Harbor Freight tools again.........

[blue34]

I had a small project where I needed 2 or 3 more vice grips. since this seems to be a once & done job I thought to
buy inexpensive tools to get it done & went to H F.
what a freakin mistake, these tools are difficult to open when locked no matter how they are adjusted & the one
will not stay locked !

Keith

[ford84stepside]

Some of the HF stuff is pretty good, some is junk. I just bought a 2hp gas earth auger, hope it holds together to drill 8 holes!

[blue34]

I took them back to exchange for others which took about half an hour to sort thru the batch
on the shelf just to find 3 that are ONLY slightly better

Keith

[Poppy65]

Vise grip brand actually aren't too bad price wise at Home Depot. I made the mistake of picking up a couple HF wrenches to modify instead of cutting up my good tools. Junk. When I finally got a descent weld on them, the rest of the metal would crumble around the weld.

[ford84stepside]

I've bought some vise grip copies at walmart that were decent, too.

[Steve68Cougar]

Quality control still isn't one of their strong suits. As others have said, some things are good and some are bad. I got a tool cabinet a few months ago that I'm quite happy with. I try to stay away from anything electronic. Sounds like their locking pliers need some QA help. I got some extended reach ones (the C-clamp style) last year for my body work project and they worked "good enough". There was some slop in them, but otherwise they stayed locked in place once I had them set. I used to always look for Vice Grip brand locking pliers, but it really doesn't mean as much any more now that my wife and I drive past an empty building in Nebraska where they used to make them before production got moved to China. Now they're about the same as anything else.