By the way, these are shop jacks. Trying to make a shop jack not a shop jack is silly.
Snap On doesn't have a magic formula in theirs that makes it worth the delta.
And there are a lot of cheap trolley jacks if that's what you want.
Project Farm Floor Jack comparison - Mighty Snap-On vs Harbor Freight
- Thread starter General Geoff
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Snap On doesn't have a magic formula in theirs that makes it worth the delta.
And there are a lot of cheap trolley jacks if that's what you want.
Dude - you don't seem to have any thought continuity beyond the last post. It's far more likely it was simply a cost/profit decision than a "lack of technical competence" for the jack - you seem to want to believe that very badly, but there's no evidence that it's true. And given the other retailers you keep waving your arms about are less likely to have an in-house product team (with the possible/probable exception of Northern Tool), it's more likely they took the fully-loaded suggestion from the ODM and they're making less profit. Many of the "product" jobs in places like HD/Mendards have titles like "Senior Buyer". I haven't ever connected to NT other than as a customer, but what I see there isn't super-coherent - their product lines seem more like HF 10+ years ago along with partnerships with companies like Milwaukee.
If you think the team that made the jack for Snap On didn't describe what was done for them to the gang at HF, I'll go ahead and write you off completely. Possibly SO's contract had some exclusivity in it, but it's just as likely HF didn't feel the need to add cost by doing anything as unique as SO. Because if you worked in manufacturing in Asia, you know that every requested change drives NRE/development/tooling that has to be recovered in price/profit.
And while I haven't been a fan of HF's battery line (or [power tools in general), it's absolutely clear they're evolving, refining and improving their "brands". I mean, yeah, 10-15 years ago they weren't very good. But what they've been doing over the last 5-10 years is continuous improvement. I still don't trust it enough to buy any, but what they just did with Hercules is a great sign.
G1GRANDEUR
Well-known member
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I am still using arco 3ton (blue) jack I bought it from costco 15+ years ago.
If I need a jack, I will buy Daytona without any hesitation.
If I need a jack, I will buy Daytona without any hesitation.
They probably said Snap-On had u-cup ram seal, HF didn't want that so wheel diameter and frame changes total waste talking about lol .
For sure HF not interested in any extra expense of non standard options, they couldn't even splash out couple extra bucks for a safer design ram seal . I guess same team dealt with the jack stand sourcing ...
Snap-On is pretty tight on trying keep designs exclusive so been some contractual control on their main design input/specifics .
I would say last 10 years of HF battery tool brands been apathetic product sourcing and marketing incompetence ...
For sure Hercules a good sign but it half a decade late and huge amount people have same opinion as you in not trusting it enough or moved on to dewalt or milwaukee during best sale deals after being burned on one of the many HF battery tool platforms ...
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Ah - I see. You don't like HF, so they must be incompetent. Sheesh.
I would agree that whoever Snap On had pointed at the factory was probably highly knowledgeable.
On a separate note somewhat in SO's defense, any time you're asking a factory for unique parts beyond something like the the ornamental design of the frame itself (which is probably included to some extent in the base price - but the wheel, saddle, saddle pad all might have been 'new' to the factory), you get charged an upfront tooling/mold price, and sometimes development costs. These are generally "spread across" the products by the company. The challenge is those costs can be big bucks and if you're not selling in volume it can really drive a lot of cost into the product. Any dollar of cost generally translates to two dollars of price. Beyond that, if SO is executing the same kind of warranty on these that they do on a ratchet (pretty much a 'if it dies we'll fix or replace it' without any real time-limit on it), they have to bake that cost in there too.
I'm (definitely) not saying it fully explains $290 vs. $1015, but it's not pure profiteering on the part of Snap On.
Lastly, if they pay for the tooling/molds/whatever for the "unique" parts, they likely "own" those for the purposes of that factory. (HF could still do larger wheels/saddle/saddle pad, but they'd incur the same upfront costs.)
I'm (definitely) not saying it fully explains $290 vs. $1015, but it's not pure profiteering on the part of Snap On.
Lastly, if they pay for the tooling/molds/whatever for the "unique" parts, they likely "own" those for the purposes of that factory. (HF could still do larger wheels/saddle/saddle pad, but they'd incur the same upfront costs.)
