Harbor Freight Tools that don't suck

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

HF will be knocking the socks off HD and their 40 volt line. The HD close to me stopped stocking the 40V Lithium batteries because they had so many returns. I will be a convert to the Lynx line if they don't solve the problem soon. I have 3 Ryobi outdoor 40V tools and have gone through 4 batteries in two years. Some get their tool home and the first charge and it fails. Ryobi is grossly not customer friendly. Hung up on me twice and refuse to answer email asking what's wrong and when do they expect a fix. I think they are milking the $100 each replacement market. HF here I come.

Ron

Yep, my biz partner bought the whole Ryobi kit and it was total junk. Batteries failed. Tools flimsy and underpowered. Funny how things change; would rather shop HF than HD now.

 

[jerrybob]

I have a HF oscillating sander that I use in my shop a lot...bought it with a coupon for about $70 10 years ago...it works great and does a great job. I do a lot of woodworking...I am surprised this sander has stood up to the abuse.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

I have never had a problem with the 18V stuff. I now have a mixture of old and new in almost all items they offer. Have worn out or broken several of the older ones (Blue), 2 recip saws doing demo work. Have all new lithium batteries (8) and the 6 place charger. I think I have somewhere 3 of the new single chargers (accumulated from sales where battery and charger is included for virtually $0). The 40V battery problem has been ongoing since they came out.

I know they deliberately hung up on me as I was pretty frustrated with there rig a roll and run around. They are not trained or encouraged to work sanely with a frustrated customer. I never did use profanity. Folks at the store indicated they are working on the problem.

Ron

 

[John_Mc]

Yep, my biz partner bought the whole Ryobi kit and it was total junk. Batteries failed. Tools flimsy and underpowered. Funny how things change; would rather shop HF than HD now.

I think that is as much or more a reflection of Ryobi than Home Depot.

Home Depot does carry the Milwaukee M18 line: both the regular M18, and the higher-end M18 Fuel. I have a bunch of the M18 Fuel tools, batteries and chargers. They are just about bomb-proof - though you do pay a good bit for them. HD also carries the Makita cordless tools. My brother has several of them, and has had good luck with them (he uses them pretty regularly in his home repair/remodeling business).

 

[aczlan]

Aaron, any lights, or just completely dead like mine (the red light came on for about 1 second before it went dark)?

Nope, no lights, no sounds, nothing.

Aaron Z

 

[sixdogs]

Yep, my biz partner bought the whole Ryobi kit and it was total junk. Batteries failed. Tools flimsy and underpowered. Funny how things change; would rather shop HF than HD now.

Any thoughts on Hitachi? I only have two of their things and those have been real quality in my opinion.

 

[Rock Crawler]

Any thoughts on Hitachi? I only have two of their things and those have been real quality in my opinion.

If you want guaranteed bulletproof, just go grab the DeWalt. My DeWalt 18V drill/circular saw/sawzall/light combo is somewhere around 15-20 years old and no difference today than the day bought. I've been through some 18 volt batteries for sure, but the equipment has built decks, done additions and been used at the apartments for all of the repairs and maintenance.

 

[Threepoint]

I have never had a problem with the 18V stuff. I now have a mixture of old and new in almost all items they offer. Have worn out or broken several of the older ones (Blue), 2 recip saws doing demo work. Have all new lithium batteries (8) and the 6 place charger. I think I have somewhere 3 of the new single chargers (accumulated from sales where battery and charger is included for virtually $0). The 40V battery problem has been ongoing since they came out.

I know they deliberately hung up on me as I was pretty frustrated with there rig a roll and run around. They are not trained or encouraged to work sanely with a frustrated customer. I never did use profanity. Folks at the store indicated they are working on the problem.

Ron

Ron, was this Ryobi or HF?

 

[Midniteoyl]

Ryobi

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

If you want guaranteed bulletproof, just go grab the DeWalt. My DeWalt 18V drill/circular saw/sawzall/light combo is somewhere around 15-20 years old and no difference today than the day bought. I've been through some 18 volt batteries for sure, but the equipment has built decks, done additions and been used at the apartments for all of the repairs and maintenance.

