General Geoff
Well-known member
The showdown we've all been waiting for 
Project Farm Floor Jack comparison - Mighty Snap-On vs Harbor Freight
- Thread starter General Geoff
- Start date
Lucid Moments
Well-known member
I will stick with my Daytona. I already have it and it does everything I need it to do.
JbTech
Well-known member
I jacked up a dual axle trailer with 2 3k pound tractors on the side of the PA Turnpike last week with my HF Daytona. Money well spent.
theoldwizard1
Well-known member
Still using my 1-1/2 ton green Sears jack ! Works fine.
2 things in use that make the snapon much nicer to use is the larger saddle and larger wheels .
Larger wheels are a massive plus & totally overlooked on most jacks these days.
2 of reasons I still love some of my real old jacks is big saddles and wheels .
Surprised the Daytona didn't beat snapon wheel & saddle size but I guess as HF got no real product engineers they close to clueless on fine details that the big winners .
Larger wheels are a massive plus & totally overlooked on most jacks these days.
2 of reasons I still love some of my real old jacks is big saddles and wheels .
Surprised the Daytona didn't beat snapon wheel & saddle size but I guess as HF got no real product engineers they close to clueless on fine details that the big winners .
For the extra $700, I don't think most are going to miss the differences too much. The PF vid showed the Daytona wasn't far off the SO in terms of the benefit of the larger wheel, and the saddle size is a fairly limited benefit too IMHO. I've never hit a situation where it would be any help (though I don't work on big trucks/etc.).
I've owned and used a variety of jacks over the years, and never had my hands on one better than the Daytona. I know significantly better ones exist, but it's not in the form of that particular Snap On. It's better, but it's not "massively" better.
^
Yes Daytona pretty good for the potential prices (is other options for same jack with better ram seal option) and Snap-On silly money but it could of easily been better match to snapon HF so keen market against, only chump change at manufacture stage to of used better seal and added larger wheels .
Saddles are nice if get one small and one large like some of the old high lifting professional jacks .
In daily use larger wheels really becomes nice feature that saves on potential mishaps/hassle, larger wheels means jack positions smoothly as jacking up which reduces benefit of larger saddle for most general use .
Yes Daytona pretty good for the potential prices (is other options for same jack with better ram seal option) and Snap-On silly money but it could of easily been better match to snapon HF so keen market against, only chump change at manufacture stage to of used better seal and added larger wheels .
Saddles are nice if get one small and one large like some of the old high lifting professional jacks .
In daily use larger wheels really becomes nice feature that saves on potential mishaps/hassle, larger wheels means jack positions smoothly as jacking up which reduces benefit of larger saddle for most general use .
The chump change comes down to material cost vs. benefit (and it adds up to real money over the kind of volume HF sells) and whether they get anything back for it (higher sales, primarily). The saddle and the wheels were probably both considered limited return on the investment for larger ones. I agree with you on the seals - I have to wonder if it's a sourcing thing or possibly some kind of limitation (contractual/non-compete?) from the factory, because anything that small that can ensure fewer warranty issues is almost certainly worth it (part of my job involves understanding the process of cost engineering that brings lower warranty rates and how that is calculated - a penny up front to save a dime later kind of thing).
The Daytona is butter-smooth for me. I'd almost certainly buy a model from them with the better seals, bigger wheels and a larger saddle if they offered one for, say $30 more. But I'd guess 90%+ (and maybe 95%+) of folks interested in current one would choose to save the $30 or would rather have color choice (which I don't understand at all. I can't say I like the yellow color at all, but it's a figgin' jack - I just care how well it works). So they did the math and we got a pretty damn nice jack for less than three hundred bucks.
Assume seals purely penny pinching cost decision with HF as 3 other rebrands used better seal no drama and pretty much same retail at the time I looked into it, cost is so minimal it a no brainer on that one, casting wheels and changing axle position could get more costly if out of odm standard options but with HF volume it be pretty small cost per unit .
Shame as big chunk of home gamers who use this jack are doing so on poorer surfaces and that when larger wheels really can become big benefit .
Personally I don't think HF have the product design engineering capability to think about things like wheel and saddle size, they just accept choices offered from odm at a price point they find acceptable and job jobbed .
Like you color not a big concern for me and yellow not a first personal choice but in a professional shop I will say it got some safety benefit when very easy to see .
The Daytona was an absolute steal pre covid best coupon deals which under 200 bucks, you see a lot of them in professional shops for that reason along with easy 3yr warranty a quick drive to a store for most .