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hailwood1965
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- 162
This thread is like a 1970s mini-series saga. FLOOR JACKS by James Michner. Starring Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward.
I actually do like some things at HF and use them professionally but a lot of what they do/source really is annoying when you know what available at manufacture with bit of extra input .
They getting better but they seem need forcing into being better rather than having an internal team driving for better .
Nobody has an internal team driving for better just for the sake of driving for better. It's always because of competition.
Snap-on is stupid expensive, casting specific saddle and wheels size is more cost but it not big expense and spread on a long run product line completely manageable .
Frame changes be pretty significant design/testing effort and production equipment setup
Reality is snap-on is not 1k off the truck but it still more than twice the price, Warranty on items like jacks, air, battery, scanners/dvm's etc from snapon is not same as a ratchet, you get few warranty years and that it besides odd exception case, the in house sevice centre costs can be even more stupid expensive lol .
That ***** about your product line. I’ve been in a similar boat, and the cloners actually delaminated a 8 layer printed circuit board to copy the design exactly. The marketing/legal suggestion was to use custom ICs that would be hard to reverse engineer- but that isn’t always possible and doesn’t always work.I haven't seen that HF had any functional patents at all. That would be highly unusual for an ODM-built product unless they developed/co-developed it and then were just using the factory in China as pure contract manufacturer. I also haven't heard that they had any design/ID patents, which would be unusual for similar reasons plus there's not really any "art" in the shape.
That leaves trade dress, which is pretty murky and has a pretty high bar to meet for a successful claim. I do think this is where SO's suit was focused, but in reality it was dead before they every got to court. You can't "own" a color (though IBM and others have tried...), and functional aspects of design often militate against claiming trade-dress (which is why, despite a much-closer visual similarity between the Knipex and HF pliers wrenches, Knipex would almost certainly lose a trade dress claim in court if their execs were as clueless as Snap On's were).
[EDIT] I'm wrong and @Hiball is correct. Snap On did have a design patent (one), though indirectly, on the jacks. I finally found the case in the fun, dry legalese instead of the press mixing up the terminology (e.g. this article, which describes a trade dress complaint more than a design patent infringement). But I just found a much more direct-from-the-court summary.
tl;dr they had a design patent, but it ultimately didn't cover very much - just the specific ornamental design of the jack - and they essentially lost before they really even started.
For those who don't want to wade though the caselaw.com text, the "net" (hey, at least it's shorter than what's at the link) appears to be that SO worked with a company called VIS, LLC to design the look of the jack (I'm guessing VIS was a design firm hired by SO). VIS applied for and eventually got a design patent, which they later assigned to Snap On. SO saw the Daytona, bought one and decided it infringed on the SO/VIS design patent and sued, asking for an immediate injunction for HF to stop selling the Daytona. The judge ruled SO didn't meet the basic qualification for an injunction, and ruled against one. From there, it was a short step by the judge to conclude that the two designs wouldn't pass the "ordinary observer" test, and proceeded to tear down the functional vs. ornamental aspects of the two jack designs. A LOT was deemed functional, and what ornamental elements were left were different enough. And then the judge pretty much dumped the complaints SO used as examples about the similarities as biased and anecdotal (not to mention lacking any indication of understanding the functional vs. ornamental differences and what that implies). And that pretty much ended things.
Stuff like this is pretty tough if you're someone like Snap On. You think you need IP/patents to defend yourself, but they're not a guarantee and definitely not the silver bullet most execs think. On the other hand (but not necessarily in a good way), if you have IP you've got to defend it, even when it sounds like you're being overly litigious, because failure to defend it ultimately means you lose it. I'm not an attorney (though I've been dragged through this kind of stuff many times over the years), but I have to think SO's attorneys told them they were going to lose, and might have suggested less-public things (cease-and-desist, etc.) to see if they could shake HF off the product. It wouldn't have worked, as HF probably has a pretty-solid legal team and knew what SO would claim almost-certainly wouldn't stand. Reading the stuff at the link above, the HF team clearly came to court more prepared than SO did, and just as clearly it wasn't close.
