Gearwrench (Taiwan) vs Craftsman (USA) ratcheting wrench

Blacknwhitepit · Sep 23, 2007

I have seen many posts here about how the Gearwrench (Taiwan made) is such a good wrench. I just bought a set of Craftsman flexible gear wrenches for $89.99. (See below)

Why are these foreign Gearwrenches so popular?

Most normally I would buy Snap-On, but it appears that the Snap on Gear wrenches/ Ratcheting wrenches are actually manufactured overseas (Yes, not only the Blue-Point but also the actual Snap on branded ones).

Since I have wanted a flex set of ratcheting wrenches I went with the only USA made choice I saw.

I am always willing to spend a little bit more for Made in USA tools. But why would anyone buy Taiwan made gearwrenches at Sears; when for a few bucks more you would have a great warranty?

P.S. if this has been covered before, please forgive me. I have been only marginally lurking for the past 5 months.

-BWP

MarkH · Sep 23, 2007

I got these in metric and standard due to the locking flex. I have tried just about every ratcheting wrench made in the past and for what I do that was the sales point and the first set I really used. Also waited until they were on a good sale.

v8garage · Sep 23, 2007

Wasn't it mentioned on this list that the ratcheting mechanism for all the current ratcheting wrenches are made in Taiwan? Also the Gear Wrench brand Gear Wrenches are warrantied aren't they? I may be wrong on these points and would like to know if I am. Might make a difference on my next Gear Wrench purchase also.

eschoendorff · Sep 23, 2007

v8garage said:
Wasn't it mentioned on this list that the ratcheting mechanism for all the current ratcheting wrenches are made in Taiwan? Also the Gear Wrench brand Gear Wrenches are warrantied aren't they? I may be wrong on these points and would like to know if I am. Might make a difference on my next Gear Wrench purchase also.

Nope, you are dead-on right. I have both the Craftsman and the GearWrench and there is no real difference. Want to warranty your GearWrench? Take it to Lowes or NAPA....

v8garage · Sep 23, 2007

eschoendorff said:
Nope, you are dead-on right. I have both the Craftsman and the GearWrench and there is no real difference. Want to warranty your GearWrench? Take it to Lowes or NAPA....

Can't they can also be warrantied at Sears since they sell them right alongside their own wrenches?

Deafautotech · Sep 23, 2007

i did took gearwrench to sears to have replace (warranty) for my tech friend who can't go sears himself... i just went sears and they were glad to replaced it. it is better than call Danaher Corp and have to wait for 1 week to mail to me then make mail for broke wrench to mail back..... it feel like dumb idea...

Deafautotech · Sep 23, 2007

i do own craftsman stubby flex ratcheting wrenches (both sae and metric) i love it!!! it is perfect to do tight area and i have no problem with locking flex because i own blackhawk (10-19mm flex wrench) it will loose while i tried to turn wrench...

-lecroix- · Sep 23, 2007

I have some GearWrench brand (non reversible) as well as some Craftsman brand (reversible) as well as some Harbor Freight / Pittsburgh brand (flex head). Honest to Gosh, their isn't a nickel's worth of difference in ANY of them.

Danglerb · Sep 23, 2007

When I was shopping wrenches in Sears the sales guy told me Gearwrench you have to send in, but I wasn't trying to exchange a wrench, so it could have been just the sales speech they are supposed to give.

I bought some Husky brand today at the swapmeet, and it looks like I am going to be testing the return policy tomorrow at Home Depot. One of them has too much drag in half the rotation, but the other two are smooth.

reversegear · Sep 23, 2007

Blacknwhitepit said:
Most normally I would buy Snap-On, but it appears that the Snap on Gear wrenches/ Ratcheting wrenches are actually manufactured overseas (Yes, not only the Blue-Point but also the actual Snap on branded ones).

Both the Blue Point and Snap-On's are made by by a Taiwanese firm called Cendai.

-lecroix- said:
I have some GearWrench brand (non reversible) as well as some Craftsman brand (reversible) as well as some Harbor Freight / Pittsburgh brand (flex head). Honest to Gosh, their isn't a nickel's worth of difference in ANY of them.

I'd like to post the test results to show where the differences lie, but I'm afraid of getting my *** sued off. I will say that the Made in USA Craftsman tool is behind a couple of the Made in Taiwan designs.

-lecroix- · Sep 23, 2007

When I say difference, I am referring to how they feel and perform.

reversegear · Sep 24, 2007

Gotcha. Yes, they are all pretty much the same in that respect.

kythri · Sep 24, 2007

Blacknwhitepit said:
Why are these foreign Gearwrenches so popular?

Cheaper...

