Quality of Harbor Freight and Chicago Electric tools

[Stormin Mormon]

I'v e had reasonable results with their Drill Master cordless drills. However, their Pittsburgh flare wrenches were worse than useless.

[Stormin Mormon]

I had an order come up short one item. Called them on the phone, and they shipped the missing item promptly.

Have you called them about warranty return?

[anoldfart2]

Harbor Freight sells JUNK and ONLY JUNK. Send the thing back and demand a refund. Be prepared to get a credit slip and no refund. I think we have all been suckered into buying from HF and we all learned the hard way.

[Jim Yanik]

"Stormin Mormon" wrote in news:c7D5f.69656$ [e-mail]:

The jigsaw I bought,a HF clone of a Bosch 1581,is a great tool. Got it for $59USD.+ shipping.(on sale)

[George E. Cawthon]

I don't have the Chicago Electric drills but I have 2 12Volt Drill Master which I suppose are made by the same manufacturer. Had them for over a year and they perform just fine for occasional use. I watch carefully that I don't over charge them. I have friends that have higher power Harbor Freight drills (don't know if they are Chicago Electric or Drill Master) and they don't have a problem.

After endless charging? Sure you didn't fry the batteries? Mine say charge 5-6 hours maximum.

Real Name wrote:

[jtnospam]

I know a contractor that agrees that HF tools have, well, problems, but he supplies his crew with them anyway because so many of his tools get stolen by them. He says they are less inclined to steal crappy tools than good ones and if they do it is no big loss.-Jitney

[louie]

You do get what you pay for, as others have pointed out it may be enough for the occasional use. In my case, I needed to cut a cast-iron septic pipe and didn't have a sawzall at the time. So I paid the $30 or so for the cheap-o version and used it with the thought of: "if it falls in, I'll just leave it there - no need to go 'fishing'". It worked for that job, and a few others and finally the gearbox seized up while doing some demolition work on an old deck.

[krw]

I've bought quite a few things from HF. Some are junk (18V cordless drill at a dollar a volt), some are quite reasonable - box-of-chocolates sort of thing. A 36-pack of disposable paint brushes for $6 was a pretty good deal, as were the $2 multi-meters (so I can loan them out; never to return, instead of my Flukes ;-).

I recently bought their 10" Sliding Compound Miter Saw. While it's no Hitachi, it is actually pretty good, at 1/5 the price. I cut some molding with it and the miters are dead on. For $100 I was quite impressed.

[3rd eye]

Along the same line, I bought a chicago freight 1/2 inch drill. With less than an hour of use the switch quit in the forward direction. It would run only in reverse. So I took it apart & rewired it to run forward. Nice thing about it was I could leave it on a job & no one would steal it. Lasted about 4 months after it finally quit.

I'll need to get a couple of years out of my new dewalt to get the same $ value before it disappears.