I used to "own" a product line that was triple-digit millions of both revenue and profit, but was getting smacked in various places in the world with crappy copies that were visually identical but generally poorly-executed. I griped loudly to our legal team and they essentially said we'd never win with just a design patent. So I took the opportunity to move things to an entirely new design that had multiple functional patents that were highly unique as well as multiple design patents. It was a big effort. Within six months I began it see multiple types of copies. Several were actually done nearly as well as ours (I really had to look to tell), and some of them went even further by putting the damn warranty sticker on the product, which moved it in my mind from a "copy" to a "counterfeit".
What did the lawyers do? They shrugged and said it would still be very challenging, and taking it to court risked more people being made aware of and buying the copies.
That wasn't my only trip to the rodeo, but easily my most painful. So that's the lens I'm looking through when I posts that clearly aren't aware of how UP law works. What HF did with the Daytona jack isn't remotely what I went through (in the example above and others). With the jack I'd say they met both the spirit and the letter of the law in this area (and the judge did too).
Patents are simply a license to sue. I have seen company’s shut down and/or huge cash awards due to patent infringement. On the other hand, if you don’t have the money for attorney’s and expert witnesses, or if you hit a bad judge or jury, they are a paper tiger and are useless.
All depends on a companies goals and priorities, some are more focused on innovation/product improvement and keeping or improving brand image in a balance to costs and competitive motives ... Some are more focused on unit price and clamorous competitive marketing campaigns lol ...
I'm not sure what you did in manufacturing in Asia, but it clearly wasn't on the business end. "Extra input" = Additional Cost. And as I said earlier, if it's not going to drive additional sales or profit, it's probably considered throwing money down a hole. At the end of the day, HF's guiding principle is "value" where SO, for a thousand bucks, is going to flip all the levers (and they should). The Dayton Super-Duty is not a compromised product - it delivers a lot of the SO value for a lot less than the SO price. Plenty of folks seem to use them in a pro shop environment happily. Mine lives a relatively easy life, but it's butter-smooth, fast and predictable.
[If you asked me what I would do, I'd choose the better seals and fight the bean counters on the point. Choosing the bigger saddle and wheels would probably depend on the tooling and other additional costs, but I'd guess that battle would probably yield the same wheels/saddle as what sits in the store today.]
That's not entirely true. The company I currently work for has a complete process where some extremely talented (in-house) engineers can submit ideas for improving quality. There's a very-detailed process to determine how that impacts the service cost of that product over its lifetime (add a penny to save a nickel over time kind of thing - nickels can add up though, and often the estimates are too conservative and the saving far exceed the estimate) or a user-experience improvement (which is evaluated in a different way, but is still a measurement process). My current job involves deep-diving on that kind of thing with the engineers.
Ultimately it definitely makes us more competitive in a lot of ways (and my counterpart and I are often called in to talk to customers about the nuance of what we do that's different and why), but at the end of the day there's a lot of "We do it this way because we want to be the best" going on there too. It's so detailed that customers never see or notice most of it. The process ensures it's not purely a "just for the sake of it" kind of thing. Ultimately that winds up dragging a product down (unless you're talking a hyper-premium, cost-no-object scenario, which isn't a retail situation).
I'd say we're pretty unique in our industry in terms of depth and breadth of that strategy, but I'm sure there are other companies large and small that do the same kind of thing.
I was pretty pissed off at the time, especially since we were literally being put in the position of warrantying the fakes. We had a massive group of attorneys, lots of money and resources, but the judgement of the attorneys and execs was the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. I did a lot of other things to limit the exposure, and ultimately I think the numbers were pretty small relative to a multi-triple-digit-millions product line. The principle of it all made me mad though - lol. But the Daytona (and the Icon Pliers Wrench et. al.) aren't the same thing as what I was fighting then. HF (and NT, and Menards, etc.) is perfectly legal in what they're doing. SO's design patent wasn't infringed on at all, and the attorneys that filed the suit probably told them they were going to lose (unless they were just bad lawyers, which is possible - the implied messages from the judge's various comments on SO's submission often weren't very complimentary, including this one:
I wonder if GarageJournal comments were part of SO's submission...Snap-On Inc. v. Harbor Freight Tools USA said:
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In regards to the Hydraulic unit, as I’ve stated numerous times is nothing New. The HF line itself covers the lower tier units all the way up to the super duty. We aren’t talking big manufacturing setup/testing swings as the core unit will accept the variation that the customer is requesting (gland versus piston). It was similar on the previous single pump quick lift jacks in regards to seal components.
