On 9/15/2008 Wayne wrote:
> And I have a lot of cheap stuff
> from Harbor Freight, Auto Zone and similar places. For as often as I
> use it, a cheap approximation of the correct tool is better than
> beating
> on it with a hammer!
And I'm (sorta) firmly in that camp, too.
Case in point: Yesterday a friend of mine brought over the front axles
and U-joints out of his Jeep Wrangler (that I sold him about two months
ago). He wanted to change the U joints and replace the front
bearing/hub assemblies. (BTW I gave him a hell of a deal on the jeep
w/124K miles on it, so he knew it wasn't perfect.)
My home made but fairly beefy 10 ton arbor press wasn't doing much to
press the old U-joints out. He had also just bought a new Harbor
Freight U-Joint press tool:>
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=38335
which we used with my 1/2" impact wrench, which pushed the old U-Joints
right out of the yoke.
Snap-0n makes an almost identical tool:
>
>http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?P65=&tool=&item_ID=75396&group_ID=1613&store=snapon-store&dir=catalog
but it costs almost TEN TIMES as much. And all it is is some cast iron,
a threaded rod, and a couple of bushings.
Now, the Snap On tool is probably finished more nicely, and they may
even have used some kind of special heat treated alloy steel in the
threaded rod. But ten times the cost? That's nuts.
The Harbor Freight tool worked just fine, and even if we threw it away
after one job we would still be money ahead of having a shop do the
work. Maybe it's not going to last as long as the Snap On tool, and
we're not going to use it every day, but if we only use it three or four
more times in the next ten years we are money ahead. Plus, HF has a
lifetime guarantee on all their hand tools, so if we break it, they'll
probably just give us a new one.
BTW, I don't necessarily but the argument that lawyers drive up the cost
of U.S. made goods. H.F. sells their stuff in the U.S. through their
retail outlets, so if someone gets hurt with one of their tools they may
get sued regardless of where their tools are made. However, one way the
Chinese are money ahead is on R&D. For a lot of the consumer goods they
make they have ZERO R&D costs. They just buy an example of something
they know already sells, reverse engineer it, figure out how to make it
cheaper, and start selling knockoffs. Not having to pay R&D costs is
probably a huge savings for them.
Dave C
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