Kobalt’s Multi Drive Wrench, a new dog-bone style socket wrench, has become extremely popular with holiday shoppers and is competing head to head with Black & Decker’s new ratcheting ReadyWrench.
The first part of our review showed how well (or rather how poorly), the Multi-Drive fit common 6pt hex nuts and bolts. This part of the review will focus on the hands-on quality and performance of the Multi Drive Wrench.
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What’s Included?
As shown in the above photo, the Multi Drive tool comes with a small flashlight attachment, a socket and bit adapter, and a set of 12 screwdriver bits.
The socket adapter attachment head includes 1/4″, 3/8″ and 1/2″ square drives and a 1/4″ hex bit holder. Included with the screwdriver bit set are the following sizes: P1, P2, P3, “Star” T9, T10, T15, Slotted 1/8″, 3/16″, 1/4″, hex 3/16″, 7/32″ and 1/4″.
Build Quality
The Multi-Drive is actually pretty well made. It’s a solid feeling tool, and there aren’t any major flaws. That’s not to say that I like to design of the tool, but I have no complaints about its build quality.
The accessories are as equally well made, except for the flashlight, which I found to be extremely lightweight and flimsy feeling.
Design & Performance
As we previously showed you, the Multi Drive does not fit hexagonal fasteners all that well. The “universal” SAE-metric sockets offers little tool-fastener contact, making it somewhat unstable and awkward to use. I found that the tool tended to wobble more than a 6pt socket, or even a 12pt wrench.
From end to end, the Multi Drive Wrench is nearly 10 inches long. This makes the tool compact, but somewhat uncomfortable to use. In normal use, I gripped the tool by its handle, putting the center of my hand about 4 inches from the tool’s axis of rotation. This is okay when dealing with smaller fasteners but a pain when dealing with larger ones.
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First, the shorter the distance between your hand and fastener, the lower the torque you can apply using the tool. Second, when gripped from its center, the tool is awkward and uncomfortable to turn. Much of the rotational motion came from my wrist, leading to fatigue after tightening just a few fasteners. Moving my hand to the opposite end of the tool and turning it from there proved to be much more comfortable and easier on my wrists.
The Multi Drive Wrench is designed to be used on 6pt, 12pt, spline, star, square and most rounded fasteners. But in reality, how many times will a homeowner or DIYer come across these fastener types? Yes, “universal” sockets that cover “56 fastener types” sounds great in theory, but a tool designed solely for 6pt hex fasteners will be more practical.
I was unable to round-off or significantly damage grade 5 fasteners with medium amounts of hand-applied torque, but I am not confident that the tool won’t damage lower quality bolts under the same conditions.
The socket and bit adapter head can be swapped in for the large universal socket head by pulling out a knurled pin. The pin is only secured by a small ball detent, but is unlikely to fall out by itself.
Both the universal socket and socket adapter heads are grooved on one side with 8 positions that mate with the Multi-Drive’s built-in ball detent. This allows each socket be “locked in” at a right angle, straight or inline, and at 45° angles. You can use the sockets at different angles, but the tool will likely snap into place at one of the detent positions.
Conclusion
I really wanted to like this tool. It has a nice grip, it’s relatively compact, and it seems to be a well thought out design. But I hated using it. Maybe it’s something I need to get used to, but I just did not like the way the tool felt.
I have a few additional criticisms about the tool. The pin that holds in the large socket head and socket adapter head is carefully and cleanly knurled. But why is there a singly tiny ball detent holding it in place? I would have liked to see it threaded as on a D shackle.
If I’m going to carry separate sockets to use with the socket adapter head, I may as well carry a ratchet as well, rendering the adapter useless. I would have much prefered to have seen a drop-in 1/4″ hex adapter sized to fit one of the sockets.
If you’re looking for a Dog Bone style wrench and don’t need the Multi Drive’s spline, star, and 12pt compatibility, I would instead recommend Black & Decker’s Ratcheting Ready Wrench, or the original if you can still find it. If you are okay with two tools instead of one, take a look at Craftsman’s dog bone wrenches.
Part 1 of Our Review
Kobalt Multi Drive Wrench via Lowes
Gallery:
The tool featured in this review was purchased at a local Lowes for about $25.
JeffD
I have the Thorsen dogbone style wrench in each of my vehicles. It’s virtually identical to the Craftsman dogbone. HF puts them on a $15 sale every few months.
JT
now that i have searched it, and read all, how do i order the special deal online ???
Stuart
Step 1: Click the above link to be taken to the tool’s product page at Lowes.com.
Step 2: Order the tool.
This does not guarantee that you will get the extra 50pc bit set. The product description clearly says that the bonus bit set is available temporarily while supplies last.
DGS
Read all the reviews. don’t feel comfortable about secure(?) fit to various fastener type. Thanks. think I’ll pass this one up.
