Total Motorcycle Community Forums

so i was getting a floor jack to work on my car with and herd all these stories about how crappy non craftsman jacks are(especially how bad the walmart ones are). so i figured spend the money to get the craftsman jack. now i havent even used it but im kind of turned off to the brand after seeing the 1year warranty on the box. i thought craftsman always had the lifetime deal. i know they got screwed and almost put out of business because of that warranty but i thought it was still in place. has anyone had any problems with craftsman stuff lately, is it worth spending the money on rather than the other brands like Stanley at walmart? i have some various stanley tools and havent had any problems with them, they do however have that cheap made feel to them. but some stuff like sockets to me feel like the same quality as any other. but rachets and stuff seem like its better to pay for craftsman.

just curious what kinda tools every one uses/recommends.... i just cant wait until i actually have a garage to put this junk in so my new floor jack isnt sitting in my living room like it is now lol!

I like Craftsman tools. I have more Craftsman hand tools than any other brand. As far as I know the lifetime warranty on handtools is still there. A floor jack isn't really a hand tool, it's a hyraulic jack. There are seals that will eventually wear out (long time). I have a jack that won't lift my car anymore, but works perfectly on the bike. It lifts one wheel of the car, but not the whole end (it's a 3 ton jack and used to pick the whole front end of a suburban with no problem). I have used the warranty, and it's walk right in, no questions asked. It's pretty hard to duplicate that with other "lifetime warranties" you have to send in to get replacements.

yea i herd the warranty almost did them in, people were buying up rusted and ruined hand tools at garage sales for no thing then taking them to sears and getting brand new tools in trade. i figure with enough care this jack really Should last me a long time(longer than the walmart one i hope or the cheaper craftsman). but i was just hoping they havent slipped in quality after seeing that 1 year warranty, but i guess your right handtools vs floor jack is a different story.

Snap-On
Worth the price IMHO.

Snapped a KY socket...
Followed by a Crafstman socket...
Then the Snap-On socket... Worked like a charm. I moved the breaker bar MAYBE an inch when snaping the KY/Crafstman. Neither time did the nut budge. Doing the brakes on my car.

BUUUT snap on is pricey. Not saying Crafstman isn't bad though! Just don't get a Stanley screw driver, the POS'll snap on you. I've personally broken 3 of them.

Craftsman is okay for the do-it-yourselfer, but I buy Snap-On. I made my living with my tools up until a year ago. If you use them all day every day Craftsman isn't good enough. You's spend too much time going back and forth to Sears getting your broken tools replaced.

I agree on the price though. Why do they have to be so darned expensive?

I have a 1/2" drive flex-head wratchet that cost $116.00!

Snap-On is not worth the money they charge IMHO. I have busted every brand of wrench, socket, rachet, breakerbar or what have you. Snap-On is good stuff, but no better than most other brand names. They still break. And when I snap a Westward or Proto or even Motomaster, I can get it replaced that day. I'm lucky to be able to find the Snap-on truck twice a month, and that's after hounding him on the phone for a week first. Then I have to wait while he 'sends it in for assessment' before I get my replacement more than half the time. I realize that the individual truck owner has alot to do with customer service, but every dealer I have dealt with over 20 years or so is pretty similar up here. I hate feeling like He's doing me a huge favor by selling me a wrench for double or triple what the local tool house sells it for, then having him try to guilt me into buying more cause he 'had to drive all the way out here to sell you this stuff so at least make it worth my while'.......then stay home buddy.....

While I'm carving Snap-On.... how many young mechanics and apprentices are in debt up to thier eyeballs to the Snap-On truck cause he rolled into the local dealership and sold him a complete 'Starter set' complete with a huge rollcab(that is only 1/4 filled by his 'complete starter set') for a mere 10 grand... on credit, no problem, you can make payments, your making lots of money, you can afford it.... I heard and seen it too many times. Half these kids get sucked into buying this stuff, then get canned or decide that they ain't really meant to pull wrenches, but Snap-On still wants thier money. And they don't want thier used tools back, they want cash... and interest.

Good tools, sure. 3x as good? Nope. Sorry. I can't justify spending that kinda money for something I can equal for 1/3 the cost and 1/100 the hassle. And Howard Hughs can kiss my fuzzy lil butt......

