I fixed alot of stuff with my old friend, The Craftsman Tool

Maintenance/Repairs
81

I’m not a big believer that inter-dependence will deter a country bent on aggression and conquest. Rather it seems like the inter-dependence is used to hold the lesser aggressor hostage by the greater aggressor. Russia vs. Europe as an example.

At this point though reputation is everything and the Chinese are getting the reputation of not providing a consistently quality product. It may say UL approved but is it? It may look like a quality tool or part but is it? You put a bridge or building together with Chinese rivets and bolts but can you depend on them meeting the stated quality? You can’t test every one.

82

K-Mart is owned by Sears, so naturally they would sell Sears products. If K-Mart sells large appliances, I imagine they are Kenmore.

83

yeah twin turbo, i won a lot of money with a bar stick too. totally different than lousy hand tools.

84

Actually, KMart bought Sears…

85

I quote . . .

“Sears could also benefit from Kmart’s expertise”

WTF . . . ?!

I set foot in Kmart from time to time, but never buy anything, because they only seem to have junk, and they’re not well organized

Unless something has changed within the last few weeks, I don’t think Kmart has expertise in anything

This merger reminds me of the times I see two deadbeats in the street, haggling over the price of a $1500 beater car. One deadbeat is $1500 richer, and the other has a $1500 beater car. Yeah, in the end, not much has really changed

I like Sears, though I realize it’s not doing very well

But i don’t like Kmart. I don’t see much to like, for that matter

86

1500 dollar bargain thank you. and I m debt free :slight_smile:

87

“I set foot in Kmart from time to time, but never buy anything, because they only seem to have junk, and they’re not well organized.”

Unless the K-Marts in your area are much better-managed than the ones in my neck of the woods, I think that you are being way too kind, db4690!

On several occasions over the past few years, I walked into K-Mart stores, simply because of their convenient locations and because the items that I was looking for seemed like things that I could easily find at that chain.

However, in every case, I found…
stores that were incredibly messy and disorganized…
with huge shelf areas totally devoid of goods…
and the goods that were available were of such obviously poor quality that I wouldn’t want them at any cost.

In truth, I have seen Going Out of Business situations where the stores looked more orderly and well-stocked than the K-Marts in this area. Needless to say, I now have no reason whatsoever to return to a K-Mart after what I observed on multiple visits.

Since, as mountainbike correctly pointed out, K-Mart is the party that bought-out Sears, the…marketing expertise…of this senior partner is clearly not good enough to lift Sears out of its long-term slump.

And, while I can’t prove it, I suspect that Sears sold their Auto Center operations to somebody else a while back. Last year, I thought that it was time for a load test on my battery, so I drove over to the nearest Sears and–lo and behold–the “just honk and then drive in” battery counter in their service area no longer existed. I parked the car, walked into the store portion of the Auto Center and immediately noticed that things looked…different.

I asked the nasty woman behind the counter if I could have a load test done on my battery, and she barked back at me that I should have a seat as the wait for a load test would be about 2 hours. Needless to say, I left right away.

As they used to say in some old airline commercials, Is this any way to run an airline?
Nope!
And it is also not any way to run retail operations…

88

@wesw‌

These cars I’m thinking of were POS vehicles, no bargains

If you had bought them, you wouldn’t be thanking anybody

LOL

89

@VDCdriver‌

Yes, the Kmart near me also has mostly empty shelves

And yes, what’s on the shelf is so junky, I’d have to be out of my mind to buy it

And yes, there was stuff strewn about, all over, in the aisles. It was actually a tripping hazard

90

I thought the California freeways weeded out the weak cars in your neck of the woods…

91

Kmart has been ill for years,
but Sears has been in intensive care.
I don’t know how either of them survives.

92

i love the sears store here. but customers are lacking. they would rather buy the junk at wal mart for cheaper

93

There must be inter-corparate subsidies or something similar. The stores in Albuquerque are going great guns so they must move some of that funding to the lower performing stores.
– that’s all I can logically imagine –
They took away our local K-Mart years ago but we’re still using some wonderful thick and heavy bathroom towels we got in Abq 15 years ago.
When shopping the Coronado mall we always pop in to the Sears to see what they have on our list and the store is always jumping.

94

We have a K-Mart near us, and I hate walking into the place.

There is only one cashier and the people are lined up accross the main aisle.
It takes longer to checkout than it does to shop, and no self checkouts.
I only stop there for Pepsi on sale, once every 12 weeks or so.
The most I ever see is maybe 20 cars in the lot.
I can always find the bathroom free though.

THe Wal-Mart…7 miles farther .
There will be 150 cars at least.
Four self checkouts and 5-7 cashiers working.
Rarely do I see someone with their cart or themselves in the main aisle.

Sears…I only stop at a Sears Tools and hardware store but that’s 30 miles away and I only get past there once a month.

Yosemite

95

I like going to Kmart because it feels like you are walking into 1983, as long as you don’t see the flat screen tvs. Its like a time warp for me.

96

I have chinese craftsman wrenches. So far theyve taken a beating and done just fine. My 1/4 and 3/8 socket set was the last USA on the shelf. But so far, for the money, I will buy the chinese craftsman stuff over their other chinese competition at similar prices. Its a bummer I know, but life moves on, and nuts need turning!

97

We have a great tool store, R&R Public Wholesalers, in Hooksett (near my home), so I fortunately don’t have to rely on the WalMarts and K-Marts of the world for tools. The owner builds, owns, and runs race cars, so it’s a pretty well stocked place. They have all the stuff a shop needs that aren’t generally readily available, like gantry cranes, engine lifts, grit blasting equipment, chemical cleaning equipment, air jacks, and on and on, and every specialty car tool I’ve ever heard of. The owner decided years ago to make this a “man’s store” for people doing serious car work. We also have Harbor Freight Tools stores in the area now, so I’m living well now.

But I still can’t find that stubby little ratchet with the articulating head… which I originally purchased many years ago at R&R Wholesalers. Sigh.

98

@wesw‌

Even a V8 powered vehicle can be a pathetic POS which isn’t worth buying at any price

99

Can’t see who disagreed using mobile site version.


Wesw-

You made a lot of money using a cheap bar stick. Perfect example!

Imagine if you only made $50 a week for example and a snap on ratchet was $20 but the craftsman was only $5. Then you could also buy a socket set. And so on. How long would it take you to accumulate enough tools to make a living in either case? With the less expensive tools you’d be making money way sooner. Just like using the bar cue versus having to wait to have enough to buy a fancy Viking. Were you less effective with the bar cue? Probably not.

Let’s not confuse necessary with desirable…

This is how I was able to start fixing my own stuff. I bought affordable tools. I still have and use them. Not once did I need an expensive version of what I used to do all those repairs and restorations…and I had a far more comprehensive selection than if I was buying top of the line stuff…

Naturally a real pro might wear out the less expensive stuff under the rigors of daily hard use. But there are only a couple pros here. Most are DIY…

100

@TwinTurbo‌

you make some good points

that said, most professional wrenchers will at some point in their lives desire Snap on, Matco or Mac tools. There are some exceptions, but that is generally what I have seen.

Many of them started with Craftsman tools, and “graduated” to one of the other brands I mentioned.
I did, and the Craftsman stuff moved into my garage at home

Another economic choice is to buy used Snap on, Matco or Mac tools on ebay.

for the record, I don’t recall any of the pros on this website actually flat out saying they “needed” the expensive tools.