ETJ said:
I really don't understand the often passionate hate towards Snap-on.
But... are you sure it's "hate" that is directed at
Snap-on? Or is it perhaps that some people are just annoyed as hell by the hard-core Snap-on fans telling the rest of us that we're doing it all wrong, notwithstanding we've been using some other brand of tool for over half a century without any problems?
If I actually believed that I was getting the value for my money by paying $9.52 for one 1/4" drive deep-well 12-point metric socket (back in 1993), I'd be 100% Snap-on.
But when 30 years later, I can buy a 50-piece set of TEKTON for $80 bucks that gets the task accomplished, it becomes very difficult to justify the additional expense.
Oh yes... there's that "warranty" thing, right?
I've broken ZERO sockets in my lifetime. I've broken exactly TWO tools in my lifetime: a 1/4" drive 6-inch flex extension, that I clearly pushed beyond all reasonable limits, and one of those goofy "stud extractor" things that came from Harbor Freight, so it was no big surprise.
So I have to ask"
why do I need to be concerned about "warranty"?
I don't believe anybody
hates Snap-on. Some of us have some reservations about their business model, but that's really got nothing to do with the tools themselves, which are top notch.
Very few of us are willing to be honest with ourselves and we allow our minds to play tricks on us with things like
confirmation bias and
belief perseverance. (You've been told all your life by all those you work with that Snap-on is the best, right? How dare anyone suggest otherwise!)
It is simply not possible for me - in my mind - to justify paying five times the price for an item that is not going to perform a task any better than an item that is one-fifth the price.
Certainly there may well be some specialty items that nobody else manufactures an equivalent to that might be a "must have", but sockets? Ratchets? Screwdrivers? Wrenches? SRSLY? Have you guys looked at and tried USING the stuff the Japanese and Taiwanese are cranking out in the current era? Some of it is simply awesome, and crazy cheap.
seber said:
Please leave open the possibility that the proponents of a given product MAY not be glaze-eyed cult followers of a brand..."
A buddy of mine has his 911 parked in his garage. He drives a little silver BMW around. I don't make him wrong about his Porsche. He doesn't make me wrong about driving an old Ford truck.