How to Craft and Use the Auger in 7 Days to Die

 

    The Auger is 7 Days to Die's gas-powered Motor Tool — the wiki calls it "a multipurpose tool that can be used to rapidly destroy anything but wooden blocks," at the cost of a Gas Can-hungry fuel tank and a lot of unwanted zombie attention. This guide sticks to exactly what the wiki's Auger page states — infobox stats across all six Quality tiers, the full crafting recipe, and documented loot spawns — and calls out every figure the page never defines (units on range, mag, attack rate, degradation rate) as undocumented rather than guessed.

 

What the Auger Is

 

    The infobox files the Auger under group "Tools/Traps," category "Tool," type "Motor Tool," attribute focus "Strength." Its description repeats the destruction claim above, then hedges hard on melee use: "While the Auger can be used as a melee weapon, it is ill-advised as it deals very low damage and can often use a lot of gas just to kill a few enemies. Additionally, no scaling with any attribute provides any bonuses in mid to late game." The infobox backs that up quietly with a bonus_damage_wood value of just 0.2 — a near-zero bonus against wood, matching the description's claim that wood is the one thing it doesn't chew through well. Two more flags are explicit: butcher_tool = no and disassemble_tool = no — it isn't used for butchering animals or disassembling items.

 

Damage, Block Damage and Durability by Quality

 

 

    The infobox's QualityValues fields give six numbers each, one per Quality tier (1–6). Entity damage runs 4.2 / 4.6 / 5.2 / 5.3 / 5.7 / 6.2 — Quality 6 hits for 6.2 ÷ 4.2 ≈ 1.48×, roughly 48% harder than Quality 1. Block damage runs 22.9 / 26.9 / 25.4 / 30 / 33.4 / 38.6, so 38.6 ÷ 22.9 ≈ 1.69×, about 69% more — though the source's own table isn't perfectly monotonic: block damage dips from 26.9 at Quality 2 to 25.4 at Quality 3 before climbing again. That's the page's listed data, not a typo I'm smoothing over. Durability runs 2000 / 2600 / 3200 / 3800 / 4400 / 5000, a clean 5000 ÷ 2000 = 2.5×, the biggest of the three spreads. The page also lists a degradation_rate of 1 but never defines its unit (per swing? per second?), so treat that one as undocumented. The wiki flags randomization on top of all this: "Entity and Block damage are always randomized thanks to Quality, since it applies a hidden modifier to the base value."

 

Fuel, Range, and the Heat Map

 

 

    The Auger runs on Gas Cans, per the description: "The Auger requires fuel in the form of Gas Cans. Refueling is done automatically and can also be done manually by pressing the reload button (while the Auger is selected and with a Gas Can in the inventory)." Oddly, the infobox's own fuel field is set to "no" even though ammo says "Gas Can" and the description spells out the refuel mechanic — a contradiction inside the source data itself, not something resolved here by guessing which field is right. The infobox's mag value is 300 and reload_speed is 4.1s, but no unit is stated for the 300, and the same goes for range (2.35) and attack_rate (300) — undocumented beyond the raw numbers. What is explicit: gas burns fast, and the tool is loud. Notes: "Runs on Gas Cans as fuel and empties them quite fast," and "the Auger makes a lot of noise and may alert zombies of your presence." That noise feeds the Heatmap: "Whenever you use an Auger it affects the Heatmap. If used for long enough or if multiple augers are used simultaneously, it will attract zombies. If the heat level gets high enough, it will attract one or more Screamer Zombies."

 

Crafting, Scrapping, Repair and Where to Loot One

 

 

    The recipe, built at a Workbench and requiring the "Tools Digest" magazine, calls for four components: 1 Motor Tool Parts, 1 Bicycle Handlebars, 1 Engine, 10 Forged Steel — 13 items across 4 components. Required crafting-skill level scales with Quality: 61, 68, 76, 84, 92, 100. The gaps are 68−61=7, then 76−68=8, 84−76=8, 92−84=8, landing exactly on the skill cap of 100 at Quality 6. Base trader price is listed as 2300, currency unit unstated. Repair uses a Repair Kit. Scrapping is mainly a stepping stone: "Scrapping provides Motor Tool Parts, which can be used in crafting both Auger and a Chainsaw. It is advisable to scrap an Auger only when you have a higher tier variant or when you plan to craft a higher tier variant in the future." It has 4 mod slots, compatible with Auger/Motor Tool/Tool-category mods — the Recommended Mods section is generated by a live database query embedded in the page rather than a captured static list, so which mods are actually recommended is undocumented here.

 

    For finding one, the page gives two overlapping lists: the description says it can be "looted from Decayed Sedans, Working Stiffs Crate, Garage Storage, and Bank Wall Safe," while Notes separately add "Garage Storage boxes and Decayed Sedans... Hardware Stores" and "Destroyed Workbenches." Combined, that's six sources: Decayed Sedans, Working Stiffs Crate, Garage Storage, Bank Wall Safe, Hardware Stores, Destroyed Workbenches — plus Notes' claim it's "Most often found in cities." It can also come from Trading, per the infobox's obtain field: "Crafting, Looting, Trading."

 

Keep spare Gas Cans on hand before a long dig — the wiki is explicit that the Auger "empties them quite fast." Watch the Heatmap near your base, since sustained or simultaneous Auger use can call in Screamer Zombies. Don't fall back on it as a melee weapon; the wiki calls that "ill-advised." And only scrap a working Auger once you're ready to craft (or already have) a higher-tier one — Motor Tool Parts are the bottleneck ingredient either way.

 

Running your own 7 Days to Die server

 

    Testing how the Auger's Quality tiers feel in practice, or tuning loot rates so Motor Tool Parts and Forged Steel show up at a pace you like, is a lot easier on a dedicated box you control instead of living with a public server's defaults. Get your own 7 Days to Die server running in minutes, free with promo code WELCOME.

 

Conclusion

 

    The wiki's Auger page hands you real, quotable numbers: six Quality tiers of damage (4.2–6.2), block damage (22.9–38.6, with a documented dip at tier 3), and durability (2000–5000, a clean 2.5×); a four-ingredient Workbench recipe gated behind crafting-skill requirements rising to 100; and six named loot locations plus a city bias. What it doesn't define — units behind range, mag, attack rate and degradation rate, the specific Recommended Mods, and its own contradictory fuel = no flag — is flagged here rather than papered over with a guess.