Clarke PRO396 222-Piece Tool Set: One Cabinet, Most of a Home Workshop

If you're serious about maintaining your own car, the tool bill climbs fast. Sockets, spanners, screwdrivers, pliers and the smaller bits that fill gaps can take weeks to accumulate if you buy them one at a time, and the total can easily run into hundreds of pounds. Clarke's PRO396 is a bet that one purchase can cover most of that ground.

The PRO396 222-Piece Tool Set with 7 Drawer Tool Cabinet is built around that idea. It bundles the core kit most people reach for on routine jobs into a single unit, which makes it less a pile of tools and more a ready-made starting workshop.

What's actually in the 222 pieces

The set leans toward everyday maintenance. You get sockets and wrenches in the common sizes, spanners, screwdrivers, pliers, hex keys and punches. Those are the tools that come out for oil changes, brake pad swaps, battery terminals and general under-bonnet work. It's a sensible mix for a driveway mechanic rather than a specialist engine builder.

Here's the catch: if your jobs call for specialist items such as torque tools or heavy-duty impact gear, you'll still need to add those separately. A bundle like this covers breadth, not every niche tool you might eventually want.

Every item gets its own dedicated storage space, and that matters more than it sounds. When each tool has a fixed home, you stop rummaging through a drawer for a 13mm socket, and you notice quickly when something has gone missing. The same kit also suits household DIY around the house, so it won't sit idle if you're not wrenching on a car every weekend.

The cabinet is half the product

Everything lives in one lockable steel cabinet with seven drawers. Two of those are larger extras for bulkier workshop items, which is useful if your garage already has a pile of bits with nowhere to go. A non-slip rubber work mat sits on top for fiddly jobs, so small parts are less likely to skid off the bench.

Mobility is handled with a pull handle and swivel castors. A cabinet loaded with 222 pieces is heavy, so those castors earn their keep when you're shifting it around a garage floor. Check the footprint before you buy, though. Seven drawers take up real floor space, and a cabinet that blocks the route to your car is an annoyance you'll notice every day.

Clarke's Lifetime Guarantee covers every tool in the set. That's a meaningful point for anything you'll reach for again and again, because it reduces the chance of replacing a worn spanner in a few years' time.

Price per piece and the case for buying as a set

The set sells for £619.00 before VAT. Spread across 222 pieces, that's roughly £2.79 per tool before VAT. Add standard UK VAT at 20% and the total comes to £742.80. The fairer comparison is the price of the same items bought separately, and that's where the bundle earns its keep. Piecemeal buying tends to creep upward as you discover you need a size you didn't pick up, and the spend rarely feels like one big decision.

My read: the value case is strongest for someone starting close to zero, or someone who has been borrowing tools from friends and is tired of it. If you already own a decent socket set, you'd be paying for overlap. Audit what you have before you check out, because duplicates in a bundle are wasted money.

Who it suits and what to check first

Start with the sizes, not the headline number. Check that the sockets and spanners cover the fasteners on your car, and whether you need metric, imperial or both. A 222-piece count sounds generous, but the mix of pieces is what decides whether it fits your work. Read the full piece list before you order.

Where you buy also matters for practical reasons. Machine Mart, a specialist tools and machinery retailer, operates superstores across the UK, runs a mail order department and has a website open 24 hours. That's handy if you want to order out of hours or pick up locally. Machine Mart's listing for the PRO396 is where the set is currently sold.

Looking ahead, the most useful test is how the set holds up after a year of regular use. If the tools stay tight and the drawers keep their order, the bundle will have paid for itself in saved trips to the shop. If your garage is short on space, though, the cabinet might matter more than the tools inside it.