They're also a US-based company employing tens of thousands of Americans (over 20K - roughly 3X what Milwaukee Tools does.) and appears to offer excellent pay, medical and other benefits to all of those employees (even part-time).Earlier this year, media outlets, us included, put out a warning about Harbor Freight jack stands that could collapse under the weight of vehicles they’re designed to suspend with ease. People seem to love to hate HF, but other than being the easy target for a bunch of anti-China hate (by a lot of people who should probably wander around their house looking at their own purchase choices before they start screaming) what I see is a company that genuinely tries to offer value-for-money and good customer service. but there's clearly an intention to offer a good/better/best option when it comes to a lot of tools. I still wouldn't buy any of their battery powered stuff because I don't trust them to have the batteries in five years, etc. And I was really surprised at the quality of what I could get at HF (in terms of hand-tools and things like jacks/jack stands), especially for the money. A few years ago a lot of those tools were beginning to struggle to keep up with everything I was doing on the five cars in the family that I try to do most of the maintenance on. There was at least a ten-year period where I didn't go to HF because I wanted tools that would last. Yeah there's still some cheap crap, but it's dwarfed by a lot of value and in some cases some genuinely excellent tools. I remember the HF of thirty years ago where the whole place smelled like a plastic factory and almost everything there was disposable, but I'd argue that's not the HF of today. (which were generally more expensive for what was in many cases the same stand with different paint/stickers). In a lot of cases they seemed to be above-average vs. It wasn't a big sample, but the HF stands I've looked at were all very cleanly made and all functioned as safely as the user was able to use them (a lot of people are dangerously casual with putting their vehicle on stands IMHO). Esco and a few others make a really high-quality stand, but for the most part consumer stands are kinda what they are. I've looked at a LOT of jackstands since this all came out. I've heard people snicker about the fact they took a set of stands in they knew weren't from HF but were so battered and oversprayed that you couldn't tell for sure. They didn't require any any receipts for any of that. Then they broadened the action even farther, due purely to concerns and not any actual issues with the products. HF didn't screw around, they simply took fast and broad action. I guess my point is this: It was a seriously bad flaw. They took them back without a blink, which was long after the recall was announced.Īnd what statements or actions have happened from the other guys using the exact same factory during that time? ( crickets)
#JACK STANDS HARBOR FREIGHT REVIEW FULL#
but since I had the ProLift set and then decided to give myself the present of a QuickJack for my 50th b-day, I returned the HF stands for credit toward the Full Bank cart I got (and love). I kept the stands for a long while after - it was handy to have them when I dropped the subframe on my Mini, etc. Comparing the center columns showed me that my HF stands were clearly not part of the bad production run. What's funny was the welds on the HF stands were cleaner than the ProLift stands. When I got them and unboxed them, they were literally identical other than the pin. I immediately bought a well-reviewed set of ProLift stands that had the safety pin (same as you see on the new Daytona stands). What did other companies who used the exact same factory for their jack stands do? ( crickets) And when they saw how worried people were, they opened the recall to any of their jack stands - including old ones that never had any problems.
HF doesn't put production codes on their products that would have allowed them to recall just stands within a certain range, so they took back anything with the part number, which had been used for years. I'm not saying bad copies didn't exist, I'm saying it was an escape from the factory that lasted a short amount of time. Correct - that's what I mean by 'center column'
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