Harbor Freight tool reports from customers..........

[Tommy2]

I have the standup blast cabinet and 110# pressure pot. I've been very satisfied with both. Both items are quality units and with the right coupons I got them dirt cheap.

[xxllmm4]

I buy lots and lots of stuff from Harbor Freight A lot of their hand tools suck, screwdrivers, s, "vice grips" but some are decent.

All of the sockets I have bought have been good, even with me abusing them with breaker bars. I got an ATV jack, works great, same with jackstands and the 3 ton jack. The Ceramic kitchen knives are sweet!

I think the best deal in the store is the 6.5HP Honda clone engine. They go on sale for $100 and with the coupon you can get them for $80! Best thing is there is a lot of aftermarket support for them, headers cams rods ect.

[ironchop]

I buy the higher priced ratchets from HF (cuz my boys lose them in the yard alot) and they work fine even when I smack the handles with a deadblow to break stuck bolts loose

the Pittsburg socket sets both regular and impact are good quality and have lasted me a long time even though I beat on them alot when i don`t feel like getting the air hose and impact out right then

Prybars and s are good...and my HF has Vice Grips (the real ones)

screwdiver tip sets are pretty good...allen wrenches...torx driver sets

Compression tester was good and still works three years later as does the brake bleeder vac but the voltmeters are junk (Centech)

Powertools suck...never bought any from HF but have recieved a few from family as gifts and I destroyed the drill and the angle grinder in under one hour each

I did buy angle plate fixture for machining and some other machining fixturing items with no problems but as for the measuring instruments I have all Mititoyo and Starret and Browne and Sharpe, Interapid for work and I won`t count on junk for precision measuring ( we make .50 cal machinegun parts among other things with extremely tight tolerance ranges and some stuff measure in .0001 (ten thousandths)) however J&L and MSC sell junk too for machining like Fowler brand and SPI, both of which are total crap

I have a few airtools from HF and they all still work great but I do add air oil everytime i use them and after buying an expensive stapler that wouldn`t punch through a 200X seatpan, I bought an airstapler from HF that will drive a staple clean through an X seatpan if you don`t turn it down ALOT...if you`re gonna recover a seat or two, i suggest the heavyduty airstapler from HF (I think it`s a Chicago Pneumatic or something) at 19.95 for the gun and 5 bux for the staples

the gravity feed paintgun sprayer was a great buy....on sale for 14.99 and I bought it to shoot primer only but ended up painting six bikes with it so far with no issues whatsoever

I used to buy only Craftsman and SK....that was before they both jacked their prices way up and Crafstman started wanting to "repair" my ratchets with a new head guts (new is junk) instead of replacing them and they got picky about replacing stuff...my SK stuff is BULLETPROOF but I have two wrenching teenagers at home and I supervise a machining plant where employees and coworkers have helped "lose" half my stuff as well as break my stuff....Not fun to run across the shop to stop the guy on a millcenter from firing up the spindle after he forgot to remove your $350 Interapid indicator from the spindle and it flys off into a block wall @ 10,000 RPM...I keep cheap indicators on hand just for loaners

I try to find a balance between "investing" in a good tool and "buying" a reasonable facsimile.

[jeswinehart]

The best part of Harbor Freight and another tool discount store I frequent is if I break it it is so easy to get a replacement.
I have returned several items and with no questions asked or receipt, simply go get another one.
In most instances, it was my own fault they broke like using 12 foot plus cheater bars on 36 and 48 inch pipe wrenches and so on.
On a side note S+K tools in Defiance, Ohio has ceased operations (bankrupted) as of April 2010. The "new" owners had run it into the ground for the last several years. It was a intended plan to do so for some silly arse reason. Straight from several employee's mouths and some in the management aspect of the company.

[dksix]

HF started getting my business after the 3rd trip to Sears trying to get a 1/4" drive ratchet replaced. A couple more good items I use from HF is the http://www.harborfreight.com/hand-to...set-47067.html . I bought the wrenches for 17.99, they fit well and I've had little problem with rounding off bolt heads. And the http://www.harborfreight.com/hand-to...set-95114.html . They fit good and seem to be well tempered, not so hard they break but hard enough not to bend. I think I've bought the screw drivers for 9.99 . Just another note, allot of the magazines are having 20% off coupons often.

