I think we all believed that Sears would be around forever.......... and Craftsman didn't believe we would live this long! I gave up on Craftsman long ago even though I have a lot of their wrenches and socket stuff. Now I don't have any brand loyalty. Most times I just look for what seems to be well made and fits my purpose, and I have found that different brands often have individual items that I like the best. As for Snap on....they make some great tools, but their pricing is rediculous. My son was a jet engine mechanic in the air force and also maintained the tool crib for their site. He told me a lot about Snap On tools and how they had trouble getting things repaired or replaced. Also that he could buy the exact same tool many times and they just rebranded things as Snap on. Lets face it, at this point in time most of us don't need to buy anymore tools with lifetime warranties.
[I like Kobalt, especially their battery powered tools. That way all my battery powered tools use the same battery. Had much better luck with batteries by Kobalt than either Craftsman or Dewalt. Plus they are cheaper and have a longer warranty. Haven't had one quit yet and some of them are 7 years old. With battery powered tools you kinda have to chose one brand and stick with them because of interchangability. They have some really good deals on them most holidays.
I'm almost positive that HF's Quinn brand (mid level) is rebranded Kobalt. As someone who has both, they are identical from the exterior dimensions, country of origin, red and blue markings for metric and standard, and font. If they were from different factories I'd be shocked. And none of them have ever broken on me.
So your thinking a lifetime warranty might be only one or two days, maybe a week. At my age you never know.
I think you’ll get a new contract you just can’t take your tools with ya. I have quite a few tools from my grandfather Blackhawk, Boney etc, he passed in 1974 and these tools were not new then, I still use them. Dan
you got a point there, I hope and pray I get there. I have tools that were passed down to me and will do the same with them and the ones Ive collected over time. I have 2 sons and started giving them tools for Christmas around 25 or 30 years ago. They both liked craftsman, was easy too, cause sears was always one of my shopping stops.
The new snap-on tools can't hold a candle to the old mostly made in there Chinese factory and my dealer hates to warranty his tools. The best for warranty is Matco and Mac Cornwell gets a bit testy time to time.
So far, I have never found a mechanical task that I could not perform because I had a tool that didn't say Snap On on it.
My son sent me a picture of a Matco toolbox and tools for sale in Indiana. Here is the ad that accompanied the pictures.......... "I am sell my matco 6s tool box will all tools. Toolbox is 31" deep and 86" long has the matching hutch and side lockers. The side lockers add another 4 feet in length to the 86" all the locks are the same key. The hutch has power along with the face of the toolbox along with 1 power drawer. Both of the side lockers have lights and the locker on the right side has a power drawer with it as well. All tools in the box are snap-on with a few Matco, Mac and Cornwell tools mixed in. Comes with a Snap-on Zues Plus scanner with all the attachments for the oscilloscope. Have other electrical diag tools. There are too many specialty tools to list. There is over $200,000 in this toolbox, has anything you will need if you're looking to open a shop or are looking to hit the ground running in this industry. Asking $120,000 O.B.O. Willing to do partial trade depending on what you have." Heres mine.......... I gave about $50 ea for these. No slick roller drawers but they work just fine. Or the 4 Craftsman boxes atop some drafting table cabinets that cost me about $200 for all 10 of them at a school auction. Threw the table surfaces in the dumpster and brought the cabinets home. I do have to admit that I bought a nice Harbor Freight toolbox to put in my leanto. Think I blew close to $1k for a 42" top and bottom box (US General) a few years ago. Its blue like the Matco.........I like it.
F#$%..... what industry do you need to buy $200k worth of tools to start in? NASA sent a man to the moon with less tooling than that. I started my son out in his mechanic's apprenticeship four years ago (he graduated last week... made me damn proud). I bought Sidchrome hand tools, the same as his grandfather started out with. A roller box and top box, perhaps 2/3 the size of that Matco one. A couple of Milwaukee assault-ratchets and batteries as apparently no-one uses a normal ratchet anymore. I probably have US$4,000 in it. Cheers, Harv
It doesn't matter what country tools are manufactured in, it boils down to what the company that sells the tools has for specifications that the tools are manufactured to. I'm old enough to remember the phrase "Japanese junk" for what was produced after WWII because that was what the companies wanted to sell things at LOW PRICES so that's what they made, cheap products! Now products made in Japan are high quality because they are competing with the best, not just trying to sell things at low prices. China is as capable of manufacturing high quality products as anyone else if people will pay for it!