Shame as big chunk of home gamers who use this jack are doing so on poorer surfaces and that when larger wheels really can become big benefit .
Personally I don't think HF have the product design engineering capability to think about things like wheel and saddle size, they just accept choices offered from odm at a price point they find acceptable and job jobbed .
Like you color not a big concern for me and yellow not a first personal choice but in a professional shop I will say it got some safety benefit when very easy to see .
The Daytona was an absolute steal pre covid best coupon deals which under 200 bucks, you see a lot of them in professional shops for that reason along with easy 3yr warranty a quick drive to a store for most .
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It was second only to Snap On in the PF comparison - do any of the other three guys who are using the better seals also have bigger wheels?
That's pretty laughable. Having dealt with ODM's a great deal in my career, they're going to push you to define details and make choices, at least for things like wheels and saddle size on a product like this. And for a product that will be sold at retail, they're likely to offer steps that allows them to maximize their revenue in a contract. Given how much money is involved and the degree of evolution we're seeing in the HF product lines, there are clearly people at Harbor Freight who are looking at and understand more than just a spreadsheet when it comes to the products. Maybe not so much down to the seals, and (though it's probably a coin flip between 'didn't ask for it' vs. 'didn't want it because they didn't think it moved the needle on a product that already has a three year warranty' on that one). Having been part of the "Bean Counter vs. Product Guy" discussion many times, it's far easier to believe that seals, saddles and wheels hit the line where improvements didn't return a financial benefit for the additional cost.
You seem to be trying to hold them to a standard I don't think they're not shooting for.
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*sigh* Snap On has zero patents on this product. It is produced for them under contract in China by an outside manufacturer (the same one that produces them from HF, if the articles I've seen about the lawsuit are correct). Snap On did try to sue, and it was a complete failure in all ways for SO.
[EDIT - I'm wrong. They did have a design patent (which protects how it looks, there's not any patented function). I posted a summary below]
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4xdog
Well-known member
I've been happy with my Arcan, which gets moved around and carried. Glad to see it did OK in PF's tests.
Bubba Fett
Well-known member
Yeah, I'm not going to pay $700 more for a Snap-On jack that's made in the same factory as the Daytona jack just because it has slightly bigger wheels and a slightly bigger saddle. That's simply a waste of money. $700 can buy me a lot of other nice tools.
I’d hate to get in the way of a good ole HF versus SO debate, but it’s categorically False to claim SO as zero patents on there FJ series jacks. The US design patent was the sole basis of the lawsuit, SO nor any of the other 137 companies selling jacks with the same core hydraulic unit have any claim to its fame, but from a ornamental design standpoint, I suspect the frame/color/badging can be protected under US law if the case is strong enough.
I’m not arguing for or against any in particular brand, just clarifying a couple things.
Do you have a link handy to the court records I think it would be an interesting read.
It’s definitely not for the faint of heart… I personally couldn’t justify the cost of the SO unit, especially since the only difference outside of frame differences/colors between the Daytona and old Pittsburgh models is Ucups on the pump pistons and 2 magnets thrown in the reservoir near the intake ports. It’s all about marketing, and HF excels in this department, and people eat it up.
The same factory theory was refuted by SO and even if it was the case it doesn’t mean they are built to the same specs, Cylinder finish, Rod surface thickness, seal type, QC etc. it’s the little things that make a difference between a jack that will last 2 years versus 20.
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Trade dress ≠ patent. They're both IP, but the bar is pretty high for trade dress. And the judgement was pretty quick on that - so the frame/color/badging was not sufficient to meet requirements for trade dress protection. Thus, no novel invention(s) (patents) or trade dress (as determined by the judge, and anyone with eyeballs) owned by Snap On. Hence a complete lack of comment after they settled. (Terms weren't released, though HF publicly stated they paid nothing and could continue selling the Daytona as-is. I'd guess the "give" from HF was to not sue SO for attorney fees).
I didn’t claim it was a strong suit against HF, only clarified that SO did/does carry patents on the FJ series jacks. The clear winner of that suit was HF, No doubt in my mind. It got everyone talking and claiming the jacks where identical, even if that’s not the case.