[Dirtcrasher]

S+K is out of business, Bridgeport (bought by hardinge) is now made in China.

Man, this Country is a big pile of suk... They're doing a great job of making the middle class, lower class.

Soon, I'll I'll be able to buy is Harbor Freight tools

[Louis Mielke]

Ah but who's to blame? The people buying the cheaper items made by poorly paid and treated foreigners because they can't afford to pay for the high dollar items that are specifically high dollar so the people who are making them here in the states get paid a decent wage?

It's an ugly cycle. Buy cheap foreign because you can't afford "made in the usa". Get paid less where you "make in usa" because your company can't afford to pay you because you bought cheap. Now yes I know I'm playing devils advocate because a lot of "big american business's" are greedy and charge way more than what they need to make a profit.

[300rman]

Stay away from there electric tools there all junk

I have to disagree here Syko. We have a Heat gun, variable speed buffer (use it for boat hulls), and a Miter-Saw style cut-off saw. still have the blade that it came with, and we have cut a LOT of metal with it.

The spray guns are garbage....did 3 exchanges before giving up, none worked. (wanted to spray POR-15, didnt want to use the $500 gun, as im sure you can imagine)

the Pittsburg impact sockets are pretty good stuff. same with all other hand tools, and you dont feel bad when you have to cut or bend one up to work for a specific job. The rachets are good for abuse, but if you work on stuff regularly, buy a GOOD rachet/socket set.....cheap sockets/wrenches are made of cheap metal, which means the sockets/closed end of wrenches are thicker. Which means they will NOT work for many tasks working on ATV's and stuff, as the socket wont fit over the bolt when the case is right next to it.

[ironchop]

Ah but who's to blame? The people buying the cheaper items made by poorly paid and treated foreigners because they can't afford to pay for the high dollar items that are specifically high dollar so the people who are making them here in the states get paid a decent wage?

It's an ugly cycle. Buy cheap foreign because you can't afford "made in the usa". Get paid less where you "make in usa" because your company can't afford to pay you because you bought cheap. Now yes I know I'm playing devils advocate because a lot of "big american business's" are greedy and charge way more than what they need to make a profit.

I`m gonna strongly disagree with you there Louis, or rather the Devil you are advocating for as I think you don`t truly believe that hype but are only reiterating what crap has been fed to the public

I`ve been managing manufacturing plants and machining for years now.....what you are saying is the bullcrap propaganda that is being fed to you by American retailers to guilt you into buying their product

first off, Manufacturing and Machining have been on steady decline for wage average for decades now...Greedy fools at the top of the Pyramid cut OUR wages/benefits and their supply costs to boost profit margins...pure and simple...when that doesn`t quite work or they figure they can get an even bigger margin of profit, they move operations overseas (You can thank your Federal Gov for that(NAFTA) NOT the folks who buy cheap tools at HF, Louis)

high quality expensive parts does NOT translate into "decent wage or salary"

If anyone actually knew how much stuff was manufactured overseas by cheap labor while the price HERE does NOT reflect the labor or parts savings (like Harley Davidson having ALOT of Japanese made parts on their machines whereas Honda Goldwing is 98% manufactured, and built by American workers)

"Made in the USA" isn`t what it used to be...as a matter of fact it was printed on the Harley Davidson box for the new brake rotor I bought for my 93 Softtail while the rotor inside the box was stamped "Sunstar made in Japan"

If I`m gonna buy overseas "junk", I sure as hell aint gonna pay big bux for it when I only make American manufacturing wages which have been killed by GREED

I can tally factual evidence to this all day, but I`d rather not get myself worked up

Specifically high dollar parts DOES NOT indicate high wages for the plant workers....you are being lied to....this is nothing personal to you, Louis as it`s only a sign of the bull that consumers are being led to believe by the Wall Street crowd who are looking for an angle to guilt the American Consumer into paying more than some stuff is worth while making one believe that good American jobs are at stake if you don`t pony-up the extra ching.....all you are really helping is to line the pockets of investors, NOT the common laborer

[Dirtcrasher]

Like I've said before, when I was in manufacturing (8years ago), we couldn't buy the glue and cardboard for the same price we could order a completed photo storage box. This was true also with the pages we made and jewelry boxes.

