I've seen little tidbits here and there on this board about the latest edition of HF's line of Pittsburgh Pro sockets and ratchets, so today when it was convenient I had to stop by their Bellevue, WA store and check out the situation. I haven't been in HF for years, but I do have a few of their items, notably a set of their Pittsburgh Pro polished combination wrenches (India) and a small set of 3/8"-drive metric hex bits (China), both of which live in my "road box" and both of which have gotten my old beater off the side of the road a couple of times.
Anyway, the new Pittsburgh Pro stuff looks shockingly good
Everything that I saw was clean and uniformly finished, including the insides of the sockets. Their spline sockets looked nicer than those black-oxide Craftsman spline sockets. The ratchets had smooth action, and the mechanisms fit tightly in the heads (unlike those old-school import ratchets that we all know from days past, and are still available in HF's and others' $9.99 1/4 & 3/8"-drive SAE & metric socket sets). The roto-ratchets were particularly enticing; Genius, Titan, and GearWrench sell the same ratchets for double the price. My gosh, what happened here? Almost everything came from Taiwan rather than China or India. The quality is evident. Of course, this isn't true for most of the other areas of the store, but the new sockets really did impress me, and they seem to be holding the line on the prices.
Now, I'm not rushing to dump my Proto tools; I prefer to buy USA-made products. And I am surprised that HF still skips sizes in their sets, especially common ones like 12mm. But overall I really was impressed at what Harbor Freight has done to respond to concerns from people like us, and I wonder if the writing is on the wall for the likes of Craftsman and even Mac. I would hate to see Craftsman go, as they once were the cornerstone of my toolbox. But why pay high prices for Chinese Crafstman tools when you can buy a similar and possibly better imported tool for substantially less at HF? If these exact tools were made in the USA and sold as Craftsman or another good USA brand name, I think they would sell like crazy, even at Craftsman prices.
Anyway, the new Pittsburgh Pro stuff looks shockingly good
Everything that I saw was clean and uniformly finished, including the insides of the sockets. Their spline sockets looked nicer than those black-oxide Craftsman spline sockets. The ratchets had smooth action, and the mechanisms fit tightly in the heads (unlike those old-school import ratchets that we all know from days past, and are still available in HF's and others' $9.99 1/4 & 3/8"-drive SAE & metric socket sets). The roto-ratchets were particularly enticing; Genius, Titan, and GearWrench sell the same ratchets for double the price. My gosh, what happened here? Almost everything came from Taiwan rather than China or India. The quality is evident. Of course, this isn't true for most of the other areas of the store, but the new sockets really did impress me, and they seem to be holding the line on the prices.
Now, I'm not rushing to dump my Proto tools; I prefer to buy USA-made products. And I am surprised that HF still skips sizes in their sets, especially common ones like 12mm. But overall I really was impressed at what Harbor Freight has done to respond to concerns from people like us, and I wonder if the writing is on the wall for the likes of Craftsman and even Mac. I would hate to see Craftsman go, as they once were the cornerstone of my toolbox. But why pay high prices for Chinese Crafstman tools when you can buy a similar and possibly better imported tool for substantially less at HF? If these exact tools were made in the USA and sold as Craftsman or another good USA brand name, I think they would sell like crazy, even at Craftsman prices.