Best approach to buying tools?

justinp61 said

Most of my stuff is older craftsman although about all of my impact sockets come from HF. The last set of craftsman wrenches I bought was about three years ago were made in china. If I'm going to buy china made tools I'm going to pay china made prices, not sears.

Click to expand...

Exactly my thoughts. I'm not going to pay double to have my floor jack painted black with a Craftsman sticker when it's the same exact jack, from the same factory, as the orange one at HF for half as much. Yes, I'd rather buy American made. But I'm not going to buy junk and pay more for it just because it says Craftsman on it.

Even the US made Craftsman stuff isn't that good anymore. I stripped the gearing in a US made, "professional series" craftsman ratchet. Only ratchet I've ever stripped like that, and I've used a lot of tools. The action of the ratchet mechanism on the replacement they gave me felt like crap right from the store. It works ok, but it doesn't feel like a quality piece. I've been beating on a set of HF "Pittsburgh" ratchets for a few years now, they're the ones I take to the salvage yards. They get thrown in the dirt, bang around in my car, and used on the nasty, rusty junk at the salvage yard. Never had an issue, the ratchet mechanisms still work great. And that's not even trying to take care of them, just figuring they're "cheap" throw away tools. And now they have a "no questions asked" return policy. How times have changed.