I am always willing to spend a little bit more for Made in USA tools. But why would anyone buy Taiwan made gearwrenches at Sears; when for a few bucks more you would have a great warranty?

Again, cheaper - the GearWrench brand is essentially the grand-daddy of the modern ratcheting wrenches, which appeals to me, but the sales on these things are unbeatable. Sears regularly discounts them 50% off, which beats any discount they've ever put on the Craftsman brand stuff.

As far as the flex-heads go, after playing with them, I also find I like the tension-"lock" GearWrench style more than the lever-lock Craftsman style...

wilbilt · Sep 24, 2007

reversegear; said:
]
I'd like to post the test results to show where the differences lie, but I'm afraid of getting my *** sued off. I will say that the Made in USA Craftsman tool is behind a couple of the Made in Taiwan designs.

Would that be the Craftsman raised panel design or the polished version? What about Armstrong?

Are there any other "Made in USA" variants?

Blacknwhitepit · Sep 24, 2007

v8garage said:
Wasn't it mentioned on this list that the ratcheting mechanism for all the current ratcheting wrenches are made in Taiwan? Also the Gear Wrench brand Gear Wrenches are warrantied aren't they? I may be wrong on these points and would like to know if I am. Might make a difference on my next Gear Wrench purchase also.

I have also heard the ratcheting mechanism was made in Taiwan as well, but I have not seen any definitive proof.

It seems to me that if this were the case, then Sears/Craftsman would be in violation of the FTC definition of Made in USA. Because these wrenches do have the USA stamp on it.

I believe the definition is something like all or virtually all components have to be made in the USA. I would say that a foreign made ratcheting system is an integral part of this wrench, definetly not negligable.

Well... I guess it wouldn't be the first time a company cheated on the rules and stamped USA made on their tools.

BTW I did not know gear wrench had a "return to store" guarantee. It does make me re-think the gear wrenches if I could return a broken one and get a new one at Sears.

-BWP

chad s · Sep 24, 2007

Blacknwhitepit said:
BTW I did not know gear wrench had a "return to store" guarantee. It does make me re-think the gear wrenches if I could return a broken one and get a new one at Sears.

-BWP

Yea, Sears started replacing broken gearwrench brand wrenches at the store when they started carrying individual wrenches. They did tell me though that there is a marking on the gearwrenches they sell (I think its a P stamped on), so they know they originaly sold it.

reversegear · Sep 24, 2007

Blacknwhitepit said:
I have also heard the ratcheting mechanism was made in Taiwan as well, but I have not seen any definitive proof.

It seems to me that if this were the case, then Sears/Craftsman would be in violation of the FTC definition of Made in USA. Because these wrenches do have the USA stamp on it.

Can I ask where you guys are hearing this? I hear it from Danaher's competitors, and they all despise Danaher anyway so I have to take it with a grain of salt. I did not know that this fact/rumor was known to end users.

wilbilt said:
Would that be the Craftsman raised panel design or the polished version? What about Armstrong?

We only test ratcheting wrenches (gearwrenches), single direction and reversible.

Canadian Charlie · Sep 24, 2007

I have a set of regualar length metric Blue Point gear wrenches, never had any issues with them

ColdDuckTime · Sep 24, 2007

reversegear said:
I'd like to post the test results to show where the differences lie, but I'm afraid of getting my *** sued off. I will say that the Made in USA Craftsman tool is behind a couple of the Made in Taiwan designs.

Interesting. Could you post what sort of tests are actually performed?

reversegear · Sep 24, 2007

ColdDuckTime said:
Interesting. Could you post what sort of tests are actually performed?

Sure. Break test and endurance test. Break test is just what it sounds like- torque the wrench until it gives. Not any huge differences among different manufacturers. The weakest ones give out at around 120% ANSI torque, and the better ones come in around 150%. Please don't make me go look up what those torque values are.

The endurance test is trickier, because there is no ANSI standard yet (They are working on one now). So generally we'll start with something like 25% of ANSI, and run the tool for 50,000 cycles. Some customers might want 50% ANSI at 10,000 cycles. Here is where results start coming in all over the place, and where we were surprised to see some Taiwan products beating the made in USA gear wrench. Some wrenches give out at under 1000 strokes, while others handle the 50,000 cycles easily.

Where we get stuck is in the number of tools we can test. It takes a day per wrench per testing machine for the endurance test, and we have to buy all of the (competitor's) tools that we test. if I took our test data to one of those statistics guys, they'd tell me to go back and test 500 wrenches of each size and each brand, and bring them enough data for their retrograde analysis or whatever it is they do. We're not going to put that much money and time into it, so we are always somewhat limited in what we can conclude (and more importantly, in what we can assert in advertising) with our results.

