Harbor freight markets to posers
- Thread starter Shoreline_
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I don’t know if many people buy it because it looks alike, i think it’s more likely people are buying it because it functions alike.So I have a bit of a different take on this. I don't have issue with people buying/using HF stuff, like Icon, in and of itself. What I do take issue with is when those same people claim that anyone buying the actual Snap-On/Knipex/etc. are doing so just to push an image. I find it ridiculously hypocritical that someone buying a Snap-On or Knipex look-a-like will turn around and grief someone buying the real thing.
After all, if you're buying the shamelessly marketed look-a-like product, that would suggest to some folks that you're trying to look like the very people you're criticizing, just at lower price point. If I'm a brand ***** for buying Knipex, for example, what does that make these folks for buying look-a-like Knipex? Should I infer that they want to look-like brand whores from a distance?
Other than than, I say to each his own.
On a related note, I had always thought Snapon beat out HF and it wasn’t close but recent tests from Torque Test Channel have shown that not to be always true. The new HF 3/4 gun beats out the MG1250 at 1/5 of the cost, and the socket adapters from HF were much stronger than the Snapon.
Wrench-Polisher
Well-known member
Are you sure? Lets say they average 45 hours a week its 81,900 dollars. Lets be generous and say its 61,425 after the usual taxes.
National average for 1 bedroom apartment rent is 1,750. Lets say they are renting a studio that is 995 a month
995 Rent (studio low end estimate maybe roomate situation)
500 for healthcare/insurance (premium and copays)
270 for car insurance (average 25 year old full coverage because everything is on loan/credit now)
529 for an average used car payment
600 for utilities and groceries (low end generous estimate)
300 gasoline/tire/oil etc for car and repair budget
Education debt? Tool budget?
You are left with 23,097 bucks
That is 1,924.75 per month IF you live like a monk, perfectly healthy, dont go out, dont save for 401k/retirement and have no debt to service.
You have to me a LOT more judicious with your spending in 2025. Salaries stay stagnant but everything else costs more.
Realistically? These are very low end estimates. If you aren't healthy deductibles and prescription medicine will kill you.
Other locations will kill your budget with rent prices. Other places are affordable with **** wages.
Live in the rust belt? Car will fall apart in front of your eyes.
Vinny
Well-known member
I don't care who uses what, but didn't Snap On sue Harbor Freight at some point because they were ripping off their designs?
I'm a bigger poser with this snap on stuff I haven't even used yet.
Wrench-Polisher
Well-known member
There were multiple lawsuits. Some were won some were lost. HF ripped off a lot of companies.
Yes, they did. And they lost. I think it was a bad PR move from snap on, because the outcome of the lawsuit was that it became public information that Harbor freight and snap on or buying the same Jack from the same third-party manufacturer.
Wrench-Polisher
Well-known member
Oh there was another lawsuit involving Snapon on and the jack "manufacturer". Somebody in Snapon legal got fired.
Wrench-Polisher
Well-known member
Also real talk time.
If you have a problem with people using brand X you probably made a brand your whole personality and you probably make normal people cringe.
I worked in scrap yards all my life, dealing with lots of people that are poor or not doing to well or are outright destitute who kept their piles of **** on the road with the most sketchy, rusty, questionable and eclectic assortment of implements to not starve and keep a roof over their head.
Look I get that some people are too invested in tool brand X or someone pisses off someone else with "just as gud" comments and its ok to make of both of those people. But dont just **** on someone if they are using brand X instead of brand Y.
If you have a problem with people using brand X you probably made a brand your whole personality and you probably make normal people cringe.
I worked in scrap yards all my life, dealing with lots of people that are poor or not doing to well or are outright destitute who kept their piles of **** on the road with the most sketchy, rusty, questionable and eclectic assortment of implements to not starve and keep a roof over their head.
Look I get that some people are too invested in tool brand X or someone pisses off someone else with "just as gud" comments and its ok to make of both of those people. But dont just **** on someone if they are using brand X instead of brand Y.
It’s not about “brand” and it’s all about business practices and the mentality.
“These things are just like Snap-on for 1/4 the price!!! Let’s go get them so that I don’t have to buy them from Snap-on!! I get to act, look and feel like I am using the real thing! Yay for me!!!”
Most are not brand loyal die hards that would make people cringe. Rather than that, its a distaste towards blatant design rip offs.
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Do people actually say that?