I purchased the HF Superduty when it first came out, I was curious to the internals and what made it tick inside. I was really surprised to see them cheap out on the Ram seal, especially since they advertised premium seals and utilized Ucups on the pump pistons. The move in my mind was strictly a attempt to control the lifespan of the jack. When you are talking Pennies in regards to the seal itself and option for a ram to accept a Ucup versus the shell/Oring already existed across the board it’s hard for me to believe otherwise. I get it.. HF is in the business of bringing new flashy brands to the table and excitement to the marketplace. I don’t hate them for it, but the Daytona line will eventually fade and whatever there marketing team comes up with take over and Rinse and repeat.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the HF superduty with its 3 year warranty is solid jack. It doesn’t check all the boxes of being a jack that will likely be rebuilt numerous times over the course of one’s lifetime. I say this because the hydraulic unit doesn’t like to be disassembled, even with a proper sized socket the tank nut was coming part in chunks when removed. The pump cylinders are thin in comparison to previous “professional” jacks that I grew up with, but if I’m being honest. The current marketplace and end users have very little interest in rebuilding a floor jack, The excitement of whatever marketing campaign is being pushed, long exceeds fixing what’s broken.
The entire “1” factory making all Chinese floor jacks is flawed, the major players of Tongrun, Shinn fu and dozens I’m probably forgetting or unaware of, are flanked by 100’s of available factories ready to take your order simply by doing a quick google search. Do you want Ucups all around? Buy a Torin or yellow jacket from Northern tool. Do we want to design Garage Journal model? Who is in? I suspect it would be cost prohibitive and make SO’s model look like a bargain.. Ha
I purchased the HF Superduty when it first came out, I was curious to the internals and what made it tick inside. I was really surprised to see them cheap out on the Ram seal, especially since they advertised premium seals and utilized Ucups on the pump pistons. The move in my mind was strictly a attempt to control the lifespan of the jack. When you are talking Pennies in regards to the seal itself and option for a ram to accept a Ucup versus the shell/Oring already existed across the board it’s hard for me to believe otherwise. I get it.. HF is in the business of bringing new flashy brands to the table and excitement to the marketplace. I don’t hate them for it, but the Daytona line will eventually fade and whatever there marketing team comes up with take over and Rinse and repeat.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the HF superduty with its 3 year warranty is solid jack. It doesn’t check all the boxes of being a jack that will likely be rebuilt numerous times over the course of one’s lifetime. I say this because the hydraulic unit doesn’t like to be disassembled, even with a proper sized socket the tank nut was coming part in chunks when removed. The pump cylinders are thin in comparison to previous “professional” jacks that I grew up with, but if I’m being honest. The current marketplace and end users have very little interest in rebuilding a floor jack, The excitement of whatever marketing campaign is being pushed, long exceeds fixing what’s broken.
The entire “1” factory making all Chinese floor jacks is flawed, the major players of Tongrun, Shinn fu and dozens I’m probably forgetting or unaware of, are flanked by 100’s of available factories ready to take your order simply by doing a quick google search. Do you want Ucups all around? Buy a Torin or yellow jacket from Northern tool. Do we want to design Garage Journal model? Who is in? I suspect it would be cost prohibitive and make SO’s model look like a bargain.. Ha
Yes.. If memory serves both parties referenced posts as ammo for there argument for/against. I was contacted by a legal representative in regards to a couple of comments made in the said thread. I won’t say for who, but my claim that SO has always rebranded lift equipment previously thru Lincoln/HW/Gray seemed to warrant further discussion.I wonder if GarageJournal comments were part of SO's submission...
Wheels would be most benefit and cost of that for HF quantities absolute pennies .
The fact they cheaped out at the seal level highlights what effort/money they wanted put in the product.
What annoys me the most is marketing it for something it truly wasn't, no true premium seals and not really any effort truly beat snapon even in easy areas that could of been acceptable additional cost and kept it above the other rebrands in design details and retail potential .
It was compomised by being too value minded and not making most of easy and cost acceptable changes that given buyers a better product that closer matched the marketing claims and could of ranked higher in the retail arena against other rebrands and had potential for increased retail/profits against other base model rebrands because of it .
