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This video has a longer title: Craftsman vs Craftsman Professional vs Harbor Freight vs Matco vs Mac vs Snap-on
It’s too long for the forum so I’m including it here.
So these are my opinions on these tools that I’ve used for years. Please keep in mind that these are my opinions. Also, be sure to consider use. The DIYer won’t use their tools in the same way a professional would and therefore the ROI is different for both parties.
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Really glad you did this video Eric, just last week we were having a forum discussion on the matter. Thank you!
Great video comparison, indeed. That one type of Crapsman wrench with the raised section I will not even have in my box, or near it. I value my hands. Got the ergomics of a broken piece of wood. The Harbor Freight Spread Jaw combinations are good for jamming on with a pipe, or welding on to make something, ect. I think Eric should do a comparison on Ratchets. I have Sk and Snap on, and they are nice. Crapsman ratchets on the other hand, are horrible, simply a nightmare. I have some really old ones that have really coarse teeth and a wheel to spin the fastener on the back. What a joke. The new crapsman ratchets are out of this world bad. Best way to review that ratchet is by throwing it away. I don’t have any mac or matco ratchets but I am sure they are decent. Harbor Freight ratchets, never owned one, and have saved my knuckles because of it. I think the best way to get a Crapsman tool to work well is heat the shaft of the tool it until its cherry red and then use a 3 foot cheater on it. Get it out of it’s misery.
[quote=”andrewbutton442″ post=124263]Great video comparison, indeed. That one type of Crapsman wrench with the raised section I will not even have in my box, or near it. I value my hands. Got the ergomics of a broken piece of wood. The Harbor Freight Spread Jaw combinations are good for jamming on with a pipe, or welding on to make something, ect. I think Eric should do a comparison on Ratchets. I have Sk and Snap on, and they are nice. Crapsman ratchets on the other hand, are horrible, simply a nightmare. I have some really old ones that have really coarse teeth and a wheel to spin the fastener on the back. What a joke. The new crapsman ratchets are out of this world bad. Best way to review that ratchet is by throwing it away. I don\’t have any mac or matco ratchets but I am sure they are decent. Harbor Freight ratchets, never owned one, and have saved my knuckles because of it. I think the best way to get a Crapsman tool to work well is heat the shaft of the tool it until its cherry red and then use a 3 foot cheater on it. Get it out of it\’s misery.[/quote] Oh cmon craftsman ain’t that bad lol. It’s served me in the field well at least. Mine are made in the USA though, now they make alot of their stuff overseas. I’ve beat the living hell out of my craftsman rachets *knock on wood*
You know, many moons ago, I would take a hammer and ram the hell out of a sears or wards powercraft wrench in a heartbeat when that need arose. Remeber Balkamp tools, from Napa, had alot of that stuff early on. Good quality but generally yucky stuff. NEVER would I beat on my snapon stuff now though, you have a point there. The craftsman stuff I have is many decades old, but the only thing I have now is from Sears now is a couple ratchets, the polished ones, and they are junk. I think somebody gave some of those sears ratchets with the sand finish and raised sections, but they went in my steel pile. I like the Snap-on ratchets with the hard comfort handles, although my dual 80s are polished handles. I don’t really like tools with rubber handles. About 15 years ago I bought a set of Matco Screwdrivers that were lime green rubber with grey felt inserts, and they become impossible to clean about the second job. The Matco guy said to wipe them down with simple green, and of course this removed the writing, so I said no more like that.
Hi Eric, great video. How do you feel about Napa’s line of Carlyle tools? I’ve used a few of them before and they all feel extremely solid. In fact, I have a set of Autocraft flare nut wrenches. I’ve used the 10mm wrench maybe a little over a dozen times and it just feels like it’s been stretched out and doesn’t fit as tightly as it used to. I went and bought the Carlyle 10mm and 12mm flare nut wrench and that one tool itself cost more than the three piece Autocraft set. It seems to be made of much higher quality metal and has a chrome finish to it instead of the non finished finish on it like the basic Craftsman tools. I do mostly my own work and other peoples cars only if they ask me and only if it’s something I know I can do. Otherwise, I’m willing to learn.
Another thing, I’ve noticed you really love that famous soda bottle bleeder. If you don’t mind, can I buy and send to you a one man bleeder and maybe you can hopefully do a tool review video on that? I just purchased one for myself but haven’t had the chance to use it yet. I may bleed out my clutch fluid just to try it out and see how well it works. It’s basically a tube that goes into a check valve and out to another tube. I’m willing to pay for the cost of the tool and shipping to you so you can show people an easy way to bleed brakes/clutch hydraulics. It’s the least I can do. You have no idea how much you’ve helped me understand how to repair, diagnose and appreciate cars. I really appreciate it. Thank you!
My opinion on the Caryle tools, for whatever it’s worth is this. Almost as nice as tool truck stuff, but also just about as costly. I wouldn’t want to dump that much money on wrenches as they want and still get laughed at by others in the shop because they were not from a truck. Not that I have the problem where I am at, but its a reality. I would have like to have seen Eric compare a Carlyle wrench against the snap-on, in a bolt rounding contest. I am sure the Carlyle would absolutley destroy the Crapsman, but against the others, I would like to see.
