generally hard to fault (I'm pretty sure a lot of Halfords Pro stuff is made by them).

Don't throw your old tools away though unless they're stuff you'll truely never use, make yourself some little tool kits up to leave in the cars for those times when they unpredicably stop going forwards.

I've never had a problem with sealey either, I always look for sealey or halfords pro.