Is this the Torin you're referring to? (not trying to spar - they have a lot of 3-ton models, some of which look really similar)
This all reminds me of what I found when I was researching - Torin seemed good, but appeared to have a 1 year warranty and 3" less height (max). The NT Yellow Jacket had a great warranty (currently 4 years, can't remember if it was the same thing), but a lot of reviews mentioned leaking (FWIW, I don't entirely trust reviews on the selling site, and definitely not HF in total) and it's unclear whether NT does a walk-in, walk-out warranty. (Of all the tools I have a floor jack seems most-likely to need a warranty). Ultimately, between the reviews I could find beyond the selling website, the 3-year walk-in/walk out warranty and the price, I went Daytona.
I appreciate what @Hiball brings to this topic (and the forum in general) with his knowledge on this topic. Given what I know now on the topic of the seals, I think I'd still choose the Daytona, though if NT handles warranty in-store and was on sale for $299 or less (currently it's $249 vs. a $399 list price), that would probably swing me to the Yellow Jacket.
In regards to Torin/NT models, you really need to rely on there advertising for the specific model. If it advertises poly Y seals you know what your getting because there lower end models are no different than the HF lower priced Daytonas in regards to “seals”. It can also be deciphered by seal kit # if you can find that literature in the manual and compare it to suppliers.
Correct In regards to warranty, all things considered, the majority QC issues will rear there ugly head early on, so walk in/walk out warranty service is important as shipping floor jacks obviously is a pain.
Correct In regards to warranty, all things considered, the majority QC issues will rear there ugly head early on, so walk in/walk out warranty service is important as shipping floor jacks obviously is a pain.
We're not talking about material cost. If you worked in manufacturing in Asia, I don't know why you don't understand that. And if you aren't sure what I'm referring to, you definitely shouldn't be making that argument.
Your ****-hurt about HF isn't compelling, and you're projecting your opinion on their decision-making. I have no particular loyalty to Harbor Freight, but I judge based on the information available to me. If my Daytona sucked, I'd certainly admit it.
My Daytona jack absolutely delivers everything I expected. It's easily the smoothest and most predictable jack I've owned or used - my take on their comparison has been that they deliver a lot of the quality of the Snap On but tuned for the serious DIYer. The wheels and jack pad are 100% fine for my applications, and are as-good or better than anything on the market that isn't a Snap On. The seals are a miss, but at the same time I haven't seen almost any negative chatter about it not being durable on any forums or YouTube. My Craftsman Pro jacks failed after many years of use, and I highly doubt they were built to the level of the Daytona. The Pittsburgh jack the Daytona replaced was fine after several years, but wasn't very smooth when trying to drop the car onto stands, which wasn't fun. So I sold it for a significant percentage of what I bought it for and upgraded to the Daytona on sale. I'd bet in 10 years I'm still running this jack.
You were obviously closer to it, but that wasn't the impression I got from reading the summary at casetext.com (that HF used internet posts to support their argument) Maybe they did in response to SO's use of web threads in their complaint by submitting posts from the same thread that said they're not the same or similar-but-different. It appears SO's submission evidence was largely complaints from their dealers and examples on the web saying "it looks just like it" where HF submitted a detailed breakdown of the functional elements of the design (which reduces or eliminates from the design claim) and had an expert witness testify on those elements as well. The subsequent listing of other jacks on the market that constitute prior art was a big blow for SO as well.
I'm not an attorney, but I've suffered through reading enough of those things that the way that summary reads doesn't make it sound like SO came with a very well-prepared complaint/argument, and the judge was calling them out a bit. But whatever.
I'm not talking material cost, that should be pretty obvious on parts in question ...
Seems to me you might have the **** hurt as bought a premium seal jack that didn't have the full premium seal option lol .
No one questioning if it smooth and works but when you market it as a snapon beater you would expect some smart choices & ideally extra design input rather than exaggeration of material facts ...
The other retailers have more straight up informative marketing and product details, that develops trust & in this instance actually a better end product .... Yellow jacket had better ram seal, reinforced axle to frame legs and longer warranty, they to me clearly have someone on product sourcing that understands brand quality and cost to engineering design ratio benefit, HF clearly motivated by cost at all costs lol .