BuzZz wrote:Snap-On is not worth the money they charge IMHO. I have busted every brand of wrench, socket, rachet, breakerbar or what have you. Snap-On is good stuff, but no better than most other brand names. They still break. And when I snap a Westward or Proto or even Motomaster, I can get it replaced that day. I'm lucky to be able to find the Snap-on truck twice a month, and that's after hounding him on the phone for a week first. Then I have to wait while he 'sends it in for assessment' before I get my replacement more than half the time. I realize that the individual truck owner has alot to do with customer service, but every dealer I have dealt with over 20 years or so is pretty similar up here. I hate feeling like He's doing me a huge favor by selling me a wrench for double or triple what the local tool house sells it for, then having him try to guilt me into buying more cause he 'had to drive all the way out here to sell you this stuff so at least make it worth my while'.......then stay home buddy.....

While I'm carving Snap-On.... how many young mechanics and apprentices are in debt up to thier eyeballs to the Snap-On truck cause he rolled into the local dealership and sold him a complete 'Starter set' complete with a huge rollcab(that is only 1/4 filled by his 'complete starter set') for a mere 10 grand... on credit, no problem, you can make payments, your making lots of money, you can afford it.... I heard and seen it too many times. Half these kids get sucked into buying this stuff, then get canned or decide that they ain't really meant to pull wrenches, but Snap-On still wants thier money. And they don't want thier used tools back, they want cash... and interest.

Good tools, sure. 3x as good? Nope. Sorry. I can't justify spending that kinda money for something I can equal for 1/3 the cost and 1/100 the hassle. And Howard Hughs can kiss my fuzzy lil butt......

i would never buy something out of a truck with a guy guilting me into buying more stuff like that just no way ahha. or just for fun id call the truck out then buy a screwdriver thats it just to mess with the guy.

its amazing what people are willing to finance on a whim these days. from what ive ever seen most of those 'starter' tool sets are like 500000 pieces but 90% of it is junk youll never need or want, might as well save the hassle and just buy what you know youll need. at least for me i cant see the need for a big monster set, i buy what i need for the current project add it to the rest and slowly build a setup.

I did finance with Snap-on, but I chose my own starter set, based on what I knew I'd need for the specialty work I was doing. (alignments, steering and suspension repair) I bought a box older than me made be MB Century. (The company that used to make Snap-On's boxes until Snap-On bought them out about 30 years ago)

My "Starter Set" was about 6 Grand, and I'll have quality tools for the rest of my life, barring theft.

The Snap-On dealer here is a good guy, though. He's in town twice a week, warranties everything immediately from inventory on his truck. Even little odds and ends stuff like flashlights that aren't usually covered by any warranty.

The other consideration for me was that I had two choices. Snap-On or Craftsman. No brainer.

Craftsman quality seems to have declined in recent years, in the basic area of the wrenches being slightly off-sized and not fitting nuts consistently. The standard open wrenches also have overly thick heads, which makes it difficult to use them in some instances. Maybe nuts have changed sizes. My huge red roller tool box contains everything from Plomb [old brand], Proto [quite a bit of it, as I sold Proto 40 years ago] and Blackhawk and S-K and Husky, which is marketed through Home Depot big box stores. I even have a nice set of Ace Hardware Professional box-open combination wrenches. The only ones that have trouble fitting what they are supposed to fit are the Craftsman. I sold Klein screwdrivers and pliers and side-cutters to the electrical trades for years and never saw one break, so if you see Klein somewhere, it is a good product. Nobody makes better tools for the electrician than Klein.
Craftsman still offers some good products, but their standard wrenches, pliers, and screwdrivers have been cheapened to the point of being visually cheap looking, and lacking in functionality.

Here's another interesting sidenote. I decided to try a cheap set of polished combination wrenches from Harbor frieght, just to carry for on the road, low torque repairs to my truck. I've had that cheap set for almost 10 years, and have totally abused some of the wrenches (5/8, 11/16, 3/4, 15/16, and 1 inch) by putting long square tubing over them for extra torque to break a nut loose, up under the dirty old garbage truck. So far, none of those cheap old chinese wewnches has even acted like it would break. I paid 19.95 for a set of 16. I also tried a set of their cheap ( and they were very chgeap!) impact and deep impact sockets. No detectable signs of wear on any of those, although they are ugly. Food for thought...homeowner use is definitely a consideration, and you can get away with lesser tools. I guess I've been fortunate with the Craftsman stuff. I do stay away from the 12 point sockets, except for the smaller, low torque applications...Learned that one the hard way. Also, most of my Craftsman tools are in excess of 15 years old...one small set is about 10. There may be a problem with newer ones in sizing, but mine aren't that way.