I follow the Adam Savage school of tool buying, if you are not sure you’re going to use the tool a lot buy a cheap one, by the time it finally “dies” you’ll know if it’s worth investing in better quality.
What about non-power tools? I always end up buying Ryobi for power tools and Husky for non-power tools. Those seem to always be the cheapest options whenever I have to buy something.
The best thing about Husky tools is their warranty process. If one breaks, you take it to Home Depot, you show the customer service person, they shrug, you go get one from the shelf, you show the customer service person you’re not screwing them, and then you leave. You are without your tool for about an hour while you make the trip, as Home Depots are abundant, and other tool brands with similar warranties are less so. Die Hard tools from Advanced Auto has similar advantages, however they also tend to be priced higher without a ton of advantages. So, either go Home Depot for the abundance of locations, Harbor Freight for having the cheapest entry into this warranty process, or whatever Home Depot, Advanced Auto, Harbor Freight, or Lowes is closest to you.
The biggest downside of this warranty process is that the tools are made cheap enough to be replaceable (or disposable) from the perspective of Home Depot et al. If you want to avoid this, I recommend the sorts of tools you can get at Grainger. SK is my favorite out of that tier of tools. These are generally about the same quality as tool truck tools, but at a lower cost since you’re not having a representative of the tool company come check once a week if you need any support. The warranty process though will be longer than the tool truck brands as those will usually see you out of hot water in a week, whereas the non-truck professional tools might be in the mail and back to the manufacturer for about a month or so. The mechanic I grew up seeing recommended non-professionals getting a set of tools from Harbor Freight for that they’re very cheap, fine enough, and most homeowners will never use any given hand tool enough to warrant taking it for warranty service. He himself had two sets of tools in his shop. There was the set of Snap-on tools he used day to day, and the set of Craftsman tools he used if the Snap-on tools died so that if the Craftsman tool broke while he was waiting on the Snap-on guy to come fix things up for him, he could just hop in his truck, go to Sears, and get the tool replaced and only ever lose an hour of work.
Finally, and this is what I most recommend, try looking for used professional tools from the “mail it back” warranty brands second hand. These companies generally don’t honor warranties for professionals buying these tools second hand as the warranty originally sold was for the lifetime of the original owner, but most of them are perfectly happy to provide warranty service for whatever random jackass bought an SK ratchet off a Harley-Davidson technician who was retiring. A lot of the time, the people working at that higher end market care more about maintaining brand reputation than they do losing a few nickels and dimes along the way. Further, they will often treat tools they receive back as R&D for what manufacturing flaws were missed along the way, and so a few tools from non-professional users that they can analyze will help them keep selling tools to professional users who will be very unhappy if their tool fails. The brands in this category to look out for are:
SK Tools
Williams
Wright
Wera
Others that I haven’t thought of in a long time
Generally speaking, I do think Wera is a bit overrated, but if you’re in Europe they’re absolutely where I’d send you. The other thing I like about going second hand like this, is that what I don’t like about the cheap tools model of warranty is the wastefulness of not fixing tools. Extracting and refining metal takes resources and creates pollutants. I’d much rather take older tools and fix them
Woa cool, thanks for the tips. Yeah, looking for used professional tools sounds like the way to go. The tools will either be better from the start, or like you say, you can try mailing them back to see if they’ll throw you a bone on the original owner’s warranty.
I run Ryobi for battery tools and Harbor Freight stuff for most of the hand tools. I splurged a bit and went with Tekton for my wrenches. But really, harbor freight stuff has been absolutely fine for me, especially their new higher tier tools like Icon and Quinn.
Same, with one big caveat: I wont use HF for anything safety related. They’ve had recalls on their jackstands. If it can fail while I’m under it, I don’t go HF lol
I had the same reservation until recently. A few weeks back I bought a set of their 6t Daytona jackstands after inspecting the welds and safety pins and those things are damn solid. I probably wouldn’t use their much cheaper and smaller 3t models, but these 6t stands are great. I have a hunch they upped their QC and quality after all that bad jackstands press they got.
Ryobi. It’s the cheapest way to collect tools I use once or twice a year when they go on sale at Home Depot or Direct Tools Outlet.
