Mac Tool Trucks

[econoaddict]

Our MAC dealer is fairly new to the area and biz, he is a great guy.
The problem so far has been ANYTHING I order from him takes forever and a day to arrive.

Matco stopped as usual last week and was pushing tools from an ATD catalog, the whole time mumbling about being able to sell them for less than Matco charges him for a similiar Matco tool.

 

[Vinko]

The websites were Mactoolssuck.com and Stanleysucks.com etc. he was making a movie but I think they were running out of donations to do it.

A film like this sounds interesting. According to the archives, he finished production in 2004. I wonder if he ever released any of the footage from "The Tool Guy".

A film or documentary on tool trucks and the culture of mechanics and everything associated with it could probably be interesting, possibly even to the general public.

 

[AJ1978]

I have varied opinions on what is happening. It seems that the initial overhead is the mainstay. I know each company needs to make money, but with SO, MAC, MATCO, CORNWELL. I think the idea of a tool truck is great, as mentioned it could be an outdated model. I live in a semi rural area, its hard to get out and buy tools and work. We have a small indept company that makes it way around, they sell several brands, good prices, quality is in what you want to spend. With the prices of fuel, truck and image means alot. I mean from older SO trucks to newer trucks that the Chassis cost 100,000 I mean we let things get out of hand and expect too much for a guy who is spending all day driving, eating fuel having payments to make. I was very unhappy with MAC CORPORATE, they were harsh to my drive and my previous place of work. We had money to spend, and they wouldnt work with us.

Tool guys have to make a living, I never shafted a payment, never missed one, I would hold off on the phone bill for a week, electric etc before i put the screws to the little guys.

 

[4x4gearhead]

A Mac dist. came to our shop one day because one of the guys contacted him for some warranty he said hed be stopping regularly which lasted about 2 weeks, the guy would just come in and talk to the dude who warrantied with him never even said hi to me, I to this day have like 3-5 mac tools all bought second hand. I have watched my best friend who works down the road hand money to the guy for expensive things only to get screwed when the thing breaks and he goes for warranty and the distributor says "did you hit this with a hammer?" and makes whatever excuse by nit-picking the item. Im sure theyre not all like this but my experience was none that made me want to buy anything from the mac truck

 

[softailmike]

Im tired of hearing all the **** about MAC tools. First you have to know how it works before you put your two cents worth in. All distributors are not equal. snap on is a franchise because you have to pay royalties and marketing the name brand where as MATCO and MAC are distributorships where you pay no royalties to the company. most guys have to deal with getting screwed by the local fly by mechanic who does not pay his tool bill and finds another garage to work for, there the scum of the industry. Who do you think pays for those who dont pay correct the TOOL GUY. Add it up if you have 500 accounts and 1 guy from each account doesnt pay for the tool say on average 350.00 large thats 1750.00. Between high gas prices paying bills and to keep a modest amount of tools on your truck it gets very costly...The tools to the tool guy arent free and its his responsibility to keep the truck well stocked and if it isnt its because he lacks his responsibility to maintain the truck or he cant because he has the average mechanic screwing him on a regular basis. What happened to a hand shake and a deal was a deal and you paid your bill. As far as warrenty and broken tools and manuals and literature that falls on the corporate office and shame on them. I am a mechanical engineer and have been around tools for 40 years. Tools are made the same way from all tool companies the technique maybe different but the technology is all the same and as far as snappy snap on well pay for the royalties and 20 % more than the other guy your just paying for the name and by the end of the day all tools do the same thing. If i blind folded you and said fix a car with two identical tools does it matter what name is on it or the fact you were able to fix the job with the tool. So intern just be good to the tool guy trying to make a living instead of complaining about it.....

