Great place for specialty tools and one offs for projects. Cant go wrong on price and warranty.

I bought wrong compressor with low CFM threw box away and took it back 3 weeks later and said i want to upgrade to bigger one. They took it on return credited the money and got the big compressor. What a great experience.

as gear heads we all know what to buy and what not to buy at any store.

Going this weekend to buy the torque wrench.

 

Just don't buy anything your life may depend on! Cause it May!!!!!!!!!

 

Thats a fact of life with everything!

 

If you are someone who doesn't do heavy duty things with your tools, Harbor Freight is fine. You just have to be cautious about what kinds of stuff you buy.

Dad got a small $10 floor jack from them when I was 19, and I was so afraid that he would end up with mom's Lincoln on his head that I took that jack back to the store, got a refund, and bought a nearly identical but real floor jack from Sears. Every time he used that jack he said he thought he remembered buying a red one instead of a black one. I never told him what I did, and to his dying day he never figured it out.

Rule of thumb is this- before you decide to buy something from them, think about how catastrophic it would be if the tool failed on the job. If the risk of personal injury is low, then give it a shot. It may work, and it may not...but at least it won't cost you much money or your life to find out.

Which reminds me of something my uncle once said- "Cheap tools are the Chinese method of controlling the size of the U.S. population. Think about it."

 

A harbor freight torque wrench. No thanks if I only owned one highquality tool it would be a torque wrench, how do you get it recalibrated.

 

i've had pretty good luck with the stuff i've gotten from there. for example, i needed a big socket, 1 1/8 i think it was. went to napa and found one for like $32. didn't want to spend that much for one socket so i went by HF to get one and ended up getting a whole set of 3/4 drive sockets with a ratchet and breaker bar for the same money. i've been using the whole set for three years now, no problems and i beat on it.
i also got a dual piston oil filled compressor head there when mine crapped out. $70 bucks compared to hundreds other places and it's quiet and works great for about a year now.
yea, it's not made in the USA but neither is anything else these days.

 

My buddy spent nearly $200 on a sears 3/4 ton hydraulic jack that started puking hydraulic fluid on the floor within a year and Sears did nothing for us. So we ended up buying one from harbor freight with a coupon for $90. You shouldn't be under a car with it on a hydraulic jack anyway. From my point of view, Craftsman/Kobalt/Husky/stanley are all made in china anyway, so why not pay less for the same quality of stuff. Outside of Snap on and one other I can't remember the name of right now there really aren't any quality tool builders anymore IMHO.

 

I use their angle grinders, the orange ones. They work great once you replace the crappy open cage end bearing with a sealed one.

My 3 grinders have outlasted at home and at work: 2 Makitas, 3 Milwaukies, 4 DeWalts, and 1 Bosch.

Not a bad track record in my mind and I know I work mine way harder than the other guys have tried on theirs.

Another welder has one of the "blue" case Harbor Freights that is also hanging in there, and looks identical to mine. Not sure why it costs a few bucks more than the orange ones.

Josh

 

check out this thread, some tools are decent
The Harbor Freight PASS/FAIL Thread... - The Garage Journal Board

 

Well, as they say...as long as you don't plan on earning money with their tools they're fine. I bought a 1/2'' Earthquake air impact wrench, 3/8'' drive air ratchet, some 1/4'' - 1/2'' socket extensions, some 1/2'' drive impact sockets - standard and metric, a die grinder and some other small misc tools. All work fine for the amount I use them for. My other tools...ratchets, sockets, wrenches and screwdrivers that I use a lot as my primary tools are Craftsman. So it's not bad tools if not used heavely.

OJ

 

I got four jack stands, that work fine, a hydraulic jack that works great, a few of the wrench sets that are fine, I got two impact socket sets SAE/METRIC and both hold up real well. I did get a PVC/HOSE cutter that was junk the moment I pulled it out of the package, and it went straight to the trash can after I tried to fix its problem.

I got a small 1/4 drive socket set with ratchet, and extensions that work real nice. Now I wouldn't try leaning on it too hard, as I could see the ratchet failing.

For the most part you can look at it and see it is crap, but looks can be deceiving. This is a good thread to let others know of your good, or bad experience with their tools!

PS: I got a 25", 1/2" drive breaker bar, that is outstanding!

 

I don't know about the rest of them, but Craftsman hand tools are made in the USA by Danaher, same people that make MAC tools.

 

Ok so maybe I got a little carried away. But I have seen a serious decline in the quality of craftsman over time. I still maintain that the 3/4 ton jack isn't worth the extra hundred dollars.

 

got a 3 ton floor jack & 3 ton jack stands from them but thats it as far as power tools I will go either Stanley or Craftsman only. I am currently looking at a air compressor an I am going to go with Campbell over Harbor's US General. I need something I can depend on while working on the truck.

 

i agree with you completely. i lost all my tools in a fire a few years ago. the old craftsman stuff was good, the new stuff sucks. i had 2 20 year old 2 1/2 ton floor jacks that were great. bought a new 3 ton from them and it's junk. the tools suck to. i went through the whole rack of wrenches to find one good set. the box end of the wrenches were all uneven, thicker on one side than the other.