We all know the importance of a good tool, however most of us are also living on a budget and can’t afford Snapon everything, this is where the greatest bargain bin of tools comes in.
Some items I’ve bought there in the past have worked fine for years and have never shown an issues, others were barely worth the gas cost of the trip to the store.
However you never know whether the tool will be decent is junk until you buy it and try it.
A couple things to keep in mind:
If you have to fix it before it works, it’s an automatic FAIL.
This thread is for identifying quality HF tools, and for warning fellow tool-heads away from low quality HF tools. It’s NOT a thread for rejoicing about low cost.
Don’t review tools until you’ve used them awhile. Posting self-congratulatory praise immediately after your purchase is not helpful. Use the tool awhile, then post.
Please post a product number or photo if possible.
I bought this guy about a year ago.
With the coupon and sale it came to $80. Only rated to 800 watts and it’s two stroke.
With that said, it’s easy to over power and trip but if you only use it for one dedicated item at a time and don’t over do it it’s been working fine. Very light, average volume and definitely needs to be outside due to light smoke at startup and the general nature of a 2 stroke engine.
Lasted a year, a few bolts needed to be tightened up as they came lose due to vibration but overall I’ll give it a pass.
i have a 2 ton engine hoist and it works great, i have used it a bunch of times in the past few months since i bought it.
I also have the car wheel roller dollies and they work good on my concrete floor for my ~1600lb car.
i also have 3 ton jack stands i’ve used a lot over the past year+ and they work great. i currently trust them to holding up my s2k all winter.
Also have a 2 ton aluminum jack, at 200bucks it was half the price of a craftsman and it works great, i’ve had it for a year with no complaints.
Just recently i bought a 3/4" drive and socket set for something like 50-60 bucks. all i needed was a 36mm 1/2 drive socket and craftmans was like 50 bucks and a wait to have it shipped so i bought a huge set from harbor freight. it worked great for axle nuts which is what i needed it for
I’ll be getting a 20ton press and a sandblasting cabinet very soon
Grabbed this on sale last year for something like $12. I’ve used it to do wheel bearings, balljoints, and other suspension work, as well as brought it to the baja shop at school because people were using all the 3/8" ratchets.
Honestly it has been great. The extendable mechanism feels a little flimsy in some positions, but on the whole its taken a good beating. Using it as a breaker bar would not be advisable, but you can break expensive ratchets that way too.
It has a 72 tooth wheel inside, so the clicks are a lot finer so you don’t need to swing the wrench as far to get to the next click. The extendable handle is great in tight spaces, or to let you set it longer to break something loose easily, then shorten it to remove it faster.
Having 3/8 and 1/4 inch drive on the same ratchet is handy, although if I were to buy another one I’d probably just get only. You also need to watch out for the direction lever when using it in 1/4in drive mode, because it is easy to accidently switch it.
Worth $12? Absolutely, its been a good tool, has a warranty if I break it (which doesn’t seem likely to happen), and it is more comfortable to use with a finer tooth count than the craftsman I was using before. Set of breaker bars (which HF also sells), and one or two of these, and I see no need for shelling out for snap on.
The trick is avoiding the ratchets that they include with the sets of sockets. Those are generally shit, and I’ve broken a ton of them.
good thread. HF certainly has it’s place and any shop that says their stuff is all junk has their head up their ass…
Their 6 ton jack stands are the best stands I have ever used. I have 6 or 7 pairs of them here. They are heavy and have a very wide footprint for stability. By far the best thing I’ve ever purchased from HF.
Their 3 ton jacks…aside from my very low pro long reach ones for the pcars…FUCK all other jack companies. Have yet to find a jack that continues to work like these for anywhere even remotely close to the cost of them. For ~$80 you cannot go wrong. i’ve had one of them for almost four years now and it’s still going. In that same amount of time, with the same amount of abuse I put them through, you would have replaced your Sears or NAPA brand jack many times over.
Drivetrain support bar(it’s actually JVG’s but since I do all his car work I’m considering it mine :lol). Nice when holding up a motor during a clutch change. Easily adjustable to suit just about any engine bay width and fender angle and works perfect for the job intended. I use it every time I do a FWD clutch change on a car, especially those damn Evo’s which are the worst clutch change job every IMO…
I haven’t bought any tools from HF, and my trailer is extensively modified so I’m not going to count that.