Reporting on the case is a pretty easy Google away, some of which include comments from the judge on the lack of strength to SO's claims (which probably was followed by a recommendation for them to settle, or was itself strong indirect guidance to). I did look at the Lincoln suit, which was even less successful than Snap On's (dismissed with prejudice IIRC), but not sure if I still have access to the records system (it's public, but you do have to create an account and it's not exactly user-friendly). Since SO/HF was a settlement and terms weren't publicly disclosed, I'd guess there isn't much other than a notation in the records that the parties have settled and are agreeing to end the suit.
I done a few years working in manufacture in asia so got some idea on sourcing via odm's and I very much doubt the Jack odm be pushing you do anything different to product options they offer on the range unless you go to them with specific design needs .
I don't see many HF products that show significant internal technical design input, majority is straight up odm product and options and many times they missing better choices ...
Menards, Tractor Supply and Northern Tool all went for better seal option ...
I'm holding them to the advertisement standard of better than Snap-On lol ...
I haven't seen that HF had any functional patents at all. That would be highly unusual for an ODM-built product unless they developed/co-developed it and then were just using the factory in China as pure contract manufacturer. I also haven't heard that they had any design/ID patents, which would be unusual for similar reasons plus there's not really any "art" in the shape.
That leaves trade dress, which is pretty murky and has a pretty high bar to meet for a successful claim. I do think this is where SO's suit was focused, but in reality it was dead before they every got to court. You can't "own" a color (though IBM and others have tried...), and functional aspects of design often militate against claiming trade-dress (which is why, despite a much-closer visual similarity between the Knipex and HF pliers wrenches, Knipex would almost certainly lose a trade dress claim in court if their execs were as clueless as Snap On's were).
[EDIT] I'm wrong and @Hiball is correct. Snap On did have a design patent (one), though indirectly, on the jacks. I finally found the case in the fun, dry legalese instead of the press mixing up the terminology (e.g. this article, which describes a trade dress complaint more than a design patent infringement). But I just found a much more direct-from-the-court summary.
tl;dr they had a design patent, but it ultimately didn't cover very much - just the specific ornamental design of the jack - and they essentially lost before they really even started.
For those who don't want to wade though the caselaw.com text, the "net" (hey, at least it's shorter than what's at the link
) appears to be that SO worked with a company called VIS, LLC to design the look of the jack (I'm guessing VIS was a design firm hired by SO). VIS applied for and eventually got a design patent, which they later assigned to Snap On. SO saw the Daytona, bought one and decided it infringed on the SO/VIS design patent and sued, asking for an immediate injunction for HF to stop selling the Daytona. The judge ruled SO didn't meet the basic qualification for an injunction, and ruled against one. From there, it was a short step by the judge to conclude that the two designs wouldn't pass the "ordinary observer" test, and proceeded to tear down the functional vs. ornamental aspects of the two jack designs. A LOT was deemed functional, and what ornamental elements were left were different enough. And then the judge pretty much dumped the complaints SO used as examples about the similarities as biased and anecdotal (not to mention lacking any indication of understanding the functional vs. ornamental differences and what that implies). And that pretty much ended things.Stuff like this is pretty tough if you're someone like Snap On. You think you need IP/patents to defend yourself, but they're not a guarantee and definitely not the silver bullet most execs think. On the other hand (but not necessarily in a good way), if you have IP you've got to defend it, even when it sounds like you're being overly litigious, because failure to defend it ultimately means you lose it. I'm not an attorney (though I've been dragged through this kind of stuff many times over the years), but I have to think SO's attorneys told them they were going to lose, and might have suggested less-public things (cease-and-desist, etc.) to see if they could shake HF off the product. It wouldn't have worked, as HF probably has a pretty-solid legal team and knew what SO would claim almost-certainly wouldn't stand. Reading the stuff at the link above, the HF team clearly came to court more prepared than SO did, and just as clearly it wasn't close.
I used to "own" a product line for a big company that was triple-digit millions of both revenue and profit, but was getting smacked in various places in the world with crappy copies that were visually identical but generally poorly-executed. I griped loudly to our legal team and they essentially said we'd never win with just a design patent. So I took the opportunity to move things to an entirely new design that had multiple functional patents that were highly unique as well as multiple design patents. It was a big effort. Within six months after release I began to see multiple types of copies. Several were actually done nearly as well as ours (I really had to look to tell - they were smart enough to not include the company logo in the casting, which would have gotten the lawyers' attention...), and some of them went even further by putting the damn warranty sticker on the product, which moved it in my mind from a "copy" to a "counterfeit".
What did the lawyers do? They shrugged and said it would still be very challenging, and taking it to court risked more people being made aware of and buying the copies.
