Harbor Freight Tools that don't suck

[JRobyn]

After a couple of years now of heavy abuse, I can heartily endorse this little sander. Current SKU is 93431. I have been very disappointed in the past with multiple name-brand sanders that burned up, wouldn't hold a 1/4 sheet properly, etc., but this one seems to work really well and just keeps going and going. It's a little loud, and does vibrate (well, DUH!). The little plastic frame inside the dust bag wore a hole through one corner of the bag, so it leaks dust. I need to stitch that up, maybe reinforce it a bit.

- Jay

 

[reb]

This thread seems to have become the combined default thread for both "sucks" and "doesn't suck".

Methinks that is a good thing.

 

[newbury]

Agreed. Bought one... broke first use. Stick with their wooden ones. Got several and they are adequate.

I've more than a dozen or so of their little wooden one and a half dozen of the bigger size. I've got workbenches, pallets, and even my 5' tiller and my Jinma 6" chipper on them. So far over about 5 years I've broken one when I dropped from about 6" a full sheet of 3/4 marine plywood.

Wooden ones are decent but not up to the rated 1000 pounds, had one under my 700lb ballast barrel, wheels didn't last moving it about 20 feet on cement

You've got to realize those are Chinese pounds, which are smaller

Most of mine I got on sale for about $6@, compared to the $20 one HD offers.

 

[DFB]

So which one of you guys is making the videos :laughing:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k86S7reKobs

 

[PILOON]

While I feel sorry for Harbor Freight (most posts say suck) the gist is 'Talk about me in good or bad, but talk about me'. It is all PR.
When it comes to marketing, they are good at it.
The name is one of the best known after Wallmart. (or close)
Let's face it. They are excellent at marketing and we all benefit. There is a place for their products and in fact their policies and guarantees seem to work. In 5074 posts I don't recall anybody griping or claiming they were screwed, fact is we got what we paid for and it did the job we expected at the price we wanted to pay.

I also gather the return policies are satisfactory to most of their consumers.

 

[PILOON]

While I feel sorry for Harbor Freight (most posts say suck) the gist is 'Talk about me in good or bad, but talk about me'. It is all PR.
When it comes to marketing, they are good at it.
The name is one of the best known after Wallmart. (or close)
Let's face it. They are excellent at marketing and we all benefit. There is a place for their products and in fact their policies and guarantees seem to work. In 5074 posts I don't recall anybody griping or claiming they were screwed, fact is we got what we paid for and it did the job we expected at the price we wanted to pay.

Another double post. You deal with !

 

[sixdogs]

While I feel sorry for Harbor Freight (most posts say suck) the gist is 'Talk about me in good or bad, but talk about me'. It is all PR.
When it comes to marketing, they are good at it.
The name is one of the best known after Wallmart. (or close)
Let's face it. They are excellent at marketing and we all benefit. There is a place for their products and in fact their policies and guarantees seem to work. In 5074 posts I don't recall anybody griping or claiming they were screwed, fact is we got what we paid for and it did the job we expected at the price we wanted to pay.

I also gather the return policies are satisfactory to most of their consumers.

That about sums it up and I don't recall an angry post either. I never broke a HF wrench or felt bad about bending one with heat or a hammer. HF serves a valuable place in the tool chain and for whatever happens to them, I'm OK with it. I even have a Harbor Freight "bug out bag" with tools reserved for nasty repairs in bad situations where they could get lost or damaged.

I'm not buying anything electric from them just yet, however and am concerned about the solvents that evaporate from their rubber products like car floor mats.

 

[Gem99ultra]

That about sums it up and I don't recall an angry post either. I never broke a HF wrench or felt bad about bending one with heat or a hammer. HF serves a valuable place in the tool chain and for whatever happens to them, I'm OK with it. I even have a Harbor Freight "bug out bag" with tools reserved for nasty repairs in bad situations where they could get lost or damaged.

I'm not buying anything electric from them just yet, however and am concerned about the solvents that evaporate from their rubber products like car floor mats.

I usually don't rain on other people's parade. But by simply NOT printing an angry response wouldn't be fair to the readers. I at one time, was loading up with those 'correctly priced' HF tools. Then I had a few instances in a row that did, or almost did, cause injury to me.

The first instance was their break-over bar. While leaning on it with my 180#, it broke, leaving me to fall smashing into the car and the ground.
Next was my ratchet with an extension. The extension twisted almost in half before I could get off of it. Replacing that with a Craftsman, the ratchet promptly stripped its teeth.
Next was a socket. It split like a watermelon with no very much hand torque on my break-over.
The final lesson for me was when I broke the handles from a 8" pair of pliers with only my single hand pressure.

Well - that was almost the final tool purchase... I did buy a set of their Pittsburg metric wrenches. Nice, shinny chrome wrenches. Within a year, although in my tool chest, they were covered with rust! I wasn't injured with those though - I gave them away to a 'cost conscious' friend.

Did I return those for an exchange or credit? No - I but I did mark the failures down as a Lesson Learned. NO HF tools for me. I will and do occasionally buy consumables like wire-ties, etc., but I've made it a practice to spend a little more and get a lot more quality.

These remarks truly are not to simply fan a fire. They are my personal experience and my own opinion only. Each is entitled to spend their money how they please.

 

[Garycw]

You'll NEVER regret buying good high quality and usually , high cost tools... Or anything else for that matter.
Some things at HF do however have there place... And no I don't mean the trash. You have to pick & choose wisely.

 

[Baby Grand]

You'll NEVER regret buying good high quality and usually , high cost tools... Or anything else for that matter.
Some things at HF do however have there place... And no I don't mean the trash. You have to pick & choose wisely.

Exactly.
When I started doing front axle work on my old Mazda MX6 and realized that the front axle/hub nut torque requirement was 175 lbft, I knew that my trusty old SK 1/2" drive was outgunned. When I priced torque wrenches in that range, the prices were just astronomical (this was in the mid 1990's). It would have been MUCH cheaper to take the car to a dealer to have it fixed. But I had already bought the parts - what to do?

Then I happen to get a catalog in the mail from that weird California company, Harbor Freight. They had exactly what I needed. A boxed set of 3/4" drive metric sockets with ratchet, 2 extensions & breaker bar for $49 & a 3/4" drive clicker torque wrench for $79. A week later, 2 heavy boxes were on my front steps when I got home from work.

They paid for themselves in one day of driveway car care. Would I want to use them as a professional mechanic? Not likely. But for my purposes, they were plenty good enough.
-Jim