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joel63
Well-known member
Thanks for the info. Very informative.I haven't seen that HF had any functional patents at all. That would be highly unusual for an ODM-built product unless they developed/co-developed it and then were just using the factory in China as pure contract manufacturer. I also haven't heard that they had any design/ID patents, which would be unusual for similar reasons plus there's not really any "art" in the shape.
That leaves trade dress, which is pretty murky and has a pretty high bar to meet for a successful claim. I do think this is where SO's suit was focused, but in reality it was dead before they every got to court. You can't "own" a color (though IBM and others have tried...), and functional aspects of design often militate against claiming trade-dress (which is why, despite a much-closer visual similarity between the Knipex and HF pliers wrenches, Knipex would almost certainly lose a trade dress claim in court if their execs were as clueless as Snap On's were).
[EDIT] I'm wrong and @Hiball is correct. Snap On did have a design patent (one), though indirectly, on the jacks. I finally found the case in the fun, dry legalese instead of the press mixing up the terminology (e.g. this article, which describes a trade dress complaint more than a design patent infringement). But I just found a much more direct-from-the-court summary.
tl;dr they had a design patent, but it ultimately didn't cover very much - just the specific ornamental design of the jack - and they essentially lost before they really even started.
For those who don't want to wade though the caselaw.com text, the "net" (hey, at least it's shorter than what's at the link
Stuff like this is pretty tough if you're someone like Snap On. You think you need IP/patents to defend yourself, but they're not a guarantee and definitely not the silver bullet most execs think. On the other hand (but not necessarily in a good way), if you have IP you've got to defend it, even when it sounds like you're being overly litigious, because failure to defend it ultimately means you lose it. I'm not an attorney (though I've been dragged through this kind of stuff many times over the years), but I have to think SO's attorneys told them they were going to lose, and might have suggested less-public things (cease-and-desist, etc.) to see if they could shake HF off the product. It wouldn't have worked, as HF probably has a pretty-solid legal team and knew what SO would claim almost-certainly wouldn't stand. Reading the stuff at the link above, the HF team clearly came to court more prepared than SO did, and just as clearly it wasn't close.
I used to "own" a product line that was triple-digit millions of both revenue and profit, but was getting smacked in various places in the world with crappy copies that were visually identical but generally poorly-executed. I griped loudly to our legal team and they essentially said we'd never win with just a design patent. So I took the opportunity to move things to an entirely new design that had multiple functional patents that were highly unique as well as multiple design patents. It was a big effort. Within six months I began it see multiple types of copies. Several were actually done nearly as well as ours (I really had to look to tell), and some of them went even further by putting the damn warranty sticker on the product, which moved it in my mind from a "copy" to a "counterfeit".
What did the lawyers do? They shrugged and said it would still be very challenging, and taking it to court risked more people being made aware of and buying the copies.
That wasn't my only trip to the rodeo, but easily my most painful. So that's the lens I'm looking through when I posts that clearly aren't aware of how UP law works. What HF did with the Daytona jack isn't remotely what I went through (in the example above and others). With the jack I'd say they met both the spirit and the letter of the law in this area (and the judge did too).
All this stuff is about the different world we live in now.
This makes it pretty clear you have no idea what you're talking about. I'm going to stop trying to explain it to you.
I bought that jack knowing exactly what it is, and I'm happy. You're reading their ads with your bias, so you keep winding up in the same closet. HF delivered a very high-quality jack for excellent money. I knew exactly what it was - a very-similar jack to the Snap On for far less money - and I would buy it again.
While I'm sure the Torin and Yellow Jacket vises are nice, I don't think their seals materially deliver a better end product to the vast majority of the people who buy them. Most of those people are DIY'ers like me, and the jacks and their seals live a relatively easy life. If the Daytona wasn't a solid product, you'd see people crawling the forums screaming about them. But you don't. At least three or four other people in this thread have said the same thing I did "Have one - like it."
And what shows up on YouTube (other than the pretty-useless unboxings) is generally pretty complimentary. Examples:
I wish there was more about the Yellow Jacket out there
Kind of amazes me that you don't trust them for battery tools yet totally into the jack based on the advertising and some youtube videos .This makes it pretty clear you have no idea what you're talking about. I'm going to stop trying to explain it to you.