Rock Crawler, I don't think you can compare tools from 15-20 years ago to anything today (that I have tried, anyway). Wish I still had my old Milwaukee tools (all stolen). That drill went through concrete like butter. My newer Milwaukee drill (bought 5 years ago) the clutch failed twice with normal use. Finally went all-Dewalt-cordless recently; tired of all the different chargers, failed batteries, etc. Seems decent quality so far. Just got the Dewalt mechanics wrenches and sockets (for the tractor) and my mechanic brother declared them to be very nice quality. Probably could have saved some money with the Pittsburgh set from HF.

I've been quite happy with most of my HF tools.

 

[plowhog]

I have many DeWalt 20V tools. All have been good with one exception. I used the cordless drill and a 3" hole saw through some thick wood material. It burnt up the drill. Next time I do "heavy duty" I'll use a corded drill instead.

 

[California]

My Ryobi 18 volt tools haven't let me down. Even the chainsaw that is run hard, and some additional used drills from the flea market. Compatibility of the older Ryobi blue tools with modern li-ion batteries is a plus. No complaints.

 

[Rock Crawler]

I need a very short 10 mm wrench with an open-end that I can cut if need be, and I'm not cutting Snap-on or SK Tools. So I ran to Harbor Freight and for $14 I got a 32 piece standard and metric wrench set that I can cut and torch to bend as I please and have zero regrets! I have a dedicated drawer in my toolbox for tools like this that were bought with intention of destroying or modifying and some way to get the job done. This will be added to that door and no regrets will be felt.
note that there is a coupon that gets you $2 off on this, but if you're not buying something bigger to use the 20% coupon with you would rather use the 20% off on this and you get almost $4 off. You always need to pay attention to the coupon game while buying at Harbor Freight, sometimes the specialized coupon for a given item is not as good as using a 20% off, but if you were buying a larger item and could apply 20% of that then you would apply the specific coupon for this item to at least get that extra $2 off. And never ever forget your free item! At this point I'm done collecting tape measures and I'm onto magnetic bars.

 

[newbury]

I think that is as much or more a reflection of Ryobi than Home Depot.

Home Depot does carry the Milwaukee M18 line: both the regular M18, and the higher-end M18 Fuel. I have a bunch of the M18 Fuel tools, batteries and chargers. They are just about bomb-proof - though you do pay a good bit for them. HD also carries the Makita cordless tools. My brother has several of them, and has had good luck with them (he uses them pretty regularly in his home repair/remodeling business).

One of my son's swears by the M18 line, but another and I am heavily invested in DeWalt 20V max.

But perhaps the Milwaukee M4 is one of the worst buys I ever made. They were new, (about 2005?), came with charger and battery, Home Depot had a sale and I bought 4 or 5 of them at $20@. I should have bought 50. They are excellent, the ones I handed out to family are all still in use and working on their original battery.

Since that experience I try to buy extra.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Ron, was this Ryobi or HF?

Ryobi 40V only is the problem. 18V has been excellent.

Ron

 

[Code54]

Just went and got the 18 piece T handle allen wrench set that comes with a stand. Needed something for in the house for working on RC cars and such. Nice set for the price! Sears had a 7 piece set for $39.99, this was something like $15 with the coupon. Im guessing this is why Sears is on their way out!

 

[crazyal]

One of my son's swears by the M18 line, but another and I am heavily invested in DeWalt 20V max.

But perhaps the Milwaukee M4 is one of the worst buys I ever made. They were new, (about 2005?), came with charger and battery, Home Depot had a sale and I bought 4 or 5 of them at $20@. I should have bought 50. They are excellent, the ones I handed out to family are all still in use and working on their original battery.

Since that experience I try to buy extra.

