I never had problems with sears and exchanging broken tools until a few years before sears went defunct, then they made it hell.
But over the years I definitely had to replace sears tools much more frequently than I did the tool truck ones.
We did in-store repair and rentavation. So knew all the store managers, department heads and assistant managers.
Was always offered discounts on everything the store sold. So when someone came in and received a refund the old one was marked down. Or if someone stole a socket / wrench out a set sold at discount.
Employees got 1st dibs.
And if working in store over night ( locked in ) if we needed something we took it used it and was marked in store use. At end of one rentavation had a pile of stuff. Display manger asked did these guys steal anything? Managers said nope never ever we have them on cameras. If they took and used a toll, they gave us it back and the tag to get taken out of inventory.
Lots of others stole small stuff
He told me take this stuff we marked it down to a dollar and do not use this kind of tools in the store for regular maintenance or smaller repair.
Give me a dollar and tax. And rang it all up.
Working in store during the day I was surprised at theft rate.
Most would steal, and return for store credit and sell the credit. Or even had theft rings who stole lots of smaller sized stuff that cost alot.
We had a retired cop who was in charge named Earl. A little old lady c ok comes in. She has big bag and is filling it full of hand tools. He walks up to bust her.
But Granny Clampet beats the crap out of him with said bag o tools.
It was later funny to watch on the video.
He was beat so bad had to go to ER. He later watched and laughed at how bad the little old lady kicked his ***.
If was funny. The cops that showed up even said wow she really kicked his ***. But was saying I am just a little old lady lol