Halfords Advanced 150 Piece Socket Set Review: Is Half Price the Real Price?
The 150-piece Advanced set is the one most home mechanics end up buying. It covers all three common drive sizes, it comes with a lifetime guarantee, and it costs £250 for almost no time at all before it goes back to £125. We pulled together a motoring magazine’s test of its bigger brother, owners on a bikers’ forum and nearly 900 Halfords buyers to work out what you actually get, and what you don’t.
Where the reviews line up
Our three sources: Auto Express, which tested the 200-piece version of this set and Halfords’ 3/8in Advanced sockets; owners on the UKGSer forum talking about this exact 150-piece set during the 2026 Easter half-price offer; and Halfords’ own buyer ratings, 4.8/5 from 896 reviews. On the tools themselves they agree. The 100-tooth ratchets feel smooth, the sockets are good quality, and the guarantee works in practice: one owner calls the replacements “no quibble”.
Where they part company is everything that isn’t a tool. Halfords’ guarantee leaves out the tool case, the foam and the plastic inserts. One UKGSer owner expects the case hinge to fail and points out it isn’t covered. Another says his has lasted 18 years. If you plan to throw this in a van every day, bear in mind that the box is the weak spot and the guarantee doesn’t cover it.
The price matters more than any spec here. On 6 October 2026 Halfords listed the set at £125, down from £250. It was the same 50% off at Easter 2026 and in April 2025. Forum users were saying back in 2012 that it was “on offer more often than it is not”. Think of £125 as the real price. If it is ever full price when you go to buy, wait.
Also, it is metric only. Halfords lists the sockets as metric, standard and deep. If you work on a classic with AF fasteners or a US-made machine, you will need more sockets.
The three reviews this summary is built from
- Auto ExpressEditorial test of the 200-piece sibling (4.5/5, January 2026) plus a 2025 test of the 3/8in Advanced sockets, where it found the 100-tooth ratchet smooth.
- UKGSer forumAn 11-reply owners’ thread on this exact set, March 2026. Covers guarantee experience and the case hinge.
- Halfords buyers4.8/5 from 896 reviews on halfords.com, 6 Oct 2026. That count may be pooled with other sets, so see below.
Before the review: which 150-piece set?
Halfords has sold a 150-piece set under the Advanced (once “Advanced Professional”) name for well over a decade, and the contents have changed. Older versions came with ratchet spanners, and some Halfords web addresses still say “socket ratchet spanner set”. The current listing, product code 735906, is called the “150 Pc Socket & Spanner Set”. Halfords lists it with combination spanners using what it calls Surface Drive Plus. Halfords did not tell us whether the spanners ratchet, and the listing does not say so. Second-hand and eBay listings may be the older set, so check the code.
Specification at a glance
| Spec | Figure | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Product code | 735906 (eBay catalogue also lists model HA150FTDBMA) | Halfords UK and Ireland listings |
| Drive sizes | 1/4in, 3/8in and 1/2in | Halfords Ireland spec table |
| Sockets | Metric only, standard and deep, 6-point | Halfords. Exact size range not shown on the pages we could read |
| Ratchets | 100-tooth (3.6° swing) | Halfords says 100T. The swing angle is our arithmetic |
| Also in the box | 18in breaker bar, universal joints, combination spanners | Halfords feature list. Full contents sheet not readable |
| Spanner claim | “Up to 28% more torque before rounding” (Surface Drive Plus) | Halfords’ own claim, not independently tested |
| Material | “Chrome Vanadium” in the features, “Chrome alloy steel” in the spec table | Both from Halfords, on the same page |
| Case | Carry case included | Halfords. The case is not covered by the guarantee |
| Size and weight | 390 × 570 × 130 mm, 11.5 kg | Halfords Ireland. Presumably boxed, but not stated |
| Guarantee | Lifetime, on tools “used for the purpose and in the manner for which [they were] designed”. Inspected, then replaced | Halfords. Exclusions listed below |
| Price | £125, was £250 (50% off), 6 Oct 2026 | halfords.com Advanced listing |
Auto Express
We could not find a hands-on test of the 150-piece set by any national title. The nearest is Auto Express’s review of the 200-piece set from the same range. It uses the same three drives with standard and deep sockets, and the magazine says its 3/8in sockets took the runner-up spot in its 2024 socket test. Auto Express called it a serious, professional-grade kit and praised the build quality. It also said the case holds the tools firmly, “unlike cheaper rivals”. The downsides were price (£330 at the time) and weight (21 kg). Neither applies to the 150, which is about half the weight at 11.5 kg on Halfords’ figure and well under half the price.
Auto Express’s April 2025 socket-set group test (Kim Adams) included Halfords’ 31-piece 3/8in Advanced tray. It gave the tray 4.5 stars, found its 100-tooth ratchet smooth and its six-point sockets a good spread, and found one 10 mm slot slightly oversized. That doesn’t prove the 150 is just as good. It does show that the ratchet and socket design in this set has been tested by someone independent and passed.
Watch: Sim Racers Need Tools Too! Halfords Advanced 150 Piece Socket & Spanner Set Review
An owner’s review of this exact 150-piece set, from someone who uses it on sim-racing rigs rather than cars. Good for a look at the case layout.
Watch on YouTube ↗UKGSer forum
This thread started when the set was cut to £125–£130 in Halfords’ Easter sale, and owners joined in. On the tools, they agree: “top kit, no quibble replacements”, “very good gear”, and the tools are “as advertised, lifetime guarantee”. GrinningGSer added the most useful warning anywhere in our sources: the tools are fine, but “the case hinge, however, that’s going to fail, and not covered”. Another owner replied that his case had lasted 18 years. So the case may be fine, but it isn’t guaranteed.
