For me, this sums it up. I've had ~10 HF jacks, floor and bottle, and they've all failed within 10-15 years. Because they refuse to use u-cup seals everywhere possible. They use o-rings to save a nickel and this ensures produce obsolesce over time; that's the only justification. Everyone raves how great the HF jacks are, and they are great for the first few years, but in 10 years, we'll see how these are holding up. Every one I've had has failed: leaked, leaked down... I've given up on HF jacks. Yes, the cost vs life in comparison to a HW probably makes sense, but I'm done participating in their 10 year homeowner lifespan game and have gone to HW and AC.
To be fair o-rings can do well, i still got some jacks from 70's & late 80's that still function good on o-rings but the internal manufacturing finish and o-ring grade was proper effort .
u-cup/y-rings are safer and likely longer life bet mixed with lower effort lower QC mass production .
A tyre shop near me went through the Daytona fad, did get warranty on at least one that I know of, pool of oil out the pumps was what happened, had one ram fail and they had the car on 2 jacks only with front wheels off for tyre fitting, that customer car hit the floor and he went off Daytona, for sure he should of had stands but it not uncommon see lot of tyre guys use jacks only even a 3 jack 4 wheel removal gamble !ol .
Pre economy collapse it was a 170buck jack :-/ I see in UK they can get the Yellow Jacket version still for that money and shipped mainland free,that retail price in today's economy kind of highlights the manufacture effort in them at this production level ...
I consider you lucky. I had three “less expensive” floor jacks (~$100 range) about 10-15 years ago. They lasted me 6 months (HF), 12 months (Larin), and 13 months (Duralast) before leaking out.
The HF one was Torin made which I took apart a few times to replace seals, which never quite lasted because … the pump piston wasn’t cylindrical, it was bent … and grooves that were machined to hold o ring seals still had sharp burrs on them. These things were clearly seen by the naked eye, so whomever was in charge of QC for that jack obviously saw it and still allowed it to get packaged and shipped. I know some people laugh at the concept of labeling a product “assembled in USA”, but I would hope that if a company prints that type of nationalistic pride on their product, that their QC process wouldn’t accept bent pistons or left over machining burrs.
This pretty much nails big part of the reality why better jack is more money, It more than just paint and stickers difference, you can be pretty sure internal finishing choices and the QC will be some level ahead , Snap-On jack from what I recall never proven to be same factory as HF and even if it was the internal finish could be far different process or even final finishing/some parts and assembly done by separate manufacturing partner .
The legal case only helped highlight the claims the Daytona same as the Snap-On, HF picked up on usefulness of youtube too and they been feeding the shills to some success although tool reviews seems burned itself out to some extent thankfully .
Daytona was a miracle of advertisement input and modern social media and not so much Engineering input & modern manufacture .
One thing HF can beat Snap-On at is legal games and advertising ...
www.harborfreight.com
