my problem with the warranty not being actual lifetime is as a guy working in his driveway on stuff a few times a week I don’t use all of the tools on the reg. If I bought a new socket set today I might not touch that 9mm socket for 10 or 20 years idk I never used one yet
and if the first time I use it it snaps in half because a bad heat treat and they say it’s abuse because i bought it 10 years ago then that would ****
This is related to "lifetime warranty". The brand can't tell how often something is used. A ratchet could sit in a climate controlled store for 10 years prior to sale. It could be 5 years old and only removed 50 bolts. It could be used in a production facility and see a crazy amount in a short time and still look nice. Within a population of users we will find our old friend, the bell curve. A brand prices itself to accept the warranty liability of the center 70% for instance. They shift quality and price to produce an outcome in this area of the curve they're happy about. For one guy using a ratchet as hammer, you have another guy sitting the ratchet in a box and never using it enough to fail. These outliers don't matter all that much, the average warranty liability is represented by the "meaty" part of the graph. These are the average warranty costs, for the average 70% of users, over the average expected lifetime of the tool. This is especially true when you're talking the raw volume of something like a wrench or ratchet with tens of thousands of examples made. That's a lot of units, there's going to be some outliers.
I don't feel a lot of pity if some brand "loses" having to warranty a ratchet or a socket. That's called an outlier, and they win on outliers on the other side which never break anything. How many GJ members buy a tool and sit it in a box, exposing the company to zero liability for warranty? If their issue is too many warranty requests, what they need to do is shift the center 70% of their bell curve, not bust the balls of the guy who gets an unlucky defect. If the brand wants to crack down on chronic abusers, a name/address/phone number does the same thing. "Hey Mr. Smith, it seems you're applying for warranty on a 5 gallon bucket of tools once a month."
I don't feel bad when someone goes into a restaurant holding a dinner special, who then orders water, and no apps. He is offset by the guy coming in buying two $9 Millers and a desert. In that Proto example thread where I had an obviously defective ratchet, Proto forgot about the 10-32mm set of 12 points I bought for $300 and have warrantied zero. But if they want to play around with me as to covering legitimate failure which was not abuse, they won't be selling me anymore $300 socket sets, which they haven't since. As a result, my Proto purchases have been much more limited, although I do still buy Proto.
Warranties strike me as a problem with any product. Hand tools are a funny case since a)they tend to not have moving parts (other than ratchets, pliers?) and b)they can have the bejeepers abused out of them.
Really it turns into a statistical problem as to what to offer, but it seems to me that companies that have neither a truck presence or a local retail storefront probably shouldn't offer much of a warranty after a month or so (ie. an Amazon style its-broken-on-delivery so send it back). If people get enough broken sockets after 6 months, they'll know better next time. Naturally, the trouble and expense of return has to balance out the cost. How much is a $20 wrench worth messing with?
I'm trying to form an opinion, so that's why I'm beating on this a bit...plus I'm seeing warranty and company new-ownership issues right now first hand. Anything with a PCB has the additional problem of non-support (at all) over time, so that is an increasingly nasty problem (wait until everyone's custom flat panels in new cars start failing).
lol. You know I never thought I'd say this, but for a lot of people dealing with typical mechanics tools, maybe Icon is the answer. Crazy.
I was thinking about this from the other end. How low do you go before you just don't bother.
Chicago Pneumatic sells, what I would guess are rebranded, Taiwanese impact sockets. Here's a set:
14 1/2" impact sockets. $25. Warranty is 1 year for defects. Just how much time is a $1.75 socket worth? (gotta also wonder, is there a warranty on real-deal Apex impacts? I've never seen one.)
$$$ input/time versus just buying a replacement if available is always a balancing act. That said the higher the price goes, the less likely one is to shrug their shoulders.
Some cheaper stuff with a lifetime warranty, HF pittsburgh pro impact wobbles or my low profile astro sockets, I will just buy a new set even though they would probably replace my worn out stuff. I do this because they offer me a high quality product, at a very low price, and don't bust my balls if I have a problem. I got a fair trade for what I paid. Now if that same Astro socket was $350 instead of $35? And they bust my balls when something fails (not just worn out) and give me a hard time about it? I wouldn't be pleased. And for every abused tool that gets warrantied, that's another happy customer to talk about "how they took care of me", so it's not exclusively a liability to warranty a tool. Otherwise car dealers and brands wouldn't "goodwill" all or part of a repair right outside of warranty.
The tool trucks are more like a subscription service, infinite tools, pay a fixed fee up front. Outside of that most places won't cover worn out stuff, which is sort of different from an explicit warranty for build quality. But if it's breaking, rapidly wearing, or having failures of some kind? I expect somebody on the other end to help me with this if they want my continued business. All of this is generally speaking, obviously we all have our own tolerance for how things are dealt with.
And you hit the nail on the head, Harbor Freight IS sears in 2024 as far as tools are concerned. And for every abused product HF accepts back, that guy spends a bunch more money on other stuff. No different than the guy walking in to Sears to return a broken ratchet for the 12th time and walking out with a wrench set.