I bought that jack knowing exactly what it is, and I'm happy. You're reading their ads with your bias, so you keep winding up in the same closet. HF delivered a very high-quality jack for excellent money. I knew exactly what it was - a very-similar jack to the Snap On for far less money - and I would buy it again.
While I'm sure the Torin and Yellow Jacket vises are nice, I don't think their seals materially deliver a better end product to the vast majority of the people who buy them. Most of those people are DIY'ers like me, and the jacks and their seals live a relatively easy life. If the Daytona wasn't a solid product, you'd see people crawling the forums screaming about them. But you don't. At least three or four other people in this thread have said the same thing I did "Have one - like it."
And what shows up on YouTube (other than the pretty-useless unboxings) is generally pretty complimentary. Examples:
I wish there was more about the Yellow Jacket out there
With your insight into odm product sourcing/design I would of thought you be quite critical of finer details and marketing clarity !
Fair few Daytona and Torin also to be fair jacks failed in more pro use if search for it, pumps/valves being fairly common cause of issues .
Design enhancement cost on wheels be pretty minimal in test and tooling (if no suitable choice already produced part available) and not a big cost concern on large volume and long production run product (very common to change component design for functionality, brand aesthetics or even sourcing preferences or simplified future spare part sharing, it no big deal in minimal technical areas unless want create barriers for yourself), whether that seen enhancement worth making or adding value is more debatable for HF product sourcing trends but clear visual product differences that visually markatable, identifiable and practically beneficial make sales easier and demanding a premium price easier, Snap-On highlights what retail price is possible from some enhancements and strong brand, HF could learn something from that and play the middle ground smart with better products better brand image and better profit ...
Nothing needs explaining, you say it best when you say nothing at all lol ...
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The difference is (A) I have a lot of clarity on the implications of the choices you keep griping about in a way that pretty clearly shows you don't understand those implications (to be fair, most people don't), and (B) no particular axe to grind one way or another with HF. I just judge based on the best-available information I have.
^
HF delivered 95% questionable marketing, you could of gone northern tools and got premium seals throughout, safer design ram seal choice (less prone to sudden failure under load), strengthened front axle to frame and extra year of warranty for same price range ...
No one really questioning Snap-On is stupid price but you can question HF actual effort on actually providing a jack of design choices that are as good as their marketing claims ...
While it hard to get to upset at the price point and basic functionality of a jack many times HF are not the best buy on rebrand lines as they far too driven on bottom end sourcing costs and hyperbolic marketing .
If Northern tools could do better options and compete at same price then HF could of matched their own marketing and honestly beat or at least matched some worthwhile areas of Snap-Ons finer details and earned a lot more brand value and consumer trust and you still saved $450 bucks for your truck wheels lol .
The trouble with HF is if you don't truly look into product construction/odm and other rebrand options and rely on marketing and youtube you don't truly know the real engineering quality or value of your purchase choice .
HF delivered 95% questionable marketing, you could of gone northern tools and got premium seals throughout, safer design ram seal choice (less prone to sudden failure under load), strengthened front axle to frame and extra year of warranty for same price range ...
No one really questioning Snap-On is stupid price but you can question HF actual effort on actually providing a jack of design choices that are as good as their marketing claims ...
While it hard to get to upset at the price point and basic functionality of a jack many times HF are not the best buy on rebrand lines as they far too driven on bottom end sourcing costs and hyperbolic marketing .
If Northern tools could do better options and compete at same price then HF could of matched their own marketing and honestly beat or at least matched some worthwhile areas of Snap-Ons finer details and earned a lot more brand value and consumer trust and you still saved $450 bucks for your truck wheels lol .
The trouble with HF is if you don't truly look into product construction/odm and other rebrand options and rely on marketing and youtube you don't truly know the real engineering quality or value of your purchase choice .
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71firebird400
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2016
- Messages
- 142
In my area the HF Daytona has completely taken over. I see them at a friends manufacturing employer, at the local oil change places, at the dealerships and at most of the private shops.
In the UK you should find the Yellow Jacket and that got some better/safer construction choices over the HF Daytona jack rebrand .
Out of interest what sort of price does Snap-On retail and actually sell the FJ300 at in the UK ?