We use them at work. The batteries do eventually fail and the latest version has a new style battery so I'm not sure if you can still get the older style batteries. Oddly that's my biggest complain with HF tools. You find something you like and they change the design. How long will it be before the batteries on the two new brands HF sells be discontinued. If the tool sucked you're not going to care. But if it works better than expected but now you can't get a battery for it then it's trash. I'm sure those older style M4 Milwaukee batteries are being sold by someone . I doubt that once Linxx changes it's design or HF stops carrying them you'll be able to find a replacement battery. In the past I would just by a new drill/ battery but now I have almost a dozen different Tools that use the M18 Fuel batteries (I have 9 of them in different sizes). Now I just buy the bare tool and batteries separately.

 

[crazyal]

Just went and got the 18 piece T handle allen wrench set that comes with a stand. Needed something for in the house for working on RC cars and such. Nice set for the price! Sears had a 7 piece set for $39.99, this was something like $15 with the coupon. Im guessing this is why Sears is on their way out!

Did that come with a metal or plastic stand? I have the Bondhus brand T-handles (US made with lifetime warranty) but the stand is now plastic. I want a metal one so I can attach it to my woodworking lathe so I have them close at hand. I have a couple super powerful magnets that would work perfectly for the job.

 

[PhysAssist]

Any thoughts on Hitachi? I only have two of their things and those have been real quality in my opinion.

For what it's worth, we have been almostly literally beating the crud out of my Hitachi 12 and 18V Lithium battery tools [all bought refurbished here: https://bigskytool.com/hitachi-reconditioned-tools.html] as well as several corded angle-grinders, a drywall screw-gun, and a circular saw, and they have been amazingly serviceable. I started buying them in 2012 on the advice of our garage door installers after watching them drop theirs off the stepladder they were using, more than once, onto the hard-packed gravel floor we had back then, and seeing that it not only didn't suffer any visible damage, it kept working.

When I asked their boss why he didn't cuss them out when they were being so rough on their primary tool, he laughed and said that he didn't care, because he made them pay for them, and they didn't care because they bought them refurbished from Big Sky, and they seemed to tolerate a lot of that kind of abuse, because they were pretty klutzy for guys who worked on ladders and used their hands so much.

That said, RC is also right about DeWalt, because my circa-late-1990's 18-V Ni-Cad-battery 5&3/8 circular saw and VSR drill-driver are still working strong, but the batteries aren't holding charges well any more, so until I get the scratch to buy some Li batteries and adapters to make them work on my DeWalts, they're retired.

That drill-driver [and battery] spent a rainy week out in our lawn after my nephew "borrowed it" and left it out there- when I found it there and realized it had been rained on for at least 3 or 4 days, and then sat there damp for another 3 or 4 days, I had little hope that it would work again.

I figured what the heck, and after shaking as much water out of it as possible, I used the high-volume, low heat blow-dryer we bought for our dogs [Newfies at the time] to dry it the rest of the way out, and waited a few days...

Then I plugged the other- freshly recharged battery in, and it worked like it was still new- that was in 2006, and the drill and batteries still work, but as I said, the power cycle is now so short as to hardly be useful.

 

[PhysAssist]

I need a very short 10 mm wrench with an open-end that I can cut if need be, and I'm not cutting Snap-on or SK Tools. So I ran to Harbor Freight and for $14 I got a 32 piece standard and metric wrench set that I can cut and torch to bend as I please and have zero regrets! I have a dedicated drawer in my toolbox for tools like this that were bought with intention of destroying or modifying and some way to get the job done. This will be added to that door and no regrets will be felt.
note that there is a coupon that gets you $2 off on this, but if you're not buying something bigger to use the 20% coupon with you would rather use the 20% off on this and you get almost $4 off. You always need to pay attention to the coupon game while buying at Harbor Freight, sometimes the specialized coupon for a given item is not as good as using a 20% off, but if you were buying a larger item and could apply 20% of that then you would apply the specific coupon for this item to at least get that extra $2 off. And never ever forget your free item! At this point I'm done collecting tape measures and I'm onto magnetic bars.View attachment 564616View attachment 564618View attachment 564619

Too funny- because I just made that same transition...