 

[jjjrmx5]

Im tired of hearing all the **** about MAC tools. First you have to know how it works before you put your two cents worth in. All distributors are not equal. snap on is a franchise because you have to pay royalties and marketing the name brand where as MATCO and MAC are distributorships where you pay no royalties to the company. most guys have to deal with getting screwed by the local fly by mechanic who does not pay his tool bill and finds another garage to work for, there the scum of the industry. Who do you think pays for those who dont pay correct the TOOL GUY. Add it up if you have 500 accounts and 1 guy from each account doesnt pay for the tool say on average 350.00 large thats 1750.00. Between high gas prices paying bills and to keep a modest amount of tools on your truck it gets very costly...The tools to the tool guy arent free and its his responsibility to keep the truck well stocked and if it isnt its because he lacks his responsibility to maintain the truck or he cant because he has the average mechanic screwing him on a regular basis. What happened to a hand shake and a deal was a deal and you paid your bill. As far as warrenty and broken tools and manuals and literature that falls on the corporate office and shame on them. I am a mechanical engineer and have been around tools for 40 years. Tools are made the same way from all tool companies the technique maybe different but the technology is all the same and as far as snappy snap on well pay for the royalties and 20 % more than the other guy your just paying for the name and by the end of the day all tools do the same thing. If i blind folded you and said fix a car with two identical tools does it matter what name is on it or the fact you were able to fix the job with the tool. So intern just be good to the tool guy trying to make a living instead of complaining about it.....

Sounds like you are a very ANGRY and BITTER mechanical engineer. I hope you don't work for a firearms co. for the sake of your co-workers at the least.


Plain and simple, it's a business. Uncollected funds , poor product quality and ****** customer service all contribute or detract from the bottom line.

I've seen good and dedicated drivers and non-commited drivers as well as those that just plain-ole hated dealing with other human beings.

The truck salesmen represent the company, and obviously Mac is not worried about many drivers out there who are slinging their chrome as long as they get paid.

 

[softailmike]

Im not an angry mechanical engineer. I just want to state my case from hearing from above mentioned. I like my MAC guy and hes great and what you said is true jjjrmx5 it is a business and there are guys that work and then there the others... ((O:}

 

[SpiderGearsMan]

Has anyone else noticed that MAC is treating their tool distributor/tool truck guys like ****? Today was very slow at my shop and when our Mac guy came by for his weekly visit, i had the time to hang out and talk with him on the truck. I was amazed at how horrible MAC tools treats their people, (i.e. taking forever to ship inventory, lacking tools advertised on flyers). Mac just seems to have really bad support for their franchisee tool truck guys. I used to really like Mac alot, but it seems their products are getting kind of chincy too. Was looking at the new "precision torque" combo wrenches today........was very leery of them, seem chinese made. The Snap On guy that comes to my shop is always well stocked, gets special order stuff in really fast and doesn't seem to be "beat down" like the Mac guy is.

never see em

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

... First you have to know how it works before you put your two cents worth in. All distributors are not equal. snap on is a franchise because you have to pay royalties and marketing the name brand where as MATCO and MAC are distributorships where you pay no royalties to the company..... I am a mechanical engineer and have been around tools for 40 years. Tools are made the same way from all tool companies the technique maybe different but the technology is all the same and as far as snappy snap on well pay for the royalties and 20 % more than the other guy your just paying for the name and by the end of the day all tools do the same thing.....

You might have been around tools for 40 years but your post shows that you don't know **** about tool trucks or how the system works. It you have bought from the others, you would know that Mac and Matco are often higher priced than Snap-on for the equivalent tool. All three trucks are OWNED by the driver, they are the franchise holder and distribute tools by either Matco, Mac or Snap-on. If they so choose, they can also sell other tools by Knipex, Lisle, KD or others.

They own the truck, the stock and they have their own truck accounts. They can also sell using a contract under the truck brand and collect for those loans for that brand.

You can also have company trucks for those brands but those drivers work for the parent company and are not independent dealers.

 

[MoToys]

Im not an angry mechanical engineer. I just want to state my case from hearing from above mentioned. I like my MAC guy and hes great and what you said is true jjjrmx5 it is a business and there are guys that work and then there the others... ((O:}

I'd bet you just work for Mac and didn't like this thread. No one had commented for a few months and you go ahead and bring it back. Why?

 

[blown94conv]

Add it up if you have 500 accounts and 1 guy from each account doesnt pay for the tool say on average 350.00 large thats 1750.00.

It's really $175,000.00 dollars. And if a tool guys loses that kind of money he is out of business.

Sometimes it's better to double check what you type before hitting post.

 

[MrMark]

Mechanical engineers are never very good at math. If they were they would have been electrical. That's a fact as told to me by the dean of engineering.