We had a line of Asian temps taking them out of the China corrugated boxes and placing them on our company's named boxes with a nice sticker on it stating "Made in the USA". Any obvious indicators of where they were made we removed and re-shrink wrapped. Some days we had 150 temps in there; they took over the fridge leaving raw out in the open fish/octopus etc in there.

Then I lost my job and 7 years later the company went bankrupt. We had so many people upstairs getting bonuses it was ridiculous; one time we got a 25$ Shaws grocery gift card, that was all the employees got.............

[Louis Mielke]

I`m gonna strongly disagree with you there Louis, or rather the Devil you are advocating for as I think you don`t truly believe that hype but are only reiterating what crap has been fed to the public

I`ve been managing manufacturing plants and machining for years now.....what you are saying is the bullcrap propaganda that is being fed to you by American retailers to guilt you into buying their product

first off, Manufacturing and Machining have been on steady decline for wage average for decades now...Greedy fools at the top of the Pyramid cut OUR wages/benefits and their supply costs to boost profit margins...pure and simple...when that doesn`t quite work or they figure they can get an even bigger margin of profit, they move operations overseas (You can thank your Federal Gov for that(NAFTA) NOT the folks who buy cheap tools at HF, Louis)

high quality expensive parts does NOT translate into "decent wage or salary"

If anyone actually knew how much stuff was manufactured overseas by cheap labor while the price HERE does NOT reflect the labor or parts savings (like Harley Davidson having ALOT of Japanese made parts on their machines whereas Honda Goldwing is 98% manufactured, and built by American workers)

"Made in the USA" isn`t what it used to be...as a matter of fact it was printed on the Harley Davidson box for the new brake rotor I bought for my 93 Softtail while the rotor inside the box was stamped "Sunstar made in Japan"

If I`m gonna buy overseas "junk", I sure as hell aint gonna pay big bux for it when I only make American manufacturing wages which have been killed by GREED

I can tally factual evidence to this all day, but I`d rather not get myself worked up

Specifically high dollar parts DOES NOT indicate high wages for the plant workers....you are being lied to....this is nothing personal to you, Louis as it`s only a sign of the bull that consumers are being led to believe by the Wall Street crowd who are looking for an angle to guilt the American Consumer into paying more than some stuff is worth while making one believe that good American jobs are at stake if you don`t pony-up the extra ching.....all you are really helping is to line the pockets of investors, NOT the common laborer

Oh trust me, do not confuse my devil's advocate with my true knowledge. I know that the rabbit hole is way deeper than any of corporate America would have us believe. In reality its scary, and whats even worse is that we're pretty much fundamentally unable to do anything about it without everything getting ugly. Thats the really sad part.

My personal outlook is to buy quality where ever it comes from ,but that's another direction for the conversation to head in.

I really didn't mean to hi-jack the thread, just being a smart ass.

As far as HF. I spent a about an hour in there checking things out. Walked out with a orange dead blow. Lasted way longer than expected but I bought it mainly because it was orange. HAHA!

[bigbadktm]

lol i also bought that dead blow and only kind of because it was orange....ok because it was orange and I am a diehard KTM fan, if only they made 3 wheelers

[Dirtcrasher]

Where did Swigins little grinder go, that looks perfect!!

[racer....X]

I have the same little grinder as swigin, it works great but i cant find replacement scothbrite wheels for it. I got an air op. reciprocateing saw and it was junk from the beginingI got a 3/8 air drill at the same time and it works great.I have the 20 ton shop press and it works great.I have to go to St. Louis or Evansville In. to go to a store, i wish they had one closer.

[Cave Rider]

i would like to buy a harbor freight boring bar and line bore machine.i will use it to fix all of the DIM (did it myself !!!) racers 350x top ends..hahahaha..jk.. i will use a northern tools products instead...seriously though,the blasting cabinets are pretty damn nice for the price $149.00