Jononon · Sep 24, 2007

reversegear said:
We're not going to put that much money and time into it, so we are always somewhat limited in what we can conclude (and more importantly, in what we can assert in advertising) with our results.

Who are 'we' in this context ?

reversegear · Sep 24, 2007

Jononon said:
Who are 'we' in this context ?

Um, me and my company. We're an ODM supplier of ratcheting wrenches.

ColdDuckTime · Sep 24, 2007

Are there SAE papers on hand tool testing? or is it all proprietary?

reversegear · Sep 24, 2007

You mean SAE standards? All have to be bought. Google "SAE standards" to find the folks who sell them.

fotoflojoe · Sep 24, 2007

-lecroix- said:
I have some GearWrench brand (non reversible) as well as some Craftsman brand (reversible) as well as some Harbor Freight / Pittsburgh brand (flex head). Honest to Gosh, their isn't a nickel's worth of difference in ANY of them.

Agreed.

Last week: Bought stubby and regular length SAE GearWrench sets at Sears (non-flexhead). I love 'em.

This weekend: Was at Harbor Freight and saw their version of the same thing. They looked and fealt practically identical.

fotoflojoe · Sep 24, 2007

Danglerb said:
When I was shopping wrenches in Sears the sales guy told me Gearwrench you have to send in, but I wasn't trying to exchange a wrench, so it could have been just the sales speech they are supposed to give.

Strange. I bought two sets of GearWrench last week and the sales guy made a point to say that GearWrench is warranteed the same as Craftsman; if it breaks, just bring it back and we'll replace it on the spot. Don't think it was a sales pitch, he had already taken my money at that point.

DiStOrTiOn · Sep 24, 2007

You guys are forgetting, there's also the older style ratcheting wrenches, which have been around forever. I bought some craftsman ones because I wanted the made in USA, and they were cheaper than the newer style. Haven't had any problems with them, and neither has my girls father, who turned wrenches back in the 70's and 80's.
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_...me=Hand+Tools,+General+Purpose&sName=Wrenches

Danglerb · Sep 24, 2007

Too many clearance issues. Cars were built with socket, box end, and open end access, that other stuff works sometimes is coincidental. The head of the GearWrench stuff is so much smaller, add in the flex, and on my car at least I think the break down would be something like;

50% anything works on, ratchet, whatever.
20% socket or socket on extension only, no side access.
20% wrench only, no top access.
30% limited side clearance, old fat pre gearwrench won't fit.
10% really tight side clearance, thin box end only, gear wrench won't fit.
15% limited arc, 5 degree ratchet MUCH better.
10% limited swing, stubby needed, maybe a box end and not a gear wrench.
10% open end only.
5% time to start training one of those small monkeys with long arms.

Jononon · Sep 24, 2007

reversegear said:
Um, me and my company. We're an ODM supplier of ratcheting wrenches.

Ah, if you've mentioned it before I'd missed it and I didn't know if you were a magazine, a standards agency, a retailer, a manufacturer, or... :thumbup:

Coach James · Sep 24, 2007

I've got some of those old style ratchets. They were a Christmas gift a couple years ago. Not quite as nice as the ratcheting combos but I still use them. My dad got a set of these except they're straight around 20 years ago. They have to be turned over to switch direction, but are still going strong. Almost identical to these:

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_...me=Hand+Tools,+General+Purpose&sName=Wrenches

Coach

DiStOrTiOn said:
You guys are forgetting, there's also the older style ratcheting wrenches, which have been around forever. I bought some craftsman ones because I wanted the made in USA, and they were cheaper than the newer style. Haven't had any problems with them, and neither has my girls father, who turned wrenches back in the 70's and 80's.
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_...me=Hand+Tools,+General+Purpose&sName=Wrenches

Detroit Diesel Man · Sep 24, 2007

I still havent gotten around to buying a set of those yet..I did buy a ratcheting 3/4" crowfoot from S.O. tho..use it for caging air brake chambers..just use a breaker bar with it..but a few of the guys in the shop have both the gear wrench brand and Craftsman brand..we got together and looked at all of them including my bluepoint crowsfoot..couldnt tell any difference in ractheting action between them..I guess if they are all warrantied thru whoever..its personal preference..altho Craftsman may be the least expensive..(didnt want to say "cheapest") they always have deals going on.

DDM

v8garage · Sep 24, 2007

chad s said:
Yea, Sears started replacing broken gearwrench brand wrenches at the store when they started carrying individual wrenches. They did tell me though that there is a marking on the gearwrenches they sell (I think its a P stamped on), so they know they originaly sold it.

