MAJOR Craftsman Tool SALE -- NOW -- at Sears!

Here's you chance to grab some tools to keep the Old XJ Running sweet.

Hand Held Impact Tool -- $19.95

 

I saw the Commercial on TV tonight. One of the packages looked like all the tools you'd need to do anything!

Everything but the tool boxes!!!

 

Ok How much are you guys getting paid.. Realy, I use most of the wrenches and sockets on semi trucks all day long and have only had one wrench brake. An 18 mm box and open end. Broke my thumb as well, but the wrench took a lot of abuse. Good tools. Just dont try and use the rachets for really hard core stuff. They like to break hourly. I hope they improve their design soon. Great tools, great prices.

 

You are the ONLY Guy I ever heard complain about that Craftsman Ratchet.

I've seen guys that own SnapOn and MAC that prefer the Craftsman Ratchet to the best Ratchet Snap-on or MAC makes.

That "Push-Button Release" is the living-end.
I use the SnapOn Ratchet when the work is easy.
When something needs to get whacked ... I grab the Craftsman.

 

Too many bloody nuckles with the craftman ratchet. I use them at home but at work the snapon one wins. In my previous post I was just saying you can actually work on the big professional rigs and use the craftman tools They will hold up. My guys and myself have caught some slack from out local sears on broken tools though. Really just one sales person. I had to find one of my old receipts that said "Satisfaction Guarnteed" to get my last ratchet replaced. I had to dig deep for that one. The salesperson said that they are not for professional use. Kinda torqued me a little. Still good quality tools though. A heck of a lot cheaper than Snapon or Mac. They actually make some of the wrenches right here in Colorado Springs at a company called Western Forge.
I have had my craftsman club card for about 10 years now. Nothing like getting an extra 10 percent off at times.

 

I thought sears stopped doing the lifetime warranty? I could be wrong though.

 

Sears still waranties the Craftsman hand tools for life. I just returned an older fine tooth ratchet recently. They offered me a free replacement, but I told them I wanted mine fixed instead. They don't make 'em like the old ones anymore. That being said, I recently picked up a set of 3 (1/4-3/8-1/2) brand new Craftsman ratchets for $17 & shipping off ebay.
If you vist any tool BB's, you'll hear a lot of people put down Craftsman tools. But I've been using them for years and always found them as tdeville said; a good mix of quality and price. And you cant beat the fact that most people have a Sears only a short distance from home, should a warranty issue arise.

 

I've had a long positive experience with mine as well. Someone had told me though that since kmart bought them the lifetime warranty had changed. I guess I was wrong. Happy motoring.

 

I'm a little disappointed since Craftsman started making their ratchet drivers with PLASTIC parts... I won't trade in my all-metal rachets ever. I figure I'll run them into the ground first. There has to be a machine shop that can make me a new ratchet pawl (at and un-Godly sum I'm sure but I LOVE my old metal rachets). I also have 4 Snap-On drivers and they work great, but I miss the socket release/lock that Craftsman utilizes.

 

I use Mac and Snap-On almost exclusivly for my job, but i will say one good thing for the craftsman warranty. Bring back a socket or a wrench that you've busted because it's been on an impact gun or you used a cheater bar and they will replace it no questions asked for the most part. No questions asked mostly because the guy at the counter doesn't know what questions to ask. He's not trained in failure analsys. With the pro dealers, sometimes they give you a hard time if you try to get warranty on something that you've quite obvisouly misused.

On another note with sears, i brought back a broken ratchet and they replaced it for me, the clerk put the new one and the broken one in the bag for me. I left that store and went to another sears and handed in the broken one again. hard to beat 2 for 1 ratchets.

 

Yeah, I saw the rebuild kit. Whick part of the ratchet typically rests on the ground? The direction lever and release button. What is the new part made out of? Plastic! How long is it going to last, especially when I end up kicking it across the garage a few times? Not very. There are loads of good things to say about thermoplastics but I've not seen one yet that will stand up to the rigors (reads: abuse) of use on tools. Sorry, I'm just not going willingly to join the march of "progress", at least on this issue.

 

Sears Hardware is right up the block from my house. Almost within sight. Needless to say, I am a very frequent customer, to the extent that most of the staff know my face when I walk in. I buy everything there, nuts&bolts, paint, electrical crap, plumbing,---everything. Yesterday I bought a 10" band saw for $99, a drill press for $99, and a bench grinder for $47. All things on my "to buy" list and happened to be the right price at the right time. I love Sears Hardware.

I used to work at a fulfillment company here in columbus located in what used to be the biggest warehouse in the world--built specificly for and previously occupied by Sears. So big it has it's own powerplant, run by 4 engines taken from aircraft carriers. The story goes that all of the old Craftsman tools that were returned were sent to this facility. All of the tools were then taken out back to "the pit" where they were thrown in a hole, and on some schedule doused with acid. This was in the 70's when the environment was less of a concern, and they got away with doing thins this way for a while but eventually the pit was cleaned up and other means of destroying the tools were implemented. At this facility, there is a place where boxcars can pull into the building to be loaded, but soon after it was built, they stopped shipping by rail, and for the remainder of their time in this building, all returned Craftsman tools went in the old train docks, later to be cemented over. Forward to 1996, for some reason some of this cement housing the tools had to be pulled up. I was on the maintenence staff at the time, so I was involved. It was amazing to see the sheer volume of tools in there. The section we were in was probably 30 feet across, 20 feet wide and 6ish feet deep. That was the section we dug up, the area containing the old tools was probably another 400 feet long,and just as wide and deep. Digging throug a bit was interesting, we found EVERYTHING Craftsman. Some tools looked in perfect shape, wrenches, screwdrivers, most were obviously damaged, bent/broken, and we even found powertools that had nothing wrong other than a cut cord, and full of dirt. This project went on for a couple months before the cement was poured and the graveyard resealed. Some of the guys pocketed something if they needed it, or put it in their toolbox at work, a few took some broken tools, and took them back to Sears for a free new one, but there still lies a HUGE pile of retired tools entombed at 4545 Fisher Rd. As we speak, the building is vacant and up for lease.

 

And I thought they recycled the metal... Creepy. Wonder why they weren't required to clean it up?

 

They may recycle these days, but through that period of time when they occupied that facility, they didn't. Or for some reason chose not to.