I always thought it was more like "I wish I could afford snap on but these are probably close"
I don't think it's quite the same as driving a Hyundai Equus.
mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Another incredibly dumb thread on harbor freight
Wrench-Polisher
Well-known member
Ah, yeah that makes sense.
whateg01
Well-known member
Yeah, I'm sure everybody who buys an Icon tool tells everybody else it's a snap on! 
They tell everyone it’s just like snap on for much less money.Yeah, I'm sure everybody who buys an Icon tool tells everybody else it's a snap on!
Nothing dumb about pointing out harbor freight’s business practices from time to time.
whateg01
Well-known member
Yeah because nobody here already knows about harbor freight
Isn't it though?
Wrench-Polisher
Well-known member
I know someone who is right now putting snap on guts into icon ratchet body
whateg01
Well-known member
I'm going to use my harbor freight grinder to remove all the icon decals and emblems from all of my tools and then go by snap-on stickers and stick on it
mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Yes. It's both dumb and pointless. Especially on a site that threads like this piss off the owner.
These threads are a good reminder.
And, knowing about them in general and knowing about the specific practice of trying to duplicate snap on are two different things.
whateg01
Well-known member
Again, you think people here aren't familiar already? If you really want to stop the atrocity, you should go set up a tent outside the stores and tell the general public who doesn't know about these awful scoundrels!
People here on Garage Journal have different budgets, different use cases, different preferences, place different value on warranties, have different access to tool trucks, and therefore select different tool brands based on their own unique situation.
To label one group or another as "posers" based on their choice of tools is ridiculous.
To label one group or another as "posers" based on their choice of tools is ridiculous.
Owner of what?
M.Jay
Well-known member
This is an open forum for speech and debate. People come and go. There are also lurkers that don’t post nor register. Nobody knows who all is reading at any given time. When you say “people here,” who are you even talking about? Trick question, because there is no way to know who is here. Soooooo, we don’t know what readers here are familiar with (as in hf and what they do) as we don’t even know who the readers are.
Not setting up a tent. I am not that much of an activist.
ArcReactorKC
Well-known member
Dude really?
allinon72
Well-known member
What is this ragebait...yeah 15 years ago HF was all junk. There is still a good majority that is junk but also they've also moved upmarket on a lot of tools and toolboxes that the Snap-on folks just can't cope with. They've closed the quality gap, significantly, on certain items. They've also risen in prices which is something that a lot of retailers do....they hook people with china cheap, move upmarket too much, to which people ask themselves why they are going to a discount retailer in the first place. That is something HF is going to have to contend with.
30 years ago I didn't trust their electrical tape. Nowadays I put my life in their hands with the floor jacks and hoists.
Their combination wrenches are probably fine too.
neophyte
Well-known member
Harbor Freight wasn’t “all junk” 15 years ago.
HF has always had dome gems, or at least highly decent sleeper items in their line of tools.
They also used to carry some USA made tools like SK from what I have gathered over the years.
I still have a cast iron combination square from Harbor Freight from a couple decades ago, that may not quite be Starrett quality, but which is a major step up from the cast zinc ones carried at Home Depot. Harbor Freight no longer carries the item though.
The Jack that was the subject of the lawsuit between Snap-On and Harbor Freight isn’t the only item where Harbor Freight supplies basically the same item as other retailers or brands, at a significantly better price point.
Maybe not 15 years ago but back in the day when I was a kid they came around every so often like a circus with tents and folding tables in strip mall parking lots and you'd pick directly out of the cardboard boxes from china.
They had electrical tape that wouldn't even stick to itself. It was genuine garbage and the cheapies ate it up.
That would have been when I was about 10 years old so 30-35 years ago.
Reminds me of the fireworks tents.
mngundog
Well-known member
They'd set up in the VFW here, were you'd shop the items, take a number and bring it out to the semi in the parking lot. Hard to believe that Sears is down to 2 stores in the US, and every town over 5000 people here has a HF store and their ads run every night of TV. Won't be long and they'll be HF tool trucks making the rounds.
I had Cragar SSTs on my first car... the HF Centerlines LMAO
The Metric System
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I actually have an idea for a business model where I load a truck up with Icon etc and then follow the Snap-On truck on its rounds and undercut them at every stop.
Probably wouldn't pay for itself, but it would be fun to try.
Junkman
Well-known member
I started buying used SO boxes of tools in the late 1950s because they were less expensive than buying new Craftsman tools.
logical
Well-known member
I don't have any Snap On or Freight tools. The real value buys are in between those.
Purchase, register, outfit and insure a $130k step van fuel it with $4 diesel, to hawk $50 socket sets and (since they are crappy tools
) endless warranty swaps.Sounds like a winner.
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