I had two criteria 1) wide socket range and 2) reliable with a lifetime guaranty.
I found out later that Home Depot and Lowe's Home Improvement offered sets with the same lifetime guaranty. What really got me was that Home Depot had a set that was around $10 cheaper but with more sockets.
It seems tool sets are similar to houses. In that you quickly learn how ignorant you are.
So, in the hopes that some random passerby might see this -
When researching a socket set, make one of your criteria to be that all the sockets match the driver.You see, my craftsman set has a 3/8" driver but only half of the sockets are sized for 3/8". The rest are sized for 1/4" and thus need the included conversion socket. Up until today I thought that just a harmless but stupid choice on the part of craftsman. But today I was taking off the driver's side valve cover and the socket + converter + driver would not fit in space around the lower rear bolt and the shape of the valve cover disallowed a box wrench. So off to the store for a 10mm in 3/8".
