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0 pointsSoftTalker25d ago0 comments

Anecdotally my experience is the opposite. I bought an angle grinder from Harbor Freight for something like $10 on sale. It's not something a pro could use every day but it has absolutely been fine for what I do with it: cutting the occasional piece of metal stock, sharpening the lawn mower blade once a year, etc.

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convolvatron25d ago

be careful in promoting that strategy. HF is pretty bad, I had a friend go through 3 them in a day because he didn't have one on the job site and HF wasn't too far away.

the next step up is about 2x the price and will last a good year with professional use and maybe more if you can be bothered to replace the brushes.

so I'm glad that's working out for you, but there is more bottom to be found. I bought an attachment that came with a grinder that was so dinky and toy-like that it didn't last 20 minutes of light use.

this thread is covered with discussion about the problem of information asymmetry and rapidly decaying brands. to me the real issue is economic efficiency. the low end tool gets a double economic win, lower material and production costs, and increased frequency of purchase. every one of those purchases involves shipping, potential retail space, people's time spent shopping and returning crap. leading to a lot of outright waste. to me this really undermines the promise of capitalistic efficiency, since it prioritizes local optimization to an extreme over global optimization.

phil2125d ago

Your friend was heavily using a cheap tool at a job site. After the first one broke, the course of action is to go to home depot and buy the prosumer Milwaukee or Dewalt and return the harbor freight as time allows.

The point is you only need the expensive stuff rarely. You don’t triple down on cheap crap you actually use and abuse.

I’ve yet to see anyone lose money (including accounting for time) with this strategy. Going for stuff that costs 4-12x more right off the bat - unless for professional “mission critical” work - is going to average out to be a poor use of money for the vast majority of tool buyers.

There is of course an absolute floor here. No name brand tools on Amazon are going to perhaps be zero use, but they seem rather trivial to spot to me most of the time. Buying that Gearwrench socket set vs the Snap-on is almost always going to be a win for 99% of people unless you are a professional mechanic that relies on 100% uptime to make a living.

ChoGGi25d ago

This guy gets it, always start out with the cheap tool if you use it enough that it breaks than you spend more money.

I know guys with garages full of expensive tools they barely use because they don't want to be seen with a can tire tool.

hadlock25d ago

Harbor freight sells three tiers of many of their more popular tools and they're not shy about it. Most of their signage says "ok/better/best" and they're very transparent about what you're buying. I can buy a $9 angle grinder and on the same shelf I an also buy a $85 angle grinder, with the "better" model running ~$25-40. Harbor Freight used to have exclusively cheap junk but their "better" tier stuff is more than adequate for home DIYers

It probably helps that the founder is still the owner. Once that guy or his son dies (he's getting up there) it would not suprise me if the brand spirals into decay.

queenkjuul25d ago

HF sells levels that aren't level lol. Squares that aren't square.

I love them for junk like zip ties and bungee cords and moving blankets; they sell the same cheap rack shelves as Menards, and honestly their free gift multimeter has served my guitar bench well for all over a decade. But their $20 jigsaw made like five cuts before it stopped cutting straight lol.

I love HF is what I'm saying, i just don't trust every item in the building

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