The Good, The Bad and Ugly from Harbor Freight

[ole dollor]

sinister: try taking the spray nosiel off the gun and see if there is a small o'ring on the needle behind the spray nosiel, if so take the o'ring off and throw the o'ring away, not the paint gun...dont ask me how i know this...its a secret....

[ole dollor]

All i can say is everyone be real careful going to Harbor freight: you may not know this but "it is addictive", and as of this date and time their is no cure. and no you can never take enough money with you....be careful...

I know first hand

[BarryB]

Originally Posted by ole dollor

All i can say is everyone be real careful going to Harbor freight: you may not know this but "it is addictive", and as of this date and time their is no cure. and no you can never take enough money with you....be careful...

I know first hand

isn't that the truth! When the HF store first opened up here. I got accused of knowing how many tiles were on the floors. Yes I visited there a lot. I've bought several tools from there. I like being able to go to the store and actually look at the stuff before you buy it. When you could only order from their catalog it was a guessing game what you were getting.
I have the 220v 151 dual mig welder. I built my little utility trailer with it. only problem I have with it, is the duty cycle is lower than I normally like.

[Allensracing]

my apologies for the political, and I did post the tools that have served me well from harbor freight

[swampfox]

The good ,3/4 in drive socket sets I have standard and metric.I have used them on a impact without problem.
The bad the ratchets that come in the set . About all they are good for is to take up space.

[cableguy0]

I was just saying we have to be careful about the politics because in the end thats what it all comes down to but for obvious reasons its as bad a topic on an internet forum as it is a bar full of strangers.

[orbot]

Ive bought hand tools, wire terminals, tape, tarps, caster wheels, angle finders and everything has been good. besides lifetime warranty on hand tools id preffer them instead of crapsman anyday.
The only bad thing ive bought was a damn mallet it came loose at the first strike.

[stevieB]

I love em,

90 amp flux core wire feed 4 tears and still running strong not bad for 80 bucks!

vertical belt sander 5 years still running strong 70 bucks,

7 dollar air chisel, 3 years its good to go.

1/2 earthquake impact and 3/8 air ratchet. the BOMB!

HVLP purple paint gun, Works great.

3/8 torque wrench. good

I havent really had anything bad from there and being a weekend warrior doing few paint jobs in my life or doing that many ball joints it very impracticle to buy a really expensive name brand tool.

Just an FYI not everything from HF is made in asia, there is alot of stuff made in the USA there.

[t&tkennels]

good: grinder. impact sockets. da sander (has had the crap beat out of it),sawzall (havent used it much)air cut off tool. so-so : flux core welder. bad : grinding wheels, test lite, knockoff vice grips. i think for the weekend mechanic its hard to beat harbor frieght.

[Fixwhataintbroke]

Good: Well for me all Pittsburgh brand handtools (pliers, sockets, channel locks, wire snippers, etc.) are doing great, the ratchets are arguable but with a little shake they still do the job. Over the past 10 years i've had them ive put quite a bit of abuse into them and surprisingly they still work.

The bad: cut-off wheels....

[NONHOG]

Every electrical powered tool I've used from them is weak at best. That being said they are still usable. Had a belt/disc combo sander that is very poor quality and told myself when it dies I upgrade. problem is it won't die.

Bought wobbly extensions and took them back after seeing them out of the box.

The new wrenches, work great (so far) I do question the strength.

Snap ring pliers (bought years ago) were total crap. Rolled them up in a ball
with only my hands they were that soft.

[dfwright]

They are great for buying one-time or rarely used items. I'm happy with the bearing race/seal driver set I got there.

I don't buy anything with an electric motor from them, and I've had bad results from consumables like cutting blades/etc. so I don't buy those anymore.

Some things are unbeatable though. When they have their full-face protectors on sale for $2.99 I usually get an armload. When they get scratched up, I use another. They have multimeters for $3.99 -- cheaper than you can replace the batteries. I have several of these stored all over.

Their prices on casters and wheels are unbeatable, and I haven't had trouble with any I've bought so far.

I also have a sandblast cabinet, and a pressurized sandblaster and am happy with both.

