I see tow truck drivers, contractors, and other guys who have to do service in the field and I think I wouldn’t buy all the Snap On tools I have if they were going to be used all over everywhere and possibly be left on the roadside or stolen from a mobile truck. The cheaper stuff will have to do in those situations.
I like HF, but I have to admit that ASE;s link was funny.
@ASEmaster; That made my morning and now I know my day will go well…started with a good laugh.
I go to Harbor Freight, but only for things like zip ties, shop rags, and other misc items.
Never tools precision items or anything electrical.
My daughter once bought me a 1/2 inch air wrench. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and kept it. It runs as though you only have 50 lbs of air yet the 40 gallon compressor is set at 160 lbs.
It runs slow even spinning off a lug nut that’s loose.
Just a piece of junk!!!
Yosemite
I’ve had exactly the opposite experience. I do buy tools at HF, and I’ve found them to work great. They aren’t SnapOns, but they don’t have a SnapOn price either. And I’ve really gotten addicted to the free flashlights… {
Few people need a 3500 dual wheel diesel pickup and few people need Snap-On tools. And while I made an effort to avoid Chi-Com junk for years but these days that’s nearly impossible. I wouldn’t be surprised if some Snap-On tools were from China. And for the DIYer the products at H-F and similar stores is at least adequate.
I recall working on a Ford Taurus long ago and found that my torx bits wouldn’t fit the bolts holding the steering column together due to the tamper proof tabs. I called Snap-On and later that day I got the strip of 8 to 10 pieces priced at well over $100. It sometimes seemed that there was some kind of conspiracy between the automobile manufacturers and tool suppliers. The public would be amazed if they knew how much money was invested in a mechanic’s tool box.
One of the problems I have with HF is that the staff does not know how to use or demonstrate what they sell. Has anyone bought and used the HF CAN and OBDII reader/code scanner? The call numbers are 60694/62120. Even though the unit is only $89.95, I still would like to see it being used or get an independent assessment.
I think it’s unrealistic to expect the average hourly employee to be able to demonstrate all the tools and equipment that HF sells, having demonstrators on-site for the more technical product on some sort of schedule might be a good sales tool. It’s a good idea. I’d bet that if on days that the weather permits they had a vehicle in the parking lot with a guy demonstrating the use of code readers their sales of both the readers and other automotive tools would see a definite spike.
I signed up for HF’s Inside Track Club mostly because their parking lot sale is coming up this week and I need one of their motorcycle lift tables.
Regularly way too much @ $699.99, often on sale for a somewhat reasonable $429.99, parking lot sale price actually affordable @ $299.99. Way cheaper than new knees.
They were out of stock a month ago @ $429.99 - a 20% coupon, and refused to sell the floor model. That’s when the manager suggested I wait for the parking lot sale. They already had flyers available.
Hey there’s snow on the ground. I can wait.
Not all of HF’s stuff is junk. I’ve got a HF 2.5 ton cherry picker that I think I gave 129 bucks for about a dozen years ago. It’s been used and abused and never a hiccup out of it.
On a whim a few years back while in a HF in OKC I bought a set of 3 micrometers on a whim as they were on sale for about 30 bucks. I wasn’t expecting much accuracy and planned to use them on cruder metal lathe work.
At home I used my Starrett standards (a standard being a precision length of round metal stock to verify micrometer accuracy) and all 3 of the mikes in that set checked out almost dead on when compared to my Starrett and Brown and Sharpe mikes. Any variance was in roughly the 1/10,000 range and ambient temps or the feel factor can cause that much error.
Never in my dreams would I have wagered those mikes would be that accurate.
Maybe the stuff they sold 20 years ago was better then the stuff they sell now. I know Sears tools were much better back in the 80’s then they are today. HF has only been in NH for 5-7 years. We just got one over near me (10 miles away) last year. So I can only comment on the tools I see now…not what they sold 20 years ago.
The set of micrometers I bought was purchased just about 2 years ago. They all 3 seem to be near dead on and not just against my set of standards.
I checked various things such as crankshaft journals, bolt lengths, bushings, and even the thickness of a few things such as shim stock and aluminum foil from the kitchen as comparison tests. The Starrett and HF mikes all came in with less than .0002 of a differential and a number that small in the everyday world is inconsequential.
Admittedly, I am very surprised they are that accurate.
I bought a 6" digital caliper at their parking lot sale for $9.99. It will do fine for the measuring I need to do with it.
They still had no stock for the motorcycle lift table, but gave me a “rain check”. I noticed that the fine print on the rain check says that it must be redeemed within 30 days of issue. I suspect that is their way out. If they have no stock each time I check, as I did today, within the 30 days stated on the rain check, then they are off the hook.
I was in Wichita about 10 years ago on a trip to The Yard along with a few other stops and noticed that HF was having some kind of parking lot sale while I was going down Seneca on the way out of town. Browsed around on a whim and picked up an electric 1/2" industrial drill for a measly 20-25 bucks or something like that.
