Some handy tools which mey be useful

GMC 24L direct drive Air Compressor

This was a bargain at only $98 from Bunnings. Basically 24L is quite small in capacity, but that's no drawback unless you're really using a lot of air, it just means that the motor will kick in a lot more often to top the cylinder back up. Air compressors are extremely handy and versatile. You can pump your tyres up like a service station air pump, pump up footballs, run a spray paint gun, air drill, air chisel, air drill, air blaster gun, and a million other cool items. You can buy a stack of tools that run off the air.

Just being able to pump your tyres up at home alone is a key advantage that I love.. For $49 I got the orange hose and a whole pile of fittings and basic tools including spray paint gun, air blaster, tyre gauge and gun, and adapters: very good value.

Arlec impact-resistant fluorescent work light

This is excellent and one of the handiest tools I have. Its all covered in rubber so that you can quickly slide it out of the way when its getting in your way and you don't need to worry about damaging it as the rubber absorbs everything really well. It's 11W which is plenty bright enough when you're under the car looking around at stuff - lights everything up very well. This was $39.95 from Super Cheap Auto.

Gear Oil Pump

This is a handy way of changing the oil in your gearbox

You may be able to get away with a pipe and some syphoning, but I'm not sure how successful you'd be with the viscosity of the oil and the tricky side location of the refiller hole. With the pump its extremely easy. I had to buy this when I removed my gearbox reverse sensor and found out the hard way that everything is incased in the one resovoir, so oil went everywhere and I had to put brand new oil back in my gearbox. It cost me $99, its a good quality brand, but I will probably never have to use it again! But you never know - its always good to have more tools as my mate Phil says - I agree totally. I figured it would've cost me close to that anyway to get some other bonehead to change my oil, so I might as well own the right tool and do it myself.

Digitech Digital Multimeter

Has a massive range of features including temperature probe, frequency and injector duty cycle measurement as well as all the normal multimeter functions. Additionally it has an RS232 output and comes with its own CD-ROM software that allows you to log data output to a laptop! Was only $69.95 from Jaycar.

Jack stands

Only about twenty bucks from most car parts shops. A must for extra the correct safety and stability when working under your car.

Repco spanner set 8mm-19mm

Covers most things on a micra. Since purchasing this I've needed to purchase an additional 22mm spanner which is needed very occasionally.

Sidchrome 39 piece socket set

Very handy, a must have - enough said.

1850kg capacity trolley jack

This is a must if you're semi-serious with your car. It's so easy to jack up both front or rear wheels at the same time in 20 seconds and change two wheels at once. Saves you so much time compared to struggling with the factory winder-jack! The best thing is that when you want to lower it, you just open the release valve and down she comes, no winding needed! I chose the 1850kg over the 1350kg model because its overall much larger which also means that is raises the car up a lot higher which I wanted to help put the car up on the ramps at times when I have no steering etc.

Little cheap screwdriver/bit kit

I got this from Super Cheap Auto. The screwdriver handle part is pretty cheap and tacky, but the bits are decent quality. It has different bits of all kinds. Extremely handy when you find a rare star-nut or something. I used it to remove the mounting brackets from the standard Blaupunkt head unit so that I could re-use them to mount my new Pioneer head unit.