HF tools that suck

[Iplayfarmer]

Ok I guess the "new'"improved' website is a tool.
I don't like it. consider this searched air compressor spelled with a OR at the end got this
Search results for: 'air compressor'
Then i search spelled with a ER instead or the OR and get
Search results for: 'air compresser'
And in the second search they spell it with an OR not ER.
I am not the best speller but even in bedlamese this is splat wrong.
I searched a few other items and don't really like the site as well as the older one
What do the rest of you think of the new site?
Harbor Freight Tools

OH GEEZE I just received this catalog yesterday, and I went to order 10 or the 15 items all said no longer aval at this price. GRRR

X2 about the new website. I don't like it.

 

[schmism]

I just picked this one for an example, but I tried 3 of them this weekend - Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices What a waste!! Wanna talk about the cheapest, most worthless and dangerous piece of junk sold anywhere... This has to take the cake!

i guess this is were YMMV comes into play.

Ive had mine for over 5 years. They sent me home with a 20 ton bottle jack for it to. Ive pressed about a dozen different alxe bearings on/off with keepers not to mention probably nearly a 100 different other bearings on and off various items in addition to the occasional bending operation.

would i make it the center piece of a machine shop press? no. have i gotten WAY WAY WAY more use out of it than i payed for it. OH H3LL yeh!

 

[Grateful11]

I 2nd that. What some fail to realize to what extent that products from china are knock offs made to look like the original. It is well documented that it takes less than a week for factories in china to produce a knock-off of most anything, once it hits their shore.

They sure must have a lot of Moldmakers over there to make all the injection molds needed for the stuff they churn out.

 

[Bedlam]

I see changes also. Like ther eused to be over weight items. (special truck shipments). But all the rest was based on the amounts. Now they have ''ground shipments avail'' You dont find out till you get it almost finalized.Oh this was after al the attempts to get the site to work. Ive given up at this point simply not worth it to save 5 bucks...

 

[Dargo]

i guess this is were YMMV comes into play.

Ive had mine for over 5 years. They sent me home with a 20 ton bottle jack for it to. Ive pressed about a dozen different alxe bearings on/off with keepers not to mention probably nearly a 100 different other bearings on and off various items in addition to the occasional bending operation.

would i make it the center piece of a machine shop press? no. have i gotten WAY WAY WAY more use out of it than i payed for it. OH H3LL yeh!

I suppose I can go along with this item being a "pot luck" item as well. Mine is complete junk and there's a real possibility of getting hurt if you used it at it's rated max. I'd have to assume that the Chinese plant that churns these things out uses the cheapest recycled steel they can buy each week for production. Mine may be made from part of a 100 year old ship wreck and yours may be made from a 10 year old car wreck. Based on my experience, I still have to call this item a loser though.

 

[Grateful11]

Well we had a flat on the front of our IH 686 Row Crop tractor with 12 weights
on the front. I jacked up one side with my 15 year old HF floor jack and set my
15 yo HF Jack Stand beside it just in case and took the tire to town, left the
tractor jacked up for about 6 hours and it still had not drifted down to the Jack
Stands height yet.

 

[stravis]

I went there this morning and bought a brake caliper tool set for $9.99. It was on sale from $29.99. Northern Tool and Napa both had a set for $99.99.

I changed the pads on my wifes car today and the tool set worked like a charm. Actually seemed fairly well made as well.

 

[Bedlam]

Not sure if you know of this other thread .
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/parts-repairs/114176-harbor-freight-tools-dont-suck.html
Sounds like it was a good experience.
Im curious is this the kit? I didnt know there was one for this so ive learned something new.Ive always just used a pry bar to retract them.Does the tool do anything other than just retract the puck?
http://www.harborfreight.com/caliper-tool-set-for-disc-brakes-40732.html

 

[Dargo]

Well, I have to move one of the "don't suck" HF tools to the "sucks" side. I'm working at a furious pace to complete a zip line this weekend for a graduation party. The zip line will cross about 300' of our lake and should be a blast. All parts are in and I'm building the "launch pad" 20' high and the terminus at the end of the line. I got this Portable Variable Speed Bandsaw band saw as a gift from my dad and thought it okay at cutting rebar and little things. Basically it saved me a little sweat from using a hack saw.

I'm low on propane on my O/P setup and I'm out of Acetylene on my O/A torch. I'd been using my Hypertherm 1250 plasma cutter on all other structural steel; mostly 12" I beam with 3/8" webbing. I thought it would be best to cut the section of railroad track with the band saw at an easy rate. Wrong! What a hunk of junk!! My dad even had bought the extended warranty on the band saw!

Basically after it runs for about 3-5 minutes, it's toast. I took 3 of them back after the last one didn't last 60 seconds before it ripped up the rubber ring that the saw blade rides on. The store manager said their equipment doesn't cover "abuse" and refused to replace it nor return my money. What a bunch of bunk!! I still don't see the "3 strikes and you're out" fine print on their extended or regular factory warranty, but my local store manager said that's the case.

I guess I'll have to remove any powered item from their store from my list of possible purchases. It was more of a "sever" cut, but I did cut the track with my plasma cutter. I'd like to see someone try to cut some railroad track with a HF plasma cutter. I think you'd pass your 3 strikes trying to do so.

 

[California]

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!!

 

[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.