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Harbor Freight Parking Lot Sale...

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If you have a HF sale catalog, you can take it to their store and get the sale price that's in the book. I only buy certain things from them. They sell a step drill set that's of a very good quality. Wait for them to go on sale for 8 or 9 dollars. Great for drilling out spot welds and will last a long time. Funny thing about power tools. I usually buy only top brands, but while at a show somewhere, I bought a 4" grinder for 20 bucks. It's still running and I burnt up a 60 dollar one in the meantime. The $20 one even came with an extra set of brushes, the $60 one didn't. I guess they figure for the extra 40 bucks is a guarantee that nothing will happen to it. Go figure.
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I love going to HF. My GF tells me that it is like a candy store for guys. I have a set of their step drills, and I was really surprised how they have held up. I also have one of their electric impacts, and it has worked great for about a year now. I got the impact on sale for $39, the step drills for $8. I would love to have a better quality impact, but for what I am using it for, it works just fine. If sears ever puts out a 19.2V impact wrench (not the crappy driver that I bought), I would use that instead of the HF.

Here in Fla, we need to get stuff for when a hurricane blows through and kills the power. I picked up a two burner stove and an LP gas regulator for about $40. The exact same units were at my local Lowe's for $89 without the regulator. Now when the hurricanes blow out my power, I can at least make coffee. :smile:
 
Buying a Craftsman tool is no guarantee that you will get a quality, non-Asian tool. It will likely be higher quality than the HF tool, and repair parts will be available, but Sears has outsourced most of their power tools. If you decide to upgrade, look into Milwaukee and Makita who manufacture many power tools in the USA and GB, and even some in Mexico. These are typically very high quality machines. Even still, these days you have to do careful research before buying ANY tool of this type to make sure of what you are buying. Sometimes you end up with a bunch of cheap offshore parts in a nice housing, labeled as US-made.
 
But, when a Craftsman tool goes bad - even me breaking the tip off a screwdriver while prying - I just take it back to Sears & get a new one - FREE!!

I've actually got a few tools to return right now...
 
Absolutely. Not many things are better than a lifetime warranty on a tool. I keep reading that Craftsman will be discontinuing such warranties on many of their tools, but I'm hoping it won't actually happen.
 
tony barnhill said:
But, when a Craftsman tool goes bad - even me breaking the tip off a screwdriver while prying - I just take it back to Sears & get a new one - FREE!!
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But that applies only to hand tools, not electrical or precision tools.

As I found out, when a jig saw self-destructed during it's very first use and they refused to cover it under warranty. To add insult to injury, they repaired it without permission, and refused to give it back unless we paid MORE than it had cost new !

BTW, HF has the same deal; lifetime warranty on Pittsburg brand hand tools, "so solly" on others.
 
DrEntropy said:
I have one of those hoses, Tony.
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Not sure which hose was being discussed, but HF sells a wide variety of hoses, with wide difference in quality. The orange Goodyear brand hoses I got from them over 5 years ago are still working fine; even though the ones before that only lasted a year or two.
 
I just visited a HF store last Friday. Before going I made a list of the things I needed with part # and price from the internet. The prices at the brick and morter store was actually cheper that the internet price. I came home with everything I wanted and a few impulse items as well. Very satified with those items I have had a chance to use so far, which is most of them.
 
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