Depends on what it is. He’s not going to make a special trip for a 13mm socket. But a piece I can’t do without? He’ll come by, drop it after hours or before opening if need be, pay a taxicab to pick it up where he is and bring it to me (yes, that’s happened), whatever.
Even if I have to wait a week to get a wrench replaced, that’s far better service than having to spend my own time and money to get to the mall and deal with it.
He'll come by, drop it after hours or before opening if need be, pay a taxicab to pick it up where he is and bring it to me (yes, that's happened), whatever.
Now that is customer service, I guess that comes with the price tag.
Here’s what $284 will buy at www.snapon.com (1/4" set):
Here’s what $270 buys at www.craftsman.com
Gotta admit that’s pretty good service from Snap on, but then again they must have a pretty high margin to be able to afford that service. Just a trade-off I guess. The girl in high school that never would go out with me, her dad was a Snap On dealer. Never really knew what it was or I probably could have talked tools with her. “Say, 'spose your dad would have a good ratchet wrench on the truck? OK if I stop over tonight and check?” Shes gray and a little over-weight now though so no problemo. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
no way tex, that’s insane for that little set
So, after all this back and forth, the point is clear. It’s not that something is Chinese or French or American or Craftsman or Snap-On. It’s whether is quality or it’s crap. You can buy crap made right here in the USA, and you can buy quality made in China. There’s absolutely no guarantee that the country where something is made has much to do with quality. Right now China is making and exporting a lot of crap that looks like quality, but isn’t, and they are selling it to you and me at Wal-Mart and Sears and Harbor Freight for cheap. You buy cheap, you get cheap. I bought a craftsman set in 1975 for maybe $49.95, and it was great. Compared to 1975, my income is nearly ten times greater, and if I was willing to pay ten times more for that tool set today I could buy good quality, too. Maybe not from Sears, but I could buy it somewhere. Not a big surprise.
So Snap-On wants $284.00 for a 1/4 inch drive set. If it was $28.40 in 1975, would that be better? Maybe not.
Keep it in perspective, please.
that’s just outrageous by any perspective I can think of. I can t believe it its so out of line. its not even a complete set. must be a typo
No typo, it’s the ‘featured item’ that comes up when you click on ‘handtools’ on the Snap On web site. What a deal!
yeah your right, I just checked. no way in hell I would pay the prices they are asking. I can t believe anyone would. and I like to buy good tools and was never afraid to spend money to do a better or easier job. you must be paying for the service and warranty the tools aren t worth that much
I just tried looking on Ebay for Snap On tools. Lots of cheap stuff listed under Snap On, because they include a $5 Snap On dinky screwdriver with the sockets, wrenches, whatever from a no-name source. Ugh.
I have a 289.00 Miller welding shield up in my kitchen cabinet gathering dust. I got a 30 dollar discount because the fellow ordered it with a maple leaf on it. and never picked it up. but I like Canada so it didn t bother me. ay?
I should take the batteries out
I used a 30.00 one for 15 yrs, but my old neck got tired of flipping it. the new one was nice… but not made for overhead welding.
and no, I was not a welder, I was a first class fabricator. and I m not lying lol
part of my job was certifying our welders in house for a while tho. QC sucked, when your job is pointing out mistakes you are not popular
My first Craftsman tools came from my parents on a Christmas after I bought my first car at seventeen.
It was the kit that came with box, tray, ratchets, 1/2-3/8 drive, sockets, wrenches, screwdrivers, extensions, allen wrenches, and even the small ignition wrenches.
I still have every tool from that kit. Even the box and tray.
Only now those tools are stored in much larger boxes.
Tester
I also still use my Altec stereo speakers that I bought in the late '70s. They were made in the US, back in the days when the Lansing family still owned Altec
I too LOVE my 1970’s Altec speakers.