Other forums back this up. An April 2025 thread on RMS Motoring (7 replies) flagged the same 50% off and liked the 1/4in extension that doubles as a screwdriver handle. Two members couldn’t get it delivered or find one in stock while that offer was on. A 2011 Retro Rides thread is the only place we found that explains how claims used to work: no receipt needed, but the branch ordered a replacement to your home rather than swapping it at the counter, and ratchet mechanisms were not covered (repair kits cost about £8). That is fifteen years old. Halfords’ current wording doesn’t say whether swaps happen at the counter, so ask your branch.
Watch: Halfords Advanced Socket And Spanner Set 'Lifetime Warranty' Explained
About the guarantee on Halfords Advanced socket and spanner sets in general. The listing does not say which set is shown, so it may not be the 150.
Watch on YouTube ↗Halfords buyer ratings
Halfords makes and sells this set, so its 4.8/5 is a rating shown by the brand on its own shop. There is a bigger problem with the number, though. On the same Halfords page on the same day, the 175-piece set also showed 4.8/5 from exactly 896 reviews, and Halfords Ireland shows 896 for the 150 too. That looks like one pool of reviews shared across several sets, not 896 people rating this one. Take it as a score for the Advanced socket-set range, not for this exact kit.
eBay’s catalogue page for this set is smaller but more specific: 11 ratings, all five stars, with buyers praising the build and the guarantee. The one complaint there is worth noting because nobody else mentions it: a buyer wished the set had included 16 mm and 18 mm deep sockets. Halfords doesn’t publish a size-by-size list that we could read, so check the contents sheet if those sizes matter to you.
Watch: Reivew of Halfords 150 Piece Socket Set. 14th Jan 2026.
An owner’s review of the 150-piece set from January 2026, so it should be the current version. The title’s spelling is the channel’s.
Watch on YouTube ↗Strengths and weak points
What holds up
- All three common drive sizes in one case, with standard and deep sockets.
- 100-tooth ratchets, which Auto Express found smooth in its test of the same range.
- A lifetime guarantee that owners say works with “no quibble replacements”.
- An 18in breaker bar for stubborn bolts, which cheaper sets often leave out.
- At 11.5 kg, a lot lighter to carry than the 21 kg 200-piece.
- At the usual £125 it costs well under half the 200-piece’s £330–£335.
What people complain about
- The case, foam and inserts are not guaranteed, and one owner expects the hinge to fail.
- Metric only, with no AF sizes for classics or imperial machinery.
- One buyer missed 16 mm and 18 mm deep sockets.
- The £250 “was” price hardly ever applies, which makes the 50% off less of a bargain than it looks.
- Stock disappears during the sales. One 2025 thread had two members unable to buy it.
- Halfords’ material wording disagrees with itself: chrome vanadium in one place, chrome alloy steel in another.
Who it actually suits
Buy it if you service your own car, bike or mower and want one case that covers nearly every nut on a modern metric vehicle, with a guarantee you can use at a shop on most high streets. Buy it at £125. Halfords has offered that price often enough that paying more is unnecessary. If you mainly assemble furniture and hang shelves, a Bosch IXO 8 screwdriver will be more use day to day. For drilling, see our DeWalt DCD796 combi drill review.
Look elsewhere if you need imperial sockets, if the case will take daily abuse in a van (the case isn’t covered), or if you only ever use one drive size, in which case a single-drive Advanced tray is cheaper. And measure before you buy the parts: our Stanley FatMax tape measure review is the place to start. If the set is going towards a car you’re still shopping for, we also have an Auto Trader retailer guide.
What we could not check
- The full contents list. Halfords links its piece-by-piece sheet from the product page, but the page did not load in a readable form for us. We cannot tell you the exact socket sizes on each drive, how many deep sockets there are, or whether there are screwdriver, hex or Torx bits.
- Torx and E-Torx. No source we could read confirms either way whether they are included. Do not assume they are.
- Whether the spanners ratchet. Older 150-piece sets had ratchet spanners. The current listing says combination spanners with Surface Drive Plus.
- Whether claims are swapped at the counter. Halfords’ current wording is “inspected and replaced”. The only first-hand account of the process we found dates from 2011 and describes a replacement being ordered, not swapped on the spot. We could not confirm what happens today, or whether ratchet mechanisms are now covered or repaired.
- Whether the 896 reviews are for this set. The same count appears on the 175-piece set, which suggests one pool of reviews shared across several sets.
- Stock on the day. Halfords listed the set at £125 on 6 October 2026, but stock is shown per store, and we could not check availability by store or for delivery.
- Chrome vanadium. Halfords’ own listing uses both “Chrome Vanadium” and “Chrome alloy steel”. Nobody has tested the steel.
- An independent test of the 150 itself. Auto Express tested the 200-piece set and a 31-piece tray, not this set. The Sunday Times Driving review of the 200-piece set was blocked to us.
- The videos. Each was confirmed by appearing in two different YouTube search listings, not by opening it. YouTube does not load from here, and none of the listings named the channel.
- Exact dates of earlier deals. Latest Deals recorded £125 and £135 offers, but the pages were blocked and the dates could not be read.
Sources last checked 6 October 2026. Halfords changes this price often. If the listing in front of you says £250, the half-price offer is likely to come back.