What are the merits of a lawsuit by snap on against HF for infringing on a patent they don’t own?@Hiball is correct. Here's a link to the design patent that was the subject of SO's lawsuit. with drawings.
The design patent was assigned to Snap On by the company that did the "look and feel" of the jack. Ultimately it didn't cover very much.What are the merits of a lawsuit by snap on against HF for infringing on a patent they don’t own?
Expensive stickers and paint essentially
sweet victory
Well-known member
AC Hydraulics has been on my wish for a while. I have a two post lift, so I haven't had an urgent need for a floor jack yet.
Either one of these is what I would buy. The price point is sort of middle of road between Daytona and Snap On, and this is far better for low vehicles in my opinion. It's also nice that these jacks are made in Denmark. The AC Hydraulics stuff is popular in the Porsche community, since its long reach allows you to lift the entire rear end of the vehicle using the cross member in front of the motor. It is tricky to put a 911 on jack stands any other way, since the only other lifting point a normal jack would reach is where you need to put your jack stand. (Hard to put a jack stand in the same space being occupied as your floor jack...but someone thought of that too https://jackpointjackstands.com/)
www.ac-hydraulic.dk
Either one of these is what I would buy. The price point is sort of middle of road between Daytona and Snap On, and this is far better for low vehicles in my opinion. It's also nice that these jacks are made in Denmark. The AC Hydraulics stuff is popular in the Porsche community, since its long reach allows you to lift the entire rear end of the vehicle using the cross member in front of the motor. It is tricky to put a 911 on jack stands any other way, since the only other lifting point a normal jack would reach is where you need to put your jack stand. (Hard to put a jack stand in the same space being occupied as your floor jack...but someone thought of that too https://jackpointjackstands.com/)
Hydraulic Jack 1,3t - DK20HLQ
High lifter with long reach, ideal for cars with low clearance.
www.ac-hydraulic.dk
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I looked at various options from the usual suspects (Sealey, Draper, Halfords) but had limited confidence that I’d be able to buy a seal kit in 5 years time.
Retail for the fj300 today is £828, I paid £600 about a year ago.
That far better than was expecting from UK snapon and pretty much matches real world US price .
companies like sealey and Machine Mart in UK really seem totally miss some of the market leading shop tool sourcing options for some very questionable garbage .
Yellow Jacket jack can be found advertised UK for under 200GBP and 299GBP on ebay.co.uk (autojack) . I doubt warranty be that usable beyond consumer legal rights but if got it under 200 it be a fair buy and generally most faults going show up in first few uses .
Probably other reputable source for same odm manufacturers in UK/EU if hunt around but that likely closing gap on the snapon price .
Would of thought MAC have a few decent import jack options and MAC seems good presence in UK and got a few European and eastern block manufactured oprions that solid product and likely fair price for UK market .
They do some nice products with proper thoughtful design/engineering effort .AC Hydraulics has been on my wish for a while. I have a two post lift, so I haven't had an urgent need for a floor jack yet.
Either one of these is what I would buy. The price point is sort of middle of road between Daytona and Snap On, and this is far better for low vehicles in my opinion. It's also nice that these jacks are made in Denmark. The AC Hydraulics stuff is popular in the Porsche community, since its long reach allows you to lift the entire rear end of the vehicle using the cross member in front of the motor. It is tricky to put a 911 on jack stands any other way, since the only other lifting point a normal jack would reach is where you need to put your jack stand. (Hard to put a jack stand in the same space being occupied as your floor jack...but someone thought of that too https://jackpointjackstands.com/)
Hydraulic Jack 1,3t - DK20HLQ
High lifter with long reach, ideal for cars with low clearance.
Have an old long reach high lift jack that I got used from a body shop, comes with 2 size saddles, saddle height extension and 2 point lift cross beam, superb design that makes almost anything an easy safe and quick lift .
Have used AC products fair bit in big truck, farm and construction equipment settings and aircraft guys mention the brand too .
yes, they manufactured to accept variety of seal options matched with supporting parts that why cost of better seal so minimal as supporting part options exist for both types.
main issue is they can be a bit hit and miss on ease of dismantling so it kind of wiser/cheaper buy what want up front but if doing a repair you could source seal kit and parts to your preference ...
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