 

[mrholeshot]

Im tired of hearing all the **** about MAC tools. .....

back years ago I rather deal with MAC than Snap-ON. First they hosed their dealers then the tools went to ****. Then the new MAC dealers showed up on the scene. Hard to be a really good dealer with such a ****** company to buy your stock from. Then some guy buys some tools he thinks are quality and turn out to be some relabled Chicom **** and the tool man won't refund the downstroke and the tech doesn't want to pay for them

 

[LawnDart79]

back years ago I rather deal with MAC than Snap-ON. First they hosed their dealers then the tools went to ****. Then the new MAC dealers showed up on the scene. Hard to be a really good dealer with such a ****** company to buy your stock from. Then some guy buys some tools he thinks are quality and turn out to be some relabled Chicom **** and the tool man won't refund the downstroke and the tech doesn't want to pay for them

My thoughts exactly. Mac tools used to be my favorite but not anymore. I still have all my old Mac tools and use them regularly; the old stuff was great. As far as the future, I haven't bought anything from Mac in years and have no plans to buy anything from them anytime soon.

 

[walrus]

. That's a fact as told to me by the dean of engineering.

That's an opinion told to you by the dean of Engineering

 

[LawnDart79]

Now I'm not making a blanket statement here, but i work with a guy with a mechanical engineering degree, and he brags about it regularly. He's a total idiot! He's a self-proclaimed genius and knows everything...just ask him, he'll tell you. He's also proficient at over-thinking stuff and making work out of work.

 

[nelstomlinson]

Mechanical engineers are never very good at math. If they were they would have been electrical.

There are exceptions to that rule, but it's often true. Electrical engineering is far more abstract than mechanical, and if you aren't very comfortable with math, you start to long for things you can understand apart from the math. A lot of MEs can do the math, but they don't like it.

Yes, I'm an electrical engineer.

 

[matthew]

The way I was told it, when a mechanical engineer has a complicated heat transfer problem, they simplify it by changing it into resistances like electrical...

 

[bobcatdan]

Has anyone eles noticed that mac hasn't come out with a new catalog since 2008?

 

[vssjim]

Mac had a catalog supplement in 2010 and not all Snap on trucks are dealer owned they also have a sort of employee deal where it can kind of be a rent to own kind of deal not really. That is what we have now and the dealer is not very good he mostly sits around places he likes and I doubt he will be around long. Mac tried the same deal awhile ago but in the long run it works out poorly.

 

[Az Scooter]

That's an opinion told to you by the dean of Engineering

And the dean of engineering was probably an electrical engineer. Just saying.

 

[otis66]

Has anyone else noticed that MAC is treating their tool distributor/tool truck guys like ****? Today was very slow at my shop and when our Mac guy came by for his weekly visit, i had the time to hang out and talk with him on the truck. I was amazed at how horrible MAC tools treats their people, (i.e. taking forever to ship inventory, lacking tools advertised on flyers). Mac just seems to have really bad support for their franchisee tool truck guys. I used to really like Mac alot, but it seems their products are getting kind of chincy too. Was looking at the new "precision torque" combo wrenches today........was very leery of them, seem chinese made. The Snap On guy that comes to my shop is always well stocked, gets special order stuff in really fast and doesn't seem to be "beat down" like the Mac guy is.

MAC tools have been doing this for a long time now. There use to be a web site "Stanly Tools ****" .

 

[davesnothere]

i hear terrible things about mac from my mac dealer.


but he keeps driving the truck..

 

[mrbreezeet1]

I have NEVER, literally NEVEr seen a Mac tools truck around here. I always see, cornwell, snap on, matco, and the occasional SK truck. Always thought it was weird to not see Mac at all.

OH Wow, No MAC around Pittsburgh.
There always used to be a few, but I am probably talking 1985-1990.
Back around early 80's there was this fellow "John" Forget his last name, He was a MAC guy. But then he gave it up and went on his own with a van, sort of a gypsy tool man.
Barroniski or something like that I think was his last name.
Is "Norris" still a Snap On man around there?
Thanks,
Tony

 

[mrbreezeet1]

I would LOVE to see a cornwell truck. I have a 10mm cornwell wrench that I use exclusively because its so much longer than all my other ones.

Yeah, I'd like to get one of the cornwell screwdrivers, the big about 2 feet long pry bar ones.
I lost the one I had.
Thanks,
Tony