Harbor Freight Reviews

I think you have to witness it first hand then -
referring back to when a friend of mine bought a BRAND NEW C-Clamp to just push back the rear caliper to change out his pads the damn thing DID NOT even get that pusher for the pad to budge. just ended up breaking it where the upper "C" portion is. imo, a VERY simple task, yet was not completed due to this POS.

 

Ive gotten normal hand tools there and they all work fine. I went in one day when they were clearning out all their mag light stuff and I got a 3D cell LED mag light for 22 bucks.

I bought one of their "dremmel" type tools and it was a piece of junk!

 

You sure the calipers weren't the kind where you have to twist the piston? A lot of rear brake calipers are like that.

A caliper piston should push back in with relatively little force. Unless it's a twist type which won't budge no matter what tool you use unless you spin it.

 

I have a set of those snap ring pliers. I don't use them often but for $8 for the set it's nice to have an assortment of different sizes when i do need them.

I also have that same tranny jack. It works great. I have used it for quite a few clutch jobs and transmission swaps.

 

Anyone had experience with the corded 1/2" Impact Wrench? For as often as I'd use it, I might just grab one...

 

I have one. Had it for three plus years. It works great the only thing that doesn't work on mine anymore is the retainer clip for the impact sockets.

 

There is a similar topic here: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27192&highlight=Pass with over 3500 replies. Just in case that there is a Harbor Freight product that you thinking abut buying, but haven't seen a review posted here.

Ray

 

My smittybuilt one is made from a solid piece of steel with a good heavy d ring. The hf one is made from square tubing with two small pieces welded to the end to hold the much weaker looking ring on. Got my smittybuilt receiver hitch from autozone for around 15 bucks. Btw have some good parts from hf 6 ton jacks stands, 2 different 1/2" breaker bars and the 1/2" torque wrench, 1/2" sockets. Like them all.

 

From my experiences.....it will not work with the Ball Joint Press when removing or installing new Ball Joints on your 2 Gen Tacoma.....but then again neither did my $300 1/2 inch Craftsman. I had to use a breaker bar and lots of man strength.

A lot of their stuff is good and some of it is crap. You just have to navigate through all the junk and you'll find some gems......I scored a 2.5 ton low profile orange jack on sale for $50 that has been a life saver, especially during my BJ install. And all of their air impact sockets (Pittsburg) and 1/2 inch 150ft lbs torque (paid $10) has been money! 125 PSI 8 Gallon Air Compressor stopped working after a week, just took it back and got my money.

I buy a lot of useful stuff there like tarps when they are on sale and small stuff for projects. IMO it's a great store that is budget friendly.

 

That 100 piece bit set is the shit! I have one. Steer clear of the high spd. power tools like the hand held grinder. Mine worked for 2 hours and took a dump. Jack stands???????
You get under the Taco!

 

has anyone tried out their sawhorses?

 

Yeah, I have some of their cheap plastic ones below. They work fine. I've had them for a while. Very lightweight.

 

I've bought hand tools and NO issues, cordless drill and love it. 2 torque wrenches for working on the Harley and no issues with a lifetime warranty on them. LOVE Harbor Freight and Lowes.

 

1/2" torque wrench on sale right now for $9.99

 

I have a flux core mig welder my dad bought about 8 years ago it still works great but has only been through about 10 rolls of wire in that time. It works really good on heavier stuff, but for thin metal like exhaust tubing you can't turn it down low enough to not burn through the metal. the welder only has a high and low setting for the arc and 10 speed settings for the wire feed. I think I've seen them on sale lately for about $100 and for my uses I'd say its worth it

 

As many have said, some of their stuff is fine and some of it is pure shogdit. I'll buy hand tools, tarps, etc, but not power tools from them. I've seen far too many of their air tools literally fly apart after a couple hours of use. Too dangerous to risk. I did pick up a set of LED taillights for my trailer there last year and they're good to go so far.

 

I just bought a hand held spot light for storage lockers and it needs recharging every 4 minutes! It's going back. I found a lot better one at Tractor supply. Locker auctions are a trip.

 

I bought one of their oscillating tools a few months back for $20 on sale. Man that thing is awesome. I have definitely gotten my moneys worth for sure. I used it last week when I was laying new floors in my house. I used it to cut all of my door jambs, baseboards, and some of the flooring cuts when I didn't feel like fetching the jigsaw. I also used the scraper blade attachment to scrape up 70sq ft of glue from old glue down hardwoodsI pulled up in my foyer. It also worked well scraping up the sheet vinyl floor that was glued down in my kitchen (Only glued around the perimeter thankfully).

It was also helpful when I had to cut a PVC sink drain that was in a tight spot that I couldn't get my PVC shears or my recip saw into.

 

bought this one long time ago when it was on sale, still using the blade that came with it (wood blade only) and I have already cut metal (cut an old set of u-bolts from a 4" block kit to fit a 1" blocks), and bunch of old wood planks in the back (doing that again today). Only problem I have had with it was the blade guard coming off but it's held in by 2 screws which you can tighten again, but so far it's only come off on me once or twice back in the day when I was cutting off some lemon tree branches.