Snap On Tool Revenge

Last Outlaw,

ROFL

 

Snappy was expensive, no doubt. If I were starting all over again, I would never have bought from a tool truck except specialty stuff like my old sensor simulator tester

 

I had my snap on tool box full of tools stolen from work. Came in to work one morning and 3 of the mechanic's tool boxes were gone. They took my top box. I was wishing I had bolted them together. They wouldn't have been able to lift them. I went to the owner of the shop and asked him what he was going to do about it. His reply was you should have your own insurance for your tools. You have 2 weeks to buy more or find a new job. Then the Snap on guy showed up to collect his weekly payment on the box. Didn't feel very good to keep making the payment on a box that I no longer owned.

 

I've bought a handful of tools from the snap on man....in the truck.

Agree..they are expensive.

I find a lot of my tools at big flea markets today.....

I know good tools when I see them having worked in a shipyard for many many years. These guys in this yard are anything but gentle with tools.

I also know junk as well...

I mostly avoid the Snap On van today..the Mac guy too.

Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

I'm sorry but the whole bs of Snap-on/ MAC/ Matco being needed for everyone is bunk. If you're a mechanic and turn a wrench 12 hrs a day , 6 days a week and there are specific things that you believe they legitimately gain for you or they have specific features that speed or simplify your work, go for it.

Having done my share of turning wrenches, having been around farm & construction equipment and heavy trucks a good portion of my life - most people (including those who buy those expensive ones ) don't benefit. Yes the lowly Craftsman, Cromwell, Protos, Husky etc serve the purpose and take a beating. Would I buy the $15 dollar set on Amazon from China, no. I think the high dollar ones are often bought as some sort of status symbol... Look At Me and my $12K tool box. How many do you find on Craigslist or FB marketplace where some young guy is trying to sell it for near as much as he paid because the monthly payment is eating up most of the money he's earning

I mean from the ROI standpoint of a $100 ratchet vs a $20 one: if the $20 lasts 10 years till it needs replaced (often for free under lifetime warranty) you'd have to replace it what 4 times till you had as much out of pocket as the &100 wrench. How much faster does the $100 one have to work than the $20 one to pay for itself? Oh "but if it breaks I won't have it to finish the job" Well for the price, buy 2 of the $20, use the second one to finish the job and stop on your way home from work to get the broken one replaced under the warranty.

 

Yep one reason I went to an Estwing and the all steel construction. Though I still do have a 22 or 24 oz Craftsman framing hammer that held up.

 

if the tools were stolen out of his garage or place of business, then it was his responsibility to prevent a break in. Please ask a lawyer in you area what the laws are. also his insurance should pay .

 

Yeah well I was a single parent at the time and barely making ends meet. I did contact an attorney and they all wanted money up front to take the case. If I filed it would mean instant loss of employment. Owner didn't want to file an insurance claim against the mechanic's property when he didn't lose anything except a window that was broken out to gain entry. The back door was used to load out the boxes and was only secured by a C-clamp hanging in a hasp. He didn't want his insurance rates to go up. What's right is not always what is doable. I filed a $30,000 loss on my taxes and got the manager (who was a friend) to let me buy some of the most crucial tools I needed on the shop account a bit at a time. At least he was nice to help a bit. The owner didn't know about it.

 

My sentiments exactly, not only for tools, but for lots of other gear.

 

My tool box had a mix of brands of tools in it. There was a lot of Craftsman and even Proto. I do have to say that there were certain tools that took heavy use that was worth buying Snap On or Mac tools. Screwdrivers are worn out regularly and to have a guy come in every week and replace the tips whenever needed was a benefit. Sockets that break under heavy use are worth buying from these tool companies simply due to them cracking and being easily replaced any week without having to drive across town or do without until you had time to go replace them at Sears.

I also will say that the quality of Craftsman tools went way down in the later years and if I bought a pair of needle nose pliers I would have to dig through the box of them at Sears and look them over really close until I found a pair that the tip was manufactured evenly and not bigger or smaller on one side.

I got lucky and had a buddy who was a tug boat captain that was pushing a dredging rig for a bit and happened across a dump site in the ocean where they had dumped a crapload of warranty NAPA tools that also carried a lifetime warranty.

He let me dig through a bunch of 5 gallon buckets of broken tools and take what I wanted to use at work after my tool box was stolen. I replaced the broken ones with good ones a bit at a time. My Snap On box was real nice compared to the older Craftsman box that I had before I bought it. When you load a lot of tools into a tool box with no roller bearings in the drawers they can get pretty rough to open and close lots of times a day. I ended up moving back into that old Craftsman box after my Snap On top box was stolen though and still use it today at home. There are a couple of drawers though that do not work now.

Yes there are guys who buy all Snap On to look cool. I even saw a lawn and garden Tech at a John Deere dealership that had the biggest snap on box and when the snap on guy saw him he made a beeline to him on his first week there. This guy was clearly a Snap On tool addict and bought all kinds of testing equipment and tools that he didn't need and probably never would use. I was always a bit more frugal than that.

 

Well I do believe in buying quality, be it tools, firearms etc. I think the saying quality over quantity is so true. Last Outlaw, like you say I think a lot of the Craftsman hand tools were falling off in the last few years. My guess they gave the contracts to off shore suppliers trying to get costs down and profitiability up. I'm interested to see what happens now that the Craftsman brand was sold off and now will find a home at Lowe's. Will the quality return? Honestly in the last 10 years I think the Kobalt branded tools were often better quality and finish than the Craftsman. Now certain tools I do believe in name brands. So things like pliers, dykes, etc I go with Channellock all the way. I think their quality is great and they're still made in the USA and to boot they are and have always been out of Meadville, PA. Pretty cool place to tour. I got to go thru it when I was in college and had a few friends that have worked their well over 30 years. All their cutting edges get final sharpened by hand and tested. Other tools like those Estwing hammers are another example of quality over price.

So for guys like you the value add of the tool truck coming in to replace things is a big part of the value so I can get that.

 

Not entirely about prepping, but we have discussed how things have changed over the years.

1998

Don't get into a car with strangers.

2008

Don't meet people from the Internet alone.

2019

UBER

Order yourself a stranger from the Internet that you are going to get into a car with alone.