Sears also has their own parts numbers that are totally different than the numbers in the Gear Wrench jobber catalog that goes out to parts stores. I ran into this while trying to do a cost analysis on Gear Wrenches. It is almost impossible to compare prices except on the individually priced Gear Wrenches. Sears has theirs packaged in oddball combinations and so does Lowes (Their parts numbers are different too). They will have something they call a 12 piece set but it won't have but 8 Gear Wrenches in it but will have 4 other doo dads in it to call it a 12 piece set. The Gear Wrench sets in the jobber catalog are not like that. Also what is the final consensus on the ratcheting mechanisms, are all brands made in Taiwan or not?

richg · Sep 24, 2007

After years of abuse, I had a 14mm and 19mm Gearwrench fail on me. The 14 just started acting "funny" -- would be cranking along then all of a sudden freewheel. The 19 locked up all of a sudden on me.

I tried to exchange at sears, but unfortunately they didn't have any in stock. So called up Danaher, and they shipped out two new ones right away. Got them in a couple days. Still need to send the old ones back.

Rich

ImportTuner · Sep 24, 2007

richg said:
After years of abuse, I had a 14mm and 19mm Gearwrench fail on me. The 14 just started acting "funny" -- would be cranking along then all of a sudden freewheel. The 19 locked up all of a sudden on me.

I tried to exchange at sears, but unfortunately they didn't have any in stock. So called up Danaher, and they shipped out two new ones right away. Got them in a couple days. Still need to send the old ones back.

Rich

So, you have to admit the warranty on tools is pretty good; what else can you buy that you can ABUSE and still be covered under warranty ... definitely not a car .... :beer:

wilbilt · Sep 24, 2007

reversegear said:
We only test ratcheting wrenches (gearwrenches), single direction and reversible.

I was referring to this style. I have seen some comments that they are "different" than the polished Craftsman Gearwrench clones.

I recently bought some of the Ace Hardware wrenches that were on sale. The first gearwrenches I have ever bought. They say "ACE Professional" on one side and "Gearwrench" on the other. I guess I'll be returning them to Ace...

I have some Snap-On old style flat ratchets that I have had for over 20 years. No problems with them, although they are not the most compact design, as has been noted.

jimvannoy · Sep 24, 2007

Sears has some 8 pc SAE and metric Gear Wrench sets on sale right now for $39.99, plus some other sets on sale. Don't blame me if the order does not go through or something else happens on their screwed up site though.....

reversegear · Sep 24, 2007

wilbilt said:
I was referring to this style.

Ah, I should have known you were talking about those, but I was posting drunk. Sorry. I think we busted up a set of those a couple of years ago, but we usually ignore them. They are not fine-tooth ratcheting, and there is not much point in comparing them to the other (fine tooth) wrenches on the market.

jononon said:
Ah, if you've mentioned it before I'd missed it and I didn't know if you were a magazine, a standards agency, a retailer, a manufacturer, or...

No problem- we're a manufacturer. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I'd rather not say which company I work for. Sometimes I post from home, sometimes from work, and someday I'm going to slip and say "Tool X is a piece of ****, and Company Y that makes it are a bunch of thieves." And tool companies sue and get sued for much less than that...

Vicegrip · Sep 24, 2007

Has anyone ever opened up a Gearwrench without damaging it? If so how did you do it? Looks like they are preloaded and popped in with the locking spring popping open inside.

I looked at the USA Craftsmen noted above and was unimpressed with them Big fat heads, sloppy movement and long stroke between clicks.

Danglerb · Sep 25, 2007

Repeating a bit of what I said in another thread, but Sunday I bought 3 swapmeet Husky branded Gear Wrenches, a 10mm and a 1/2 flex combo, and a double box end 3/8 - 5/16. Playing with the 10mm at home I found a sticky/rough spot in the ratchet where it would kind of hang up and take a bit more force than I was willing to accept to move. Took two stores, but I swapped it for a new wrench at Home Depot.

Old wrench except for the sticky part was smoother than the new wrench, less force, less coarse feel. The 1/2 has the some coarser feel as the new 10mm. The double end 3/8 - 5/16 is smoother with a finer feel, plus the bar of the wrench is thinner, more like a GearWrench.

I'm not sure how much it may bother me, but a 3 foot wide Husky tool display in the Home Depot has me doubting I will buy another Husky tool.

wilbilt · Sep 25, 2007

Vicegrip said:
I looked at the USA Craftsmen noted above and was unimpressed with them Big fat heads, sloppy movement and long stroke between clicks.

That's what I was getting at. I wonder if these are actually "Made in USA", and the shiny ones are more like "Assembled in USA from more than negligible foreign content".

Gearwrench (Taiwan) vs Craftsman (USA) ratcheting wrench

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Banned

Well-known member

Well-known member

Banned

Well-known member

Well-known member

Banned

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Banned

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Member

Super Moderator

Banned

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Banned