Gearwrench COO?

[cokeb5]

On the 4th of july sale at sears my son picked up the reversible 15 degree wrench set, I noticed that the wrench can only be used in a manner where the handle is up for knuckle clearance, there is a ridge on the head preventing the wrench to be used with the handle pointing down, while at NAPA today I looked at their sets and they can be used in either direction, I look at the back of the packaging to see they are made in Tiwan while the ones from Sears are made in China, does gearwrench offer two different lines?

thanks
Craig

 

[Fedwrench]

It's only on the Gearwrench reversible ratcheting combination wrenches that they have two different lines. the sets you see at Sears often half off have a feature called capstop. It's that nice flat washer that prevents the wrench from sliding past a nut on a long threaded rod. I hate capstop because it prevents you from using a reverse grip on the wrench.
Capstop is found only on the reversible wrenches sold at Sears and other big box type stores. If you buy a set of Gearwrench reversibles from say tooltopia, they won't have the capstop feature.
Country of origin isn't the issue. Most Gearwrench tools were intially made in Taiwan but, production was moved to the PRC a few years ago for most items. You can find capstop wrenches from both countries.
That capstop feature ruins those tempting sales at sears for me.

 

[archirelic]

If you order ratcheting reversible Gearwrench sets from Advanced Auto, you will more than likely wind up with the ones w/o capstop. At least all of mine I have ordered from Advance are like this.

 

[ImportTuner]

I have both sets .. the capstop are handy for some situations and ones without are useful in others ... the large set I have is made by SK and is really high quality ..