I had 3 crescent Z2 one fell out my pocket and went overboard, the other two broke with in a week do to the little lever kicking off to the side and when the pliers close it snaps it in half. It’s made from cast iron or pot metal so it really brittle.

I love the larger knipex stuff and the very small pliers. Mid sized ones are hit and miss doing gas piping on black iron pipe. Chanellock pliers are still my favorite and the teeth do not wear out as fast. The high carbon steel on Chanellock pliers is top notch however the only BAD thing about high carbon steel is that it is prone to corrosion and rust more than other metals so frequent cleanings and metal protection is required to keep them in good condition.

I’ve owned several of those knipex and I will say on every model I’ve had that lock switch has gone out to the point where it annoyingly would autolock themselves all the time, I still love them just got tired of warranting them out so often so now I tape the switch to off lol

I have the Gearwrench like the Cresent (Apex).. I keep the arm hidden and they work just fine without the supporting arm..

I am an electrician and I have a lot of Knipex tools but out of the 3 of those self-adjusting pliers, the Wiha stands out for me. I don't really see that spring being a problem, if it rusts or lost its strength, it could easily be replaced, springs are a dime a dozen. What I don't like about the Crescent beside the play is that there does not seem to be a lot of meat on the sides of the handle that is cut out for the adjuster, I would be concerned that with a lot of torque, they would bend, but perhaps you would really need to wrench on them with a lot of force for that to happen, I guess it depends on the hardness of the steel. The locking slider on the wiha could probably be modified so that it would not slide as easy, I would sand the sides of the metal handle and add a couple of JB Weld beads so that the bumps took up extra space inside the plastic lock making it stiffer to slide, it would not take much. I understand that a lot of people don't want to have to go through the extra effort to make a tool usable but it's not something that I mind doing if the positives outway the negatives.

I'm pretty fond of the knipex alligators they are the cheapest they get and they're very easy to tell what position you're in and no button to push or be pushed with you're in a tight area to loosen up the jawa. Very simple to adjust. However every now and then it feels like they bind up a little bit on you

One of the things that I like about the smallest Knipex Cobra and Pliers Wrench is that you can push them closed around a bolt without using the button. It doesn't look as nifty as the auto adjust feature, but I especially prefer it on the Pliers Wrench. I think part of that is that the Cobra has a greater min/max jaw size at each setting. The Pliers Wrench only changes jaw size a small amount at each setting, so if you get it wrong you need to adjust.

Thanks for the video. I didn't know about the Knipex self adjusting Pliers.

Can you adjust the handle smaller on bigger object?? You did it with the Whia in the review so can you do something similar with the knipex ?

You need to grab a dial indicator to show the amount of play :)

Had one and it broke after 2 weeks meanining the crescent