[jbgroby]

Good:
Stud Welder/Dent puller system

Bad
Wheel Dolly's bb baring casters fell apart, will replace wheels

[Stano]

I have bought several items from HF and been pleased with the performance. I do collision repair and use several of their hand tools and sockets on a daily basis. I turned to them when I kept breaking my snap on ratchets regularly and sockets splitting. I have had no prob with their sockets at all, since I have went with Kobalt and Stanley ratchets they are cheap and decent for daily use. Besides our local snap on dealer is always on hold with snap on corporate because no one around here can afford to pay him lately and if i need something I have to wait 3-6 months for him to be able to order it. Just bought new snap on creeper 4 months ago and its split in half. I cant afford to keep buying snap on tools or having them rebuilt for that matter. Cost me $135 to get my $380 Snap on 3/8 air ratchet redone and it still isnt right. Thats rediculous. So I will use tools I can afford to put food on the table for my kids and keep a light on and a roof over our heads.

[Bus Ted Knuckle]

I bought a 4inch angle grinder and got exactly 5 minutes of use out of it.

[ryans69chevy]

Originally Posted by Bus Ted Knuckle

I bought a 4inch angle grinder and got exactly 5 minutes of use out of it.

Wow you got pretty lucky. I bought a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder, I don't think I got 2 min with it.

[68GMCCustom]

Originally Posted by ryans69chevy

Wow you got pretty lucky. I bought a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder, I don't think I got 2 min with it.

I think I did a little better with mine...but not much.

[Shane]

I've got 4 of the 4 inch grinders that have been going strong for over 5 years.

[blitz'd]

Originally Posted by Shane

I've got 4 of the 4 inch grinders that have been going strong for over 5 years.

Ive had one of those angle grinders for almost 10 years now and its still running great. The handle broke off of it several years ago so I bought a Northern Tool brand which went out after about a year. Made a new handle for the harbor freight model and started using it again.

Ive built 5 cars with that thing, no telling how many hours of run time it has. Im thinking about buying another one also, one for cutting and one for grinding.

[blitz'd]

One item to avoid is thier air powered trim nailer, it jammed on me last weekend several times and screwed up some expensive trim when it miss fired a few times. It met my mini sledge to it after about 2 hours of messing with it. I could have returned it but at that point it was worth the $29 to relieve my frustrations on it. LOL.

[hjewell2]

Originally Posted by blitz'd

One item to avoid is thier air powered trim nailer, it jammed on me last weekend several times and screwed up some expensive trim when it miss fired a few times. It met my mini sledge to it after about 2 hours of messing with it. I could have returned it but at that point it was worth the $29 to relieve my frustrations on it. LOL.

Hey I did the same thing with a weed whacker made by Brand name TORO from HF.
I had it about 7 yrs it ran great but the spool was a piece of ####.Anyway one day in a hurry and very hot outside it tried to use it, of course spool messed up. The guy next door was laughing so hard my wife was in tears. I smashed the s*** out of it right in the front yard. oh we still laugh to this day about it. The guy next door said he would never ever get me mad after watching that episode, of course he steers clear from the barn out back at times also.

[VA72C10]

Weird. Seems hit or miss....I have two grinders I got for 9.99 on sales and they're both over 2yrs old with no issues.

If you have an issue with one take it back and get a new one...

[Lugnut64052]

Originally Posted by VA72C10

Weird. Seems hit or miss....I have two grinders I got for 9.99 on sales and they're both over 2yrs old with no issues.

They change suppliers all the time. I'm guessing this has something to do with the hot and cold quality on some stuff.

I have a whole lot of Snap-On too, most of which is 20+ years old. I'm constantly amazed at special tools you can get nowadays for 1/10th the price I paid for stuff back then. Not just at Harbor Freight either; auto parts stores, etc, all have cheap stuff anymore.


The Good:
3-packs of welding gloves- They're pretty nice.
Auto-darkening welding helmet- I've used mine a lot and it works great.
2-inch pipe cutter- Haven't used it a WHOLE lot, but seems to work fine.
Welding magnets- Nothing to go wrong with them.

The So-so:
5-inch air sander- Works pretty good but is uncomfortable in my hand. My old Ingersol that I finally wore clear out was much more comfortable to hold.
Wrenches- One ear broke off the open end of a 9/16th wrench. Had a huge occlusion in it.
Sockets- They work okay, but the etching on them is worse than useless. Might as well not be there.

The Pathetic:
Zip ties. I broke the first four or five in a row just cinching them down.

[sixtyeightchevykid]

does anyone have experiance with the welders, im mostly interested in the tig welder(i dont remember much about it but right now its 429 bucks). i have been looking for one kinda cheap but still useful, any input would be helpful thanks

[sixtyeightchevykid]

http://www.harborfreight.com/tig-mma...:referralID=NA thats the link for the tig welder i am asking about...