I’ve used several Carlyle tools before and they blow the Craftsman out of the water. They just feel much better in my hand and feel much more solid. I can’t even count how many Craftsman ratchets I’ve rounded the mechanisms on. I’m not even that hard on them. Pretty convinced they’re plastic inside. I don’t take hammers or mallets on them. My favorite ratchet is a GearWrench 3/8″ flex head with a long handle. I paid about $30 for that and it hasn’t failed me yet. I think it’s fair to say it’s been quite abused and still works flawlessly. I also have the Gearwrench 6 point shallow and deep socket sets. So far, they’ve held up extremely well and I’m impressed with the quality. Ever since the day I broke 3 brand new Craftsman wrenches, I don’t think I would buy another one. Either that or it was manufactured incorrectly.
[quote=”seant117″ post=124281]Hi Eric, great video. How do you feel about Napa\’s line of Carlyle tools? I\’ve used a few of them before and they all feel extremely solid. In fact, I have a set of Autocraft flare nut wrenches. I\’ve used the 10mm wrench maybe a little over a dozen times and it just feels like it\’s been stretched out and doesn\’t fit as tightly as it used to. I went and bought the Carlyle 10mm and 12mm flare nut wrench and that one tool itself cost more than the three piece Autocraft set. It seems to be made of much higher quality metal and has a chrome finish to it instead of the non finished finish on it like the basic Craftsman tools. I do mostly my own work and other peoples cars only if they ask me and only if it\’s something I know I can do. Otherwise, I\’m willing to learn.
Another thing, I\’ve noticed you really love that famous soda bottle bleeder. If you don\’t mind, can I buy and send to you a one man bleeder and maybe you can hopefully do a tool review video on that? I just purchased one for myself but haven\’t had the chance to use it yet. I may bleed out my clutch fluid just to try it out and see how well it works. It\’s basically a tube that goes into a check valve and out to another tube. I\’m willing to pay for the cost of the tool and shipping to you so you can show people an easy way to bleed brakes/clutch hydraulics. It\’s the least I can do. You have no idea how much you\’ve helped me understand how to repair, diagnose and appreciate cars. I really appreciate it. Thank you![/quote]
I haven’t used NAPA’s tools so I really can’t comment on that. Auto parts store tools usually fall into the DIYer category.
Thanks for the offer, but I actually have a vacuum bleeder set up. I just don’t use it often.
Clearly I\’m in the minority here. Maybe it\’s because I use older Craftsman tools who knows. All I know is I have a 35 year old craftsman drill that I still use on the daily with no issues. My ratchets are a bit newer and still made in the USA and they never give me issues. My impact gun is a 1/2 inch Craftsman Professional and my Air Ratchet is a Craftsman Professional as well(used daily without issue). Maybe I\’ve just had good luck? I don\’t care what other people think. It makes me money.
This is a good video.
I have mostly consumer grade tools, but I’m a DIYer so they work most of the time for what I do. One thing I have noticed is the
difference in tolerances from the consumer grade to the professional grade tools. I was changing drive belts on a VW Jetta. Of course the bolt you needed to grab to move the tensioner was 16mm (guess what wrench size never comes in a set of consumer tools). I was able to move it with a socket, but there was not enough clearance to get it moved far enough to lock it down. I ran and got a 16mm consumer grade 12 point wrench, but that kept slipping off under tension. Fortunately, my neighbor had a 16mm snap-on 12 point and I was able to do the job with that. Comparing the 2 wrenches I could see the difference in the tolerance, the snap on was much tighter.What is the opinion on 12 point vs. 6 point wrenches for a DIYer? I have 12 point, but I’m considering getting a set of 6 point for these situations.
I broke snap on tools before, they are all the same crap, just use them the way they are suppost to be use and they will last a long time.
As a follow up to another post, here is my opinion on hand tools. There is no doubting that truck tools, the big 3, whatever you call them have tighter tolerances, nicer finishes, blah blah blah. Thats not what I am addressing here. I am bringing up what I call Twilight zone tools. They are tools that are somewhere in between truck tools and Harbor Freight. Our local friendly Sears fits into this catagory. Tools that are somewhat to fairly expensive, but have no super quality, zero shop status, but still carry a pretty hefty pricetag. If I was a young tech and knew that I couldn’t afford to go with the good stuff, I would spend as little as possible and get Pittsburgh type stuff. Cheap, easily replaceable, and not a theft magnet. I actually have some of these as junkyard tools or whatnot. The advantage here is CHEAP. Nothing wrong with that. They can get the job done more times than not, even if the tool only works once. The problem with Sears tools is that they are NOT that much better than the majority of Harbor Freight tools these days, but still cost a great deal more than cheap tools and like the guy in Karate Kid said, you stay in middle, get squashed like grape. Thats why I avoid middle ground tools. In my opinion, a waste of money. You opinions…Eric, you need a nut rounding video with jaw spread on open ends. I bet the Sears flex as much or than Pittsburg at 3 times the price.
Definatley not the same stuff. If they were all the same, 99 percent of pro techs wouldn’t use stuff from the trucks. There is a reason why pro tools cost more. Busted knuckles and rounded off heads have no place in shop and nobody I would know in the field would risk their livelyhood because of a cheap tool, its just not worth it.
I have a mishmash of tools, some were my father’s, some came from Sears, for years I rode a bicycle to work so some came from the road. The ratchets I got from Sears were purchased in the 1960’s. Unbreakable.
For wrenches it all comes down to the metal. If it stretches it slips. The only tools I own where I see a significant difference in the metal is in some Facom offset box ends I purchased about two decades ago. I’d say they are in one class and everything else is in another.
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