Lansing family NEVER owned Altec. In the 70’s Altec was owned by LTV (Ling-Temco Voight). In the 1941 Altec bought the Lansing speaker company from James B Lansing. After a few years he left and started his own company called JBL. By 1949 the company wasn’t doing well and James Lansing took his own life…but JBL continued.
The Altec today is NOT the same company it was in the 70’s. LTV sold off the divisions that had nothing to do with their main core of electronic and defense. This left Altec with a HUGE debt they couldn’t get out of. In 1985 they sold the name Altec Lansing Consumer Products to a company from Canada called SparkoMatic. The REAL Altec company continued limping in the pro market until they were bought out by Gulton Industries. Then Telex bought Altec. But Telex also owned EV (another pro audio company). They merged the two companies and dropped the Altec line. There’s still a company called Altec building consumer speakers and computer speakers…but not the Pro audio.
Like Triedac my first socket set was a 3/8 drive Husky, mine is 54 years old and I broke the ratchet and some sockets doing things that I should have had a 1/2 in socket set for. A head gasket on a 61 Dodge 318 comes to mind.
My first socket set was also a 3/8" Husky set. Which I still have today. Ratchet still works. I have all the sockets. Don’t have the case anymore though.
Most of my hand tools are Craftsman. They are very good quality. I have a few Snap-On ratchets…which are EXCELLENT. But for the back-yard mechanic…Snap-on is too expensive.
I haven’t bought any new Craftsman hand tools in a while so I have no personal experience on the Chinese made stuff. I have bought a couple things from Harbor Freight - which also is made in China…and their tools are complete JUNK.
I stopped buying Craftsman power tools years ago. They turned to junk almost 25 years ago.
I’ve got a fair amount of Snap-On tools and most are great. However, a Snap-On name doesn’t necessarily mean great and sometimes they can be garbage. Same with MAC and Cornwell; most good with some serving a better purpose on the creek bottom outside of town…
If someone wanted to go into car wrenching for a living here’s a starter kit although it’s used…
I think it all comes down to , how many times are you going to use that tool in a lifetime VS the price. Granted, almost all the sockets (Husky) that I started with(in 1970?) are long lost and gone into the void of tool limbo. Lost under a hood, left behind, kicked into the grass, dropped into that black hole near the battery…never to be seen again, etc. etc…, but I concider that my starter set and am now very particular about my tools.
I do wish that I still had my dads old Snap-on set from the 1950s.
If you are in that business and need really high quality tools every day, buy Snap-on.
If you only turn a wrench one day a week Craftsman will do you fine.
If you only get the tool box out often enough that you always forget…“what drawer are the screw drivers in”…then, buy the cheapest brand.
Even the sets that you buy have their share of crap tools in them. Those little stamped out ignition wrenches that everybody throws away!!!
The guy I helped out when he got behind, owned mostly snap-on, but he knew what areas the shap-on guy would be in each day and it was more than once that he asked me to go meet the snap-on dealer.
Sure beat him driving to the Sears store 1 1/2 hours away to replace a socket or wrench.
That’s a half a day wasted.
It is also important to remember that some people have no concern for their tools one bit.
I was installing a water heater in the sons house a couple of years back.
He normally would attempt brakes and such, then ask me to come over and finish because he couldn’t get something together right.
I needed a socket for something and noted that he had about 4 of these pre packaged tool sets on the shelf. Sets with Metric and SAE wrenches, sockets, driver bits, screw drivers etc. etc…
Out of the four sets, none had the socket I needed…they all were lost, and most sets only had about 25% remaining in them.
That’s who I gave my dad’s snap-on stuff to. I found most of it once broomed into a corner when he was finished with a job and left to rust for a year on the concrete before I found it all.
Needless to say, He’s not allowed in my shop without me there.
Yosemite
Well we can go back and forth all day long, but I just put my money where my mouth is. I just ordered a 200 dollar Made In USA MagnaMatic Lawnmower blade balance. You can get cheaper ones, but this one is the best. I am not going to keep balancing my blades on a nail or a plastic cone balancer. The spindles on my mower are 163 bucks a piece and there are 3 of them so its in my best interest to minimize vibration.
