HF tools that suck

[Bedlam]

mail order is this ..
Return Policy



If for any reason you are not satisfied with any item purchased, you may return the insured product within 30 days for a full refund or replacement, whichever you prefer. Shipping and handling are non-refundable.



GENERATOR RETURNS
Any generator returned for any reason after the 30 day satisfaction guarantee period will be subject to a 20% restocking charge and must be returned freight paid.



All returns require a Return Authorization Number before they can be returned to Harbor Freight Tools. Please contact Customer Service either by calling 1-800-444-3353 or by emailing cs@harborfreight.com to receive a Return Authorization Number. Please make sure to provide your name and invoice number and a brief description of the reason(s) for the return.



You can return an item purchased online by taking it to one of our retail stores. You will need to have a copy of your invoice to return the item.

 

[lilranch2001]

My all time funniest rip off tool came from one of the traveling shows though. (Homier I think) It was an electric hammer drill for about $10. I bought it for those rare occasions that I need to put an anchor in concrete or something like that. Right out of the box, the bearings sounded bone dry and it squealed like a pig. Got it out a few months later to hang some adel clamps on my foundation for the satellite dish cables. Put a masonry bit in it and started drilling. Soon, the bit was spinning in the chuck, so I went to tighten it up more. Turned the wrench and started snapping teeth right off of the chuck. An oral surgeon couldn't have popped teeth any faster! Luckily I found a nice heavy duty B/D unit on sale for about $30 and gobbled it up. It is easily 10x the drill that the cheap one was.

There are some other things that I've gotten that I'd call marginal, but I wouldn't classify them as "suck".

Homier is a local company, the corporate offices are just down the road from me, and my ex girlfriends mother used to run the "circus" for them.
I stopped in their show room last week, walked out shaking my head on all the junk in there.
I wont even walk into a Harbor Freight

 

[Dargo]

Dargo, you're the eternal optimist!

That thing is for cutting conduit, metal studs, etc and actually it's a cheap copy of the Milwaukee intended for that purpose.

NOT railroad rail and bridge girders!!

Aww, c'mon man! I just snap that little stuff off as part of my anger management program. I also found that packing around and mixing 32 eighty pound bags of concrete (making a zip line for the kids over the lake) the day before a HooknShoot match isn't good. I was gassed and freaking tapped in the 2nd round. I blame HF for that loss!!

 

[crazyal]

Back in my dirt track racing days one of my sponsors loved buying from HF. He outfitted my enclosed trailer with several tools like 4 1/2" grinders and a cheap portable bandsaw. He even had one of Chuck Homier's 1/2" electric impact wrench.

None of them lasted through the first job but I wanted him to feel like he was helping out. To play nice we would hand them on the wall in clear sight but have the real tools close by but not as visible.

I do have two things though that I can say good things about from HF though. The first is one of those manual tire changers. Other than having to redesign the top adapter that pushes against the wheel it does it's job as expected.

The second is a 10" tile saw. I bought it for $200, was a little worried about how well it would work for that kind of money, when I was building my house. It's $50 a day to rent one and I put down tile in the entry way, kitchen, and all three baths. The rental cost would have equaled the amount of the saw and I was hoping to use it for pavers for the walkway. It works real well and I have loaned it out about a dozen times now. The only thing I ended up doing was making a place to mount a second bucket for clean water. The 'sand' from cutting the tiles would gum up the pump.

P.S. I do have a Milwaukee portable band saw and I would use it to cut anything that I could fit it around including that rail.

 

[charlz]

Well the $10 set of metric crows feet suck I needed just the 13mm but Sears didn't have them individual and wanted $50 for the set.... and the quality didn't really look all that good. The HF have pretty bad tolerances and a taper... would round a nut of in a heart beat.

 

[California]

Could you hack a box-end wrench into what you need? Maybe cut the handle short then weld a junk socket to the short handle so you have something to turn it with. - ?

I have a used tool store nearby so I occasionally hack a special-purpose tool out of something from his orphan bin.

 

[1-3-2-4]

good thread

 

[weldingisfun]

Look what's back!
My nomination for HF tools that suck, although they are not tools, they are sold at HF, BUNGEE CORDS. They smell like bungee cords, they look like bungee cords, the price, of course, is right, and they dont just break, they disintegrate. It happens even faster if they are exposed to direct sunlight.
Absolute and total garbage IMHO.

 

[sixdogs]

Look what's back!
My nomination for HF tools that suck, although they are not tools, they are sold at HF, BUNGEE CORDS. They smell like bungee cords, they look like bungee cords, the price, of course, is right, and they dont just break, they disintegrate. It happens even faster if they are exposed to direct sunlight.
Absolute and total garbage IMHO.

Yeah, I bought these on a big "sale" and on the first use mine stretched out and adopted the longer stretched distance as the normal length. Oh well, I figured but then exposure to sunlight degraded them into rubble.
You would think bungee cord would be error proof.

 

[Gary Fowler]

bought a 1/2" drill motor and right out of the box it didnt have enough power to turn a 1/4" bit without stalling. I finally got one hole drilled with it before it started to smell from overheating. I just tossed it in the trash. Cheap is as cheap does. No more electrical tools from them.