Sears with the Craftsman line was the best bang for the buck. My 1st set was the gray box one for under $50 and came with a lot of stuff. I bailed on Craftsman when they stopped replacing busted ratchets. Any tools bought since we're mainly garage sale and from swap meets. We had a deal with Gear Wrench at work, IIRC we got a 20% discount on them. So these were my last big-ish tool buy. If I need an odd tool or so, I'll hit up HF. The Pittsburgh line is not bad. I needed a big combination wrench recently, picked up a used Proto on eBay.
Williams is owned by Snap-On. When Gearwrench first came out I bought two sets at a show for $10 a set. One metric and one Imperial. I am still using them nearly 40 years later. I have yet to break one. You can't buy one wrench for that price now. Back about 1980 I installed a snow plow on a Chevy pickup. I lost a brand new MAC 7/16" combination wrench, never did find it. In the rearly 90s I bought several Chevy from that truck owners brother, one of which was the one I put the plow on. I stripped them for parts, and when I pulled the engine from that pickup I found the 7/16" wrench stuck in the grease under the oil pan. I still have it.
In the mid 2000s I worked for a startup Sprint Cup NASCAR team. I was a part/QC guy so I didn't have a ton of tools but this story is about one of the mechanics. He was young and his tools mostly consisted of gear wrench alongside of other "mid-range" tools. The rest of the guys in the final assembly shop had massive collections of snap-on, Mac, etc. They gave him unending shit for the 4 years I was there. It never bugged him and he never broke to peer pressure, at least I never saw him in line for the tool trucks.. He did the same job as everyone else, and was still happily trucking along when I left.
Its not that Snap On doesn't make some quality tools, and some of the specialty tools aren't even available from other tool manufacturers. To me, the problem simply is about the cost associated with them. Many have longer reach on the wrenches which helps.........but I always find a way when my tool of choice isn't providing enough mechanical advantage. Look what Snap On wants for simple things like center punches or snap ring pliers. I would rather have a large assortment of assorted brands than a small box of Snap On for the same money. I can't tell you all the brands of wrenches that reside in my shop.......just wrenches.......probably 20 or so brands. Its all about what you can do with your tools rather than who has the most expensive ones. Its like when you go to a car show and a guy starts talking about his car.........you can usually tell pretty quickly whether he built the car or bought it no matter how expensive looking and shiny it is. One thing about my wrenches, when I need a special shaped wrench, I have no problem firing up my torch and bending one to fit into a tight spot............I even have a tool drawer where I throw these "specialty" wrenches in for future reforming if needed..........a whole drawer for them.
I used to get my craftsman 3/8 ratchet repaired/replaced every few years...I finally bought a new snap on a little over 20 years ago, it's been working fine ever since. But most of the snap ons I have now were found used real cheap. They're nice wrenches, compared to the cheap crap I usually use.
Actually, I have a Kobalt and a Husky ratchet that I like real well and I even bought some Icon wrenches and sockets for my nice Harbor Freight toolbox. Then there are those "special circumstance" wrenches that I have in a drawer ........... A little better view............. Bet nobody does this kind of stuff with their Snap Ons Every one of these solved some problem for me......... To me, I don't care what it says on the tool as long as its decent quality and will do what I need done. I have the wrenches that I use for common mechanic-un.... like chassis and frame or tractor or whatever piece of junk I'm working on. Most of them I can abuse when necessary and smack em with hammers when needed. Then I have precision tools that I take good care of and keep them in nice places. Finally I have the "nicer" newer wrenches that I keep in the HF toolbox to use for engine work. Truth is, I try to put tools in the different areas like near the car lift, near the fab table, near the engine building bench, and near my machine tools. I hate walking back and forth to grab a wrench, so I get lots of inexpensive ones or mid price ones and can keep a supply close at hand whereever I'm working in my shops. I even have a bag of tools in my pickup bed for trips to the pull-a-part yard. Thats what works for me ...........
I got curious about how many different brands of wrenches I have accumulated over the years. I don't have full sets of all of them, don't even remember where I got most of them. I have bought quite a few "sets" of Craftsman along with several other brands that I like......and thru the years I have also lost many of them. I probably have several hundred wrenches currently. Anyway, I went thru about a 1/3 of them and found about 40 different brand names....and some that didn't have any name. I have one small set from Tractor Supply that has their name (a paper label) on the plastic holder they came in, but nothing on the wrenches. They actually seem to be pretty decent wrenches on a lightweight scale. Think I gave $10 for them. Anyway, back to the point..........even I was surprised at the number of different brands. I can't remember the last time I actually broke a wrench.....though I seem to remember doing somewhere in the distant past......and I have used a second wrench hooked to the primary wrench to gain leverage many many times. What I like is having so many different shapes to choose from...... Anyway, here is some of the assortment..... All different brands I know I do have a Snap On somewhere, but didn't find it...................
The Jalopy Journal