But I will add this, and I may be wrong, there’s just certain things that’d be very hard to screw up to the point of not working, like the jack stands or anything else that’s simply a piece of metal and some bolts. I’d say any of their electrical or hydraulic stuff is more impressive if it works, like Adam’s jack for example.
lol. completely agree though. i try to stick to the big metal tools that are literally the same thing you’d buy anywhere else and half the cost. i wouldn’t trust anything electric from them, although now that i think of it, i do have a heat gun i got for 8 bucks and that works awesome.
I bought numerous things from there over the years.
Good
Eng hoist (had 4+ years and still going good)
jack stands
moving dollies
Impact sockets (Get used daily on buses and havent broken one yet!)
Fiberglass hammers
org/green screw driver set w/ magnetic tips
Electric grinders (hard to screw up, had 2 for years now)
heat guns (work great til you drop them)
Paint gun (worked great for little stuff)
Newest steel 2.5 ton jack works awesome!
Bad
1/2’’ Breaker bar (snapped the tip right off)
Air cut off wheel (never stops spinning, still use able tho)
Punch set (bends and breaks)
cordless drill batteries dont last
I bought a set of socket adapters there a few months ago. Used the 1/2" to 3/8" adapter once and it broke. Junk.
Ive got a 2.5 or 3 ton jack I bought a few years ago and it works fine. I spent around $60 on it. Money better spent than spending $60+ on repairing the Lincoln jack thats in my shed with bad seals, especially after spending $75 to fix it a few years before.
pass:
3 ton jack stands
impact sockets
1/2, 3/8, and 1/4 socket adapters worked good
puller thing
3 ton low pro jack, last about 2-3 years the start leaking so i go and exchange for a new one LOL
engine hoist
engine stand
allen sockets
fail
electric impact gun
multi purpose dremel tool
snap ring tool
overall most of the shit is pretty good but but can be hit or miss on some shit like electrical
I bought the 1/2 and 3/8ths drive swivle impact sockets and they are some of my most used tools on a daily basis and ive had them for 5 year and i have never broke one. The collar on them that holds the swivle pin in is held on by a rubber oring which will break eventuall, but after that i just wrap it in a bit of electrical tape works like a charm. Do yourself a favor and buy them. You wont regret it.
Bought this just to keep as an emergency pump in the car. TOTAL waste of money. Let it run for about 10 minutes on a 14" tire and wouldn’t put over 10 pounds in the tire. Pump got so hot it felt like it was going to melt.
Bought this the same day as the air pump. Plugged it into my car to test it and popped the lighter fuse within 30 seconds. Changed the fuse and tried again, same results. Not impressed.
I’ve got one of these. Bought it on sale for like $60, its been pretty much awesome, decently low to get under my dumped out accord, and its outlasted a few other floor jacks.
Also decently light, and it breaks down pretty quick to stuff into a car trunk.
That jack will kill you. I had one and the seal popped when I was cranking it up and it fell down, luckily I wasnt under the car at the time. My NAPA one is about 10000 times better even if it was 3x as much money.
I bought a spring compressor from them once and while compressing a front coil spring on my Jeep it sheared in half and went flying, I could have lost my hand.
And I had one of their c-clamps crack in half, the really big one mind you just from lightly compressing a brake caliper. I welded it back together and then a few weeks later it broke again.
Somebody at school bought a harbor freight multimeter, it started on fire. I dont know the whole story but it actually burst into flames. The HVCC auto shop teachers wouldn’t let anyone use the HF meters anymore after that.
Actually the only thing I have ever bought from them that didnt break immediately or try to kill me was their air sander, that actually still works. I refuse to purchase anything there anymore as I have almost been seriously injured by their shit twice now and have seen other people have the same thing happen to them. It isnt worth saving 20 bucks if you have to put yourself in danger.
$50 total out the door. I just clamp the die grinder in the vice on the metal bearing case part (grey) that bolts to the plastic housing. Doesnt go anywhere and doesnt bind anything inside that way. The diamond wheel has ground 30+ tunsgstens and still looks mint and works perfectly.
I want to make a clamp on adapter to guide the tungstens in to the cuting wheel at specific angles to make it even easier to use and more accurate.