I am buying quality stuff and It should last me a lifetime. I am done buying disposable chinese junk.
I agree snap-on tools are overkill for many people, many professional mechanics use craftsman tools. The problem I have is craftsman tools used to be made here in the USA, and were still affordable. Now they are chinese and the price hasn’t come down. Forget sears, I hope they shut down, This is coming from a former die hard sears guy.
When people finally figure out they are getting gouged by sears. Slapping a Craftsman name on a Chinese made-harbor freight tool, then charging them a Craftsman price and people quit buying their junk!
It is a shame to squander all that it took to build the Craftsman brand into that which means QUALITY and VALUE, into something of lesser sorts. I’m not going to pass any judgment upon Sears for doing what it does; I simply won’t be buying any non-USA made Craftsman tools ever! I will continue to buy the USA made Craftsman tools, but I’m having difficultly doing so and often leave the store without buying anything because I actually study where my tools are made and base my buying decision accordingly. Maybe Sears could study my Member Purchases enough to recognize a USA made buying trend. I even recently bought all of those Premium USA Craftsman ratchets because I’m not going to spend my hard earned $$$ on a foreign made Craftsman. Yes, we all vote with what $$$ we spend. I’m doing my part here to buy USA made, but I can’t do it alone.
At least harbor freight is upfront about where their tools are made. Sears is pushing china junk at made in USA prices. Why would I buy a craftsman wrench made in China for twice the cost of a husky wrench when both offer the same warranty? So now I have countless made in USA craftsman tools that are no longer backed by warranty as they would be replaced by made in China tools.
Sears reflects all that is wrong with this country they not only outsourced American jobs but then they turn around and try to sell made in China junk at inflated prices further hurting the working class. Going into Sears use to mean something as you knew you were getting quality tools made in USA, now all your doing is buying overpriced harbor freight quality tools.
I tend to agree with WheresRick about Craftsman quality and Chinese crap. A couple of years ago I was given a decent sized set of Craftsman tools in a chest with several drawers as a gift. The usual assortment of basic hand tools and it was a nice gesture anyway.
There are 3 ratchets in that kit; a 1/4 drive, 3/8 drive, and 1/2 drive. Every one of those ratchets has excessive slop in the gear head mechanism. The 3/8 has stripped out twice already with mild use and Sears doesn’t even replace the ratchet here. They change out the worthless gears with an equally worthless set of replacement gears.
As to Craftsman electrics; all in the tank. Even Skil has gone the cheap Chinese route and no way on Earth will a Black and Decker drill or saw ever contaminate my property again… 
You had to rub it in about my B&D drill/driver I just bought? I was ashamed anyway. I balanced it out by going down to Ace and buying a Craftsman tool bag to put it in and DeWalt drill and driver bits, so I hit them all. I’ve got work to do with it at the cabin but I’m bringing my corded Bosch along for back up. We’ll see if I have to throw it in the lake or not.
I’ve got an old 40 something year old B & D 1/2" drill that still chugs away whenever needed.
It just seems that over the last 10 or 15 years every B & D tool I bought was either junk right out of the box or it burned up within 15-20 minutes of use. Drills, circular saws, and saber saws were the worst of the lot.
I had 4 saber saws in a row go belly-up and none survived more than half a dozen uses. One did not work at all right from the box, another worked for about 30 seconds before dragging and dying.
The last B & D tool I bought was a top of the line saber saw and during the second use it started breaking and chucking blades. This was due to the innovative screwless blade holding mechanism that finally gave up its life during that second use. To the dumpster it went and a solemn vow to never buy another POS from them ever again.
Funny thing is that the 30 year old B & D saber saw all of those replaced soldiered on for decades before giving up.
Did I mention that Weller soldering guns seemed to have hit a skid also… 
