Having owned cheaply made products made all over the world, I could say the same about products made anywhere. The only guarantee you get with “made in the USA” is that the product will cost more than its competitors.
I agree.
As a matter of fact, I recently returned under warranty to Sears a Craftsman heavy duty staplegun that I inherited from my dad man, many years ago. It was all heavy metal, spot welded, and was (best I can estimate) probably 60 years old. It was jamming. To my surprise, the guys at Sears replaced it with a brand new heavy duty Sears stapler under warranty. I would have totally understood had they said “sorry”, but they replaced it with a smile.
I have numerous sets of wrenches. Snap-On, Craftsman, Husky, Chinese, Japanese, and just about every make and every country of origin you can think of. 12-point, 6-point, open ends, even bicycle wrenches. My neighbor calls my place “the land of 10,000 tools”. The cheap stuff doesn’t fit the hexes well or fit into tight spaces, but I still use one occasionally… especially if I have to “customize” a wrench. The bicycle wrenches are thin and work great for getting into thin spaces.
Those who put down Craftsman, and those who put down cheap wrenches, are IMHO “tool snobs”. A good IMHO wrench is any wrench that gets the job done at an affordable price. Craftsman are great wrenches for the average Do It Yourselfer, and budget wrenches are great for DIYers who can’t afford Craftsman. Pros have entirely different needs, but that does not mean Craftsman aren’t good wrenches. One of those “needs”, quite frankly, is having a tool delivered directly to the shop. But pros pay for this service. They need it, DIYers do not.
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Speaking of “made in usa” and quality, or lack thereof . . .
I have had eh misfortune of breaking made in usa craftsman tools, going to sears to warranty the broken tool, only to get handed a new made in china craftsman tool, of clearly lesser quality. Not my idea of a good deal 
Many of our fleet vehicles have light bars. A few years back, some vehicle operators literally tore off a light bar on a rather high vehicle. The tore it clean off, messing up the wiring, the roof of the vehicle, etc. I suspect they went somewhere they shouldn’t have been. Anyways, the lightbar was so mangled, I felt it would be simpler to just install a new one. We contacted the manufacturer of the lightbar . . . might have been whelen . . . and they built it to our specs. We went over the specs with a fine tooth comb, and had them repeat them to us, to make sure there was no misunderstanding
Some time later, the new lightbar arrived. It proclaimed it was proudly built in the usa, by union workers. It was built all wrong. Wrong lights, and facing the wrong way. Since they were hot for the vehicle, it was decided we would handle it in-house, rather than sending it back to the vendor, which would result in unacceptable downtime. I had to spend hours rearranging and reconfiguring it, so that it was in a halfway usable state. The vendor’s union workers proudly got it all wrong. All I know is the problems occurred on their end, not ours. Somebody over there dropped the ball but good.
It’s kind of funny, actually. I would think if you’re so proud of something, you’d think it would be a good idea to double check everything, before essentially putting your name on it.
Craftsman tools typically get the job done, but in my opinion they are sometimes not the most comfortable to use. That is a factor if you’re going to spend a career using it, at least in my opinion
I actually really liked the Craftsman professional red and black soft-grip screwdrivers from several years back. They fit well in your hand, much better than their more common plastic handle screwdrivers. I can only speculate why they discontinued that line. It was a bargain. I still have several in my garage.
I also like their hammers. No complaints whatsoever.
If I want craftsman tools, I typically only buy stuff on club saver days. It’s been awhile, and I’m not sure if they even have that anymore. I picked up several impact socket sets. Made in usa, and the quality seems very high. I have yet to split or shatter one
At the dealer, one of high flaggers almost exclusively used craftsman tools. But he didn’t really buy special tools, because he preferred borrowing those from everybody else. We got tired of that aspect of his behaviour, as you can imagine. He saved on tools, so that he could spend virtually all his money on partying. He didn’t get much sleep, and he spent ungodly amounts of money on women, drinks, clothing, entertaining, etc. He said “You wanna play, you gotta pay” . . .He looked 20 years older than he was, undoubtedly a result of his lifestyle
Speaking of “made in usa” and quality, or lack thereof . . .
I have had eh misfortune of breaking made in usa craftsman tools, going to sears to warranty the broken tool, only to get handed a new made in china craftsman tool, of clearly lesser quality. Not my idea of a good deal
Many of our fleet vehicles have light bars. A few years back, some vehicle operators literally tore off a light bar on a rather high vehicle. The tore it clean off, messing up the wiring, the roof of the vehicle, etc. I suspect they went somewhere they shouldn’t have been. Anyways, the lightbar was so mangled, I felt it would be simpler to just install a new one. We contacted the manufacturer of the lightbar . . . might have been whelen . . . and they built it to our specs. We went over the specs with a fine tooth comb, and had them repeat them to us, to make sure there was no misunderstanding
Some time later, the new lightbar arrived. It proclaimed it was proudly built in the usa, by union workers. It was built all wrong. I had to spend hours rearranging and reconfiguring it, so that it was in a halfway usable state. They proudly got it all wrong. All I know is the problems occurred on their end, not ours. Somebody over there dropped the ball but good.
I had a USA made Craftsman copy of a needle nose Vise Grip. easily 40 years old that was amazingly tough for such a small and narrow tool. I finally wore out the fulcrum point that goes over center to lock it. I took it back to Sears and got a new needle nose Chinese made Craftsman that was hanging next to the new, identical looking, Chinese made Vise Grip.