That wasn't my only trip to the rodeo, but easily my most painful. So that's the lens I'm looking through when I see posts that clearly aren't aware of how IP law works. What HF did with the Daytona jack isn't remotely what I went through (in the example above and others). With the jack I'd say they met both the spirit and the letter of the law in this area (and the judge did too).
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ex-x-fire
Well-known member
Green Machine is the best jack ever.
The "product options" are exactly what I'm talking about.Do you really think Menards or Northern Tool have internal resources any different than HF? I'd think they're less likely to...
Based on the chart they show, they are because they deliver the compared items and are a vastly better value.
As I said earlier, I agree with you on the seals. But few people outside of GarageJournal know about it, and I doubt it would change the buying decision of virtually any of the people who have purchased one. So it was probably deemed something they couldn't command value for and this wasn't chosen. Same for the saddle and bigger wheels. FWIW, I'd totally buy mine again.
kbeefy
Well-known member
I have the Snap On jack. It's a nice jack.
I only bought it because it was on sale and the snap on guy showed up the same day my other 3t jack gave up.
It was professional shop useage, otherwise I would have gone to HF and picked up a replacement.
I've since sold the shop, but I kept the jack.
I only bought it because it was on sale and the snap on guy showed up the same day my other 3t jack gave up.
It was professional shop useage, otherwise I would have gone to HF and picked up a replacement.
I've since sold the shop, but I kept the jack.
Saddle size has never been a thought of mine. You need a smooth surface to roll a jack so either wheel size works fine.
I lift my semi with a bottle jack and they have what a 2 inch saddle or so. Lol.
For the extra $700, I don't think most are going to miss the differences too much. The PF vid showed the Daytona wasn't far off the SO in terms of the benefit of the larger wheel, and the saddle size is a fairly limited benefit too IMHO. I've never hit a situation where it would be any help (though I don't work on big trucks/etc.).
I've owned and used a variety of jacks over the years, and never had my hands on one better than the Daytona. I know significantly better ones exist, but it's not in the form of that particular Snap On. It's better, but it's not "massively" better.
Saddle size has literally never been something I thought about.
Seems those 3 retail groups smart enough choose better seal option I would say speaks volumes of HF technical competence on important safety/durability features for cost that so negligible it didn't need effect retail pricing .
Do you really think Menards or Northern Tool have internal resources any different than HF? I'd think they're less likely to...
One of the compared specs is lower lifting height, they got that via small/ standard wheels, Snap-on frame design is fairly different and not odm normal offering. Snapon purposely designed it's frame/lift arm to allow larger wheel diameter while keeping minimal lift height sensible, I doubt HF ever thought about larger wheels being better, all they interested in was sneaking 1/8 of an inch lower minimum lift for a marketing advantage .
You only got look at abysmal choices HF made on battery tool brands/lines over last half a decade get idea they got fairly empty technical department . Seem caught on a bit with Hercules at last and having bit of makeover with more competetive warranty and bare tool option expansion, be good if bare tool options in 12V and 20V cover more than just the basics .
Then again, if it lifts your POS high enough to get jack stands under, isn't that what matters?
The rest is minutiae.
Bigger the wheel the less perfect your surface needs to be, lot of users being using them on various finish concrete or compacted dirt .
In my shop the floor very good but bit of grit or a dig mark can cause minor problems, out in yard on rougher concrete I always use older jack that got larger and wider wheels as rides on rougher surface far easier .
We're not talking about garden wheels here though. My shop floor has straight up cracks gaps and coarse sections and I still roll the HF jack on it.
Besides I don't think the person with a worse working surface like dirt that probably isn't actually compacted enough to not sink under the weight even has the spare change for a Snap On lifting device.
Everyone I know is smart enough to lay some boards down to distribute the weight and provide a rolling surface better than gravel, dirt, or grass.
Which puts us back at it doesn't matter enough to spend that much more money.
Your bottle jack don't have wheels lol .
Larger saddles can be more secure for high lifting as less likely get pulled of lifting point if trolley jack stops wheeling forward as lifting .
How bad are you at this?
I agree you can work around it with gumption, but HF could improve that jack with a simple axle relocate and larger wheel diameter to be a real Snap-On beater and you wouldn't need spend the big dollar . If you use trolley jacks all day long you soon start loving larger diameter wheels .
4xdog
Well-known member
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If I need larger diameter wheels I need far bigger than what SO is using.