I follow the Adam Savage school of tool buying, if you are not sure you’re going to use the tool a lot buy a cheap one, by the time it finally “dies” you’ll know if it’s worth investing in better quality.
What about non-power tools? I always end up buying Ryobi for power tools and Husky for non-power tools. Those seem to always be the cheapest options whenever I have to buy something.
The best thing about Husky tools is their warranty process. If one breaks, you take it to Home Depot, you show the customer service person, they shrug, you go get one from the shelf, you show the customer service person you’re not screwing them, and then you leave. You are without your tool for about an hour while you make the trip, as Home Depots are abundant, and other tool brands with similar warranties are less so. Die Hard tools from Advanced Auto has similar advantages, however they also tend to be priced higher without a ton of advantages. So, either go Home Depot for the abundance of locations, Harbor Freight for having the cheapest entry into this warranty process, or whatever Home Depot, Advanced Auto, Harbor Freight, or Lowes is closest to you.
The biggest downside of this warranty process is that the tools are made cheap enough to be replaceable (or disposable) from the perspective of Home Depot et al. If you want to avoid this, I recommend the sorts of tools you can get at Grainger. SK is my favorite out of that tier of tools. These are generally about the same quality as tool truck tools, but at a lower cost since you’re not having a representative of the tool company come check once a week if you need any support. The warranty process though will be longer than the tool truck brands as those will usually see you out of hot water in a week, whereas the non-truck professional tools might be in the mail and back to the manufacturer for about a month or so. The mechanic I grew up seeing recommended non-professionals getting a set of tools from Harbor Freight for that they’re very cheap, fine enough, and most homeowners will never use any given hand tool enough to warrant taking it for warranty service. He himself had two sets of tools in his shop. There was the set of Snap-on tools he used day to day, and the set of Craftsman tools he used if the Snap-on tools died so that if the Craftsman tool broke while he was waiting on the Snap-on guy to come fix things up for him, he could just hop in his truck, go to Sears, and get the tool replaced and only ever lose an hour of work.
Finally, and this is what I most recommend, try looking for used professional tools from the “mail it back” warranty brands second hand. These companies generally don’t honor warranties for professionals buying these tools second hand as the warranty originally sold was for the lifetime of the original owner, but most of them are perfectly happy to provide warranty service for whatever random jackass bought an SK ratchet off a Harley-Davidson technician who was retiring. A lot of the time, the people working at that higher end market care more about maintaining brand reputation than they do losing a few nickels and dimes along the way. Further, they will often treat tools they receive back as R&D for what manufacturing flaws were missed along the way, and so a few tools from non-professional users that they can analyze will help them keep selling tools to professional users who will be very unhappy if their tool fails. The brands in this category to look out for are:
Generally speaking, I do think Wera is a bit overrated, but if you’re in Europe they’re absolutely where I’d send you. The other thing I like about going second hand like this, is that what I don’t like about the cheap tools model of warranty is the wastefulness of not fixing tools. Extracting and refining metal takes resources and creates pollutants. I’d much rather take older tools and fix them
Woa cool, thanks for the tips. Yeah, looking for used professional tools sounds like the way to go. The tools will either be better from the start, or like you say, you can try mailing them back to see if they’ll throw you a bone on the original owner’s warranty.
I run Ryobi for battery tools and Harbor Freight stuff for most of the hand tools. I splurged a bit and went with Tekton for my wrenches. But really, harbor freight stuff has been absolutely fine for me, especially their new higher tier tools like Icon and Quinn.
Same, with one big caveat: I wont use HF for anything safety related. They’ve had recalls on their jackstands. If it can fail while I’m under it, I don’t go HF lol
I had the same reservation until recently. A few weeks back I bought a set of their 6t Daytona jackstands after inspecting the welds and safety pins and those things are damn solid. I probably wouldn’t use their much cheaper and smaller 3t models, but these 6t stands are great. I have a hunch they upped their QC and quality after all that bad jackstands press they got.
Good to know! It’s going to take me a while to trust them, but I’m glad they’re moving in the right direction!
I picked Ryobi for my 18V battery lock-in, and tend to get Harbor Freight for everything else. (That may also include corded power tools.)