Ashley
I have been looking all over for this tool and I can’t find it anywhere. I can find past posts and info., but not anyone actually selling it. I checked online at Lowe’s and it is no longer carried. If I do a search, it pulls up the Black & Decker wrench. Am I missing something? Maybe I should just get the B&D wrench instead.
multishopper
You might want to try Lowe’s this Sunday because I believe they will be on sale starting Sunday morning and the quanities that they have are limited on a first come basis.
craigen Perkins
This is a great gift for under 30 dollars, most people who receive them are not professional mechanics or tradesman. This is the one tool that people will have in their junk drawer when they need it in stead of searching for every little socket and wrench size. The tool looks great, the commercial is awesome and people will value this as a great gift. They are sold out at my current Lowes. The guy that reviewed this tool has totally missed the point of this tool and is a tool.
Stuart
That’s exactly my point! Proper tools are designed to make tasks easier to accomplish. This tool was instead designed and marketed to be as appealing as possible for holiday shoppers.
Remember the “Cold Heat” soldering irons? Those commercials also made the tool look great. Despite the Cold Heat’s “awesome commercial” I have never seen a positive review for it.
“Giftable” tools like this often go into the junk drawer, and stay in the junk drawer.
Bob
@craigen Perkins
No need to be a jerk. Whether or not someone is a tradesman or a professional, who would want a tool that doesnt work well?
mike
This tool is garbage, why would you even bother to review it. Oh yeah, gotta get the traffic up on your site.
Stuart
If you read the preview post, you’d see that I genuinely thought that the tool looked well designed. I had a coupon and figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it out. The first thing I did was test the tool on different hex fasteners and saw that the fit was absolutely terrible.
The purpose of the review was to determine if the tool was usable out of personal curiosity, and to share the results with anyone deciding whether they should buy the tool.
Mike
I’ve never figured out the point to these things.
For about the same price, you could get a cheap socket set and a ratchet, or a set of wrenches.
Sure, for that price they would have to come from Harborfreight, but even that would be 10x that this joke of a tool.
I guess the 1 and only idea behind them is to convince people that don’t know anything about tools to buy one and give it as a gift.
Old Salvage
@Craigperkins
You miss the point of giving a gift. It should be something that people like, not complete crap that takes up space and makes them waste time. If anything this review was too kind to the wrench.
@mike. 5:06pm
Exactly, why would someone who makes a website actually want more people to go to it.
STEVE
I APPRECIATE THE REVIEW. I NOTICED ON DISPLAY AT LOWES. REMARKED OUT LOUD THAT IT MIGHT BE A SWEET BOAT TOOL. BOAT TOOLS ARE EMERGENCY ONLY AND YOU ARE TYPICALLY JUST GETTING IT BACK TO SOME WORKING STATUS TO RETURN HOME. NOT USED OFTEN. SPACE AND ABILITY TO SECURE ARE A BIG DEAL. GOT IT THIS AM AND IT IS GOING ON THE BOAT WHERE THERE ARE SAE AND METRIC ALL OVER. REVIEW GIVES ENOUGH CONFIDENCE TO DO IT.
LaMila Pettis
I cannot find this tool anywhere anymore – Lowes is not carrying it – can I get a suggestion as to one similar that is betteer
brett
Don’t forget lifetime LIFETIME warranty no ? Asked! That’s a win a big win for me.
Hiew
Thank you for your review and some great close-up photos!
You don’t have to worry about a combined metric/SAE spline wrench rotating a few degrees around the bolt: It is actually intentional.
The main factor in the amount of torque a wrench can apply before the bolt corners shear is how far the points of contact are from the corner, not whether there is rotational free play around the bolt.
Modern hex wrenches and sockets generally have rounded cutouts at the corners, to bring the contact point to maybe a millimeter or so from the corner.
Spline sockets by design contact the bolts further from the corner than traditional 6-point designs. You can see this on the diagram on this brochure: https://archive.md/2dBxI
Let’s take a typical example of a metric spline 10mm wrench being used on an SAE 3/8″ (9.525mm) bolt. I choose this pair of sizes because there is a relatively large size gap between metric and SAE: most other pairs are a closer match. In real life a 3/8″ bolt head is usually about 9.4mm. What happens here is the spline socket now rotates a few degrees (which is noticeable, but intentional) until the six leading splines touch the bolt, at about 1.1mm – 1.5mm from the corner, which is actually further from the corners than the .5mm-1mm for a 3/8″ hex socket!
So a 10mm spline socket 0.6mm “oversized” actually can generally exert a_more_ torque before the bolt corners begin to shear, than a hex socket of the “correct” 3/8″ sizing!
So while it’s not a perfect scenario to have SAE and metric in the same tool, you don’t have to worry about the rotational free play in terms of fastener rounding: it is designed that way, and there should be less chance of rounding than even a perfectly fitting standard (i.e. not flank drive) hex wrench! That’s why you didn’t round any bolts with it. However, this free play does mean there is more chance that the handle won’t have enough swing space. Given that this tool seems to be aimed for home users or to keep in a car, rather than for professional use, this may or may not be an issue.