The new ones are half again as wide and only 2/3 as long and when I used it once, it flattened the fulcrum point and it was worse than the 40 year old one. It is clearly made of inferior steel . I could take it back and get it replaced, but what would be the point?
The only Craftsman tools I will buy from now on will be at the flea markets at the old car shows, and pnly if they are USA made.
I disagree that all modern Craftsman tools are fine. They’re not fine if breakovers break in two and if the gearhead mechanism in a ratchet is so sloppy that it takes 1/2 of a turn to rotate the fastener to be loosened 1/16 of a turn.
Take said ratchet back and the only thing they do is replace the existing sloppy gearhead with a new sloppy gearhead.
Net result is one is still left wrestling the fastener and trying to resort to an end wrench because the ratchet is garbage.
I used to use Craftsman tools exclusively until my favorite ratchet broke. I walked into my local Sears store with broken ratchet in hand and they handed me a little plastic bag of parts. That’s when I went home and cut up my Sears credit cards. I’ve never looked back and that was 30 years ago. I buy tools on sale and at flea markets or yard sales. In 30 years I’ve broken just a few more crappy tools but have saved a lot of money in the process. If it’s cheap and works…that’s the tool for me.
Yup. There’s stuff from Harbor Freight in my cabinet. It works and I spent the money I saved not buying Snapon on stuff like… More tools! 
Not that I’d get just anything from HF - my general rule of thumb is that if it will maim or kill you should it break while in use, then I need to see some evidence that it probably won’t break before I buy it. No high-RPM spinning things from them.
A heads up to Veterans. My local Lowe’s gives me a 10% discount even on sale items. This may vary by region as I have heard that you must register on line or have a service connected diability in some regions/stores.
A new harbor Freight just opened 2 miles from my house. The first weekend was supposed to be a parking lot sale, but that never happened. I bought a cheao set of kneepads for a short project. (A long project would require new knees; not pads) I got a 25 foot tape measure for free. I collect the free tools and give them to someone with no tools. I can also donate them to the Habitat for Humanity thrift shop.
Definitely not here in NH or MA.
There are certainly different grades of tools even within the cheap class. I won’t buy craftsman anymore (unless it’s one of those insane sales deals) because for the same money, I can buy a much better tool in a Kobalt brand for example. So yes, I put down Craftsman because they can’t compete at the regular price, to tools in the same category.
I wish I had adopted your limitation for HF tools earlier. Unfortunately, the tools I tried to save money on turned out to be some of the worst buys for me- things like small grinders, body saws and such like. Turned out to be junk and not even worth the cheap price.
One of my favorite tool acquisitions of all time are my sets of Gear Wrenches. Ironically bought at a Sears store back in the day…
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Is Sears still selling Craftsman, or should I say, Black & Decker Craftsman tools?
Nobody ever said that. Craftsman tools, like most others, there are variations in quality depending on when the tool was manufactured and what the tool is. And a lot depends on how the tool is used. But I don’t believe any are as bad as they’re being portrayed by some. Craftsman is not junk. It’s overall an affordable good tool. Wrenches are great, ratchets not so much, and other tools vary.
I maintain that those who denigrate Craftsman, and Harbor Freight, and other tools are only trying to demonstrate “tool-superiority”. The “my tool is better than your tool” phenomenon.
My favorite socket/ratchet set is a “Mr. Goodwrench” that I won as a doorprize at a Saturn dealer. My favorite crescent wrenches are Husky. Their socket wrenches are the best I’ve ever seen, bar none. They’re precise, tight, smooth, solid, and rugged, everything you could want in a crescent.
I also bought a HF Pittsburg brand 25 piece SAE and Metric combination wrenches for $20. So far they have been as good as anything else. My problem with HF is inconsistent quality.
I’ve gotten junk at HF (drill-driven water pump that never worked), and I’ve gotten one of my best-quality tools: an extra-long ratchet combination wrench with a flex head, perfect for the hard-to-reach upper control arm bolt on my MKZ, great finish, took all the force I could put on it.
I totally agree with this. I’ve shared before, but I’ve not had one Craftsman ratchet not fail on me- except for the “warranty replacements” that are sitting in the back of my tool box unused.
I’m not a tool snob by any means. My tool boxes (3 of them) have an assortment of just about everything. I’d probably have more Harbor Freight except for the fact that HF is a 100 miles away.
A few years ago I bought a set of 3 HF micrometers on a whim at 39 bucks. Not expecting much, I compared them to my Starretts and the Starrett Standards and all 3 were dead on. I was stunned to put it mildly.
Or a HF 1/2" Industrial drill that has been fantastic for going on 9 years now with no issues.
It’s no different than my guitars as I’m not a “gear snob”. My Epiphone EB-O bass outperforms my Gibson EB-O in every way. Epiphone being the “inferior” Gibson owned offshoot of the vastly more expensive Gibson models.
I’m just a DIYer but 75% of my tools are from Harbor Freight, rest are Craftsman or auto parts store brands. The only hand tools from HF I had a problem with were the torque wrenches, returned 2 and eventually got working ones. I started with a HF 200 piece mechanic set over 20 years ago and I still use all of it. Obviously it’s not the best but it gets the job done.
If you get a working HF torque wrench, though, it’s probably very accurate. I’ve been surprised at the accuracy of the ones I’ve bought.
They changed something with them, last one I exchanged has an inspection test label on it, the first ones didn’t have that. They seem to work fine now.