In spite of my low expectations that drill has lasted 10 years now through some heavy use and has outperformed the brand name Craftsman and Black & Decker stuff in every way.
@ MG McAnick
Have you tried calling the Customer Service Dept. at HF?
I was not satisfied with the operation of an automatic welding helmet I purchased at a low price with my low priced wire-feed welder. I had to hold a while, but they listened to me and were trying to help and finally agreed with my concerns and encouraged me to go to HF and exchange it, which I did. This was quite a while after I purchased it and took a while to get near a HF store, but not a problem.
They might be able to help you resolve your rain check purchase problem.
CSA
@CSA, that’s a good idea. If it gets close to the 30 day limit, I’ll give that a try.
The service received at an Harbor Freight store depends largely on the local management team. We have three stores here in Louisville, KY, two of them fairly responsive to customer needs and demands, the other out there in la-la land, extremely high turnover, and personnel who reflect the manager’s lack of professionalism, courtesy, and knowledge of good business practices.
One thing that I have never gotten a good answer for is why Harbor Freight seems to have about a dozen stock numbers for every item they carry. The merchandise is identical in every way, but I’ve encountered our ‘bad store’ manager who refused to offer a sale price because the ‘stock numbers don’t match.’ I once got into a heated exchange with her and I’m as good as my word. I’ve never been back to that store.
But what is with the menagerie of stock numbers for identical items? ‘My’ store manager even allowed me the sale price on one of their high end air compressors even though the brand name was different (it is, in fact, the exact same compressor as the one advertised on sale, but different brand name AND different stock number).
So, as you see, it all depends on the local manager. If I’d been at the ‘bad’ store, they’d wouldn’t even have considered the sale price with different stock numbers, much less gave it to me across brand names. I notice now that their advertisements are starting to include the variety of stock numbers associated with the same item.
One thing I DO NOT like is the coupon concept. It delays checkout and forces the buyer to remember to bring his/her coupons to the store to get the sale prices. And their computers are not (yet, they say) programmed to recognize Insider Club Member prices, even though the buyer’s info is input into the cash register. Each item has to be manually adjusted and if you forget to mention the Insider Club Price, you might as well not pay the annual fee that it costs to become a member.
I dinno but my experience with inventory control is that it never matches the computer. Seems like you can have three guys count the same thing and come up with three different counts. Bar codes have helped but if the overstock is in the wrong bin no body knows its there, or the wrong bar code is slapped on it, or the manager shipped it off to another store on loan, etc. Who knows? That’s why physical inventories are taken. I had the same thing with Menards when they came up short on cabinet hardware. The overstock was in the right bin though, but just not as many as they thought they had. I did crank up the HF spray gun I bought a couple years ago and seemed to be OK. But with HF, I guess you get what you pay for.
All it takes is one jerk to steal the last remaining product for the inventory system to make you think they have one when they don’t. Mix that with HF’s notoriously bad everything regarding their computer systems and attention to detail and I never assume anything is in stock until I actually see it on the shelf.
BTW, if you end up finding the cart, check the wheels before you use it. Most of the things I buy from them that involve wheels, the axles aren’t greased at the factory so it’s a good idea to disassemble them and shoot some grease in there. That was really fun when I bought 4 car tire dollies with 4 wheels each.
Alternately, just go to Lowes and get a Gorilla 4 wheel dump cart. I’ve got one, and the thing has easily carried everything from loads of dirt to 1,000 pound boulders in a landscaping project.
I go to HF for a look see quite often, just b/c it is an interesting place to spend some time looking around. The store I go to seems to match up with the comments above about employee turnover. Seldom it seems do the staff remain for more than 6 months. The manager seems to stay though, he’s been there quite a long time. The manager, he’s very helpful and friendly. The staff, at least some of them, not so much. Last time I was in there I wanted to purchase a tool to make brake hose flare fittings. I couldn’t see it on the shelves, so I asked a staff guy stocking the shelves for some help finding it. It was something appearing on the website so I was pretty sure they stocked it. His reply “If it isn’t on the shelves, we don’t have it!”. End of story … lol …
I continued looking when the store manager happened by and said hello, did I need any help. I told him what I was looking for, he didn’t know where it was located, but he said to wait, he’d check if they had it in stock by looking at his computer. Sure enough, he came back in 4 or 5 minutes with the item in hand. I wandered around a little more and found where it was located on the shelves since I now knew what the box looked like – to figure out the price.
I have a theory about the success of HF. People in general are getting fed up being required to be unpaid Beta-tester’s for the computer software manufacturers and their bug-filled software, so are looking for some hobby activities involving anything non-computerized. Making and repairing physical objects strikes a cord, no need to buy the latest bizarre software (which will have more bugs than the previous version probably) to fix a bad strut. Or to make a home-brew metal detector. Hence the success of Harbor Freight, Maker Fairs, etc.