5 Tools You Should Never Buy from Harbor Freight

Rev up your engines. Today, I & # 39 m, going to talk about harbor freight tools. Now I & # 39 ve, been a mechanic for 51 years, so I got a garage full of tools. You & # 39 re, not going to spend that kind of money fixing your own car, so you want to buy certain tools that you need and you don & # 39 t want to pay too much, but on the other hand you don & # 39 T want to buy cheap junk that & # 39 s going to fall apart, so you want to save money, buying tools and a lot of people have asked me in the past scotty. What do you think of harbor freight tools? Well, I & # 39 ve bought stuff from them for the past few decades. To tell you the truth, and I found out some rather interesting things now. The first is the bad. You do not want to go too cheap when you & # 39 re buying tools here & # 39 s, an example of a tool. I got at harbor freight tools and it was too cheap. I bought a cut off, saw for cutting off mufflers and exhausts and body panels and stuff, and I made a mistake and bought one of these $ 29 ones at harbor freight tools and yeah, I admit it. I & # 39 ve, been cheap. My whole life. Well, in that case, I went too cheap. The thing only lasted a few months and finally, when I was sawing and it shorted out, the wiring kicked my circuit breaker off on the house. Yeah, I admit it. I made a mistake. The I got this dewalt cut off, saw no problems at all and if you look closely you can see, this is all ground down here cuz. I actually ran over it with a ford pickup truck and it dragged it down the street, but it still works fine. This is a solid built saw yeah, it costs a lot more than the cheap one did. But in the case of this, it & # 39 s worth buying a good one. If you & # 39 re planning on using it for years, and when I reach into my drill bag with drill bits here & # 39 s, another thing not to buy cheaply drills bits, you don & # 39 t want a set of cheap drill bits. You can see this one has snapped right off. Cuz it & # 39 s. Just cheaply made. They say that it & # 39 s, titanium coated or whatever, but that doesn & # 39 t do anything if the steel inside is cheap. It & # 39 s going to snap off like this. So you see a set of drill bits and there & # 39 s like 20 of them for $ 10. Believe me, don & # 39 t, buy them unless your drilling into wood or something that doesn & # 39 t have much resistance. If your working on cars forget it but good drill bits in most cases, if you want a good drill bit their going to cost $ 9 or more each not for a set of a bunch of them, and the same goes for the drills themselves. Yeah I tried some of those cheaper harbor freight ones and they all burnt out early. So now I got a dewalt drill too, and this thing has been going for years and years and I never had any problems with it at all. So I can see your now thinking. Oh scotty is just a hater. He doesn & # 39 t like them. Well, they do have good products too, especially lately they & # 39 ve, been going more high end on a lot of their tools to get mechanic. Like myself, to go there and buy stuff here & # 39 s, a perfect example. This zurich zr13 scan tool is about $ 200 and it does a lot of stuff. It does all the scan tool, data trouble codes, and it will also check your battery check. Your alternator to make sure your charging system is good. It & # 39 s, actually a really good tool. It & # 39 s, one if their new zurich lines, where their trying to make better tools for people that are serious about fixing cars in the past. They sold a lot of cheap scan tools that they weren & # 39 t all that great, but now their going for higher quality scan tools and since, if you search on the internet for harbor freight discount coupons every time, I buy something big from them. Hey. I can always find a 20 % off of one item somewhere on the internet. If visit this website & # 39 s, a $ 200 tool hey now, it & # 39 s only $ 180. Now, when it comes to heavy duty tools, I & # 39 ve used them in the past. Underneath all this stuff that I hang on is a 20 ton press. It & # 39 s made out of very thick steel. When I press with it, I & # 39 ve, never had any problems with anything. I & # 39 ve, never found anything that I was working on, that I couldn & # 39 t press on or off with this thing and yeah. When I compared priced before, I bought it other places that were selling the same rated press, those things were 3 or 4 times more expensive than this thing was let & # 39 s face it. Steel is a pretty cheap commodity when it comes down to it. The sell it buy the ton they make these things in China yeah their made in China. I & # 39 ve, had no problems at all with them and when it comes to jacks here & # 39 s, a jack that I got from harbor freight tools. This daytona, you see all those jack handles behind me. Those are all harbor freight jacks and they all still work. Some of them are 20-30 years old. Again we & # 39 re, talking mainly steel and a simple hydraulic ram jack that picks it up and down. Pretty simple technology: hey the Chinese, a good at building that stuff. I & # 39 ve, been using Chinese jacks for the last 40 years, and the only reason I have a bunch of them is because they keep making cars lower to the ground. So I keep having to get jacks that are lower and lower, so I can slide them under the car and actually jack the car up in the air without either damaging the bodywork and not even being able to get it under there. So my advice on that is get a low profile, one like this daytona when their this low, they & # 39 ll, get under just about anything, and since this one is a heavy duty jack. It also goes high enough that, even though it goes low, I & # 39 ve, used it working on f150 pickup trucks and it & # 39 s high enough to get the tires and everything off let & # 39 s say you want to work on Your car & # 39 s, ac system. You got to have a vacuum pump and I bought this at harbor freight decades ago and sure, if you look at it, you can see. The plastic cover is cracked. I got a strap holding it on, but the thing still works, so it may look beat up, but it still works and it & # 39. S worked for decades and I paid like $ 60 for this when it was on sale and heavy duty. Sockets, hey these are made out of heavy duty steel. I never had any problems with them. The only problem I had is my own. You can see these are different and that & # 39 s because I lost the other ones and if your into welding, once I bought one of their $ 99 welders, really it was a piece of junk it. Didn & # 39 t work worth beans, but a few years ago I bought one of their $ 300 welders and it & # 39. S been an excellent welder, because again you can & # 39 t, go too cheap, the $ 300 one man, it & # 39 s, a good welder. It puts out a lot of power, solid thing, but the $ 99 one. I should have known when the really good ones were like $ 800-900. Hey. I & # 39 m happy with the $ 300 one. It works perfectly fine, but the $ 99 one don & # 39 t go too. Cheap same thing goes with their generators. I bought a $ 89 generator when it was on sale. I mean it & # 39 s, ok to run a coffee maker or something, but then I bought a $ 500 one and man. That thing is great. I could run my air compressor all kinds of power tools off of that thing: hey it & # 39 s, a pretty good unit, and I know we & # 39 re all looking for the pie in the sky that we & # 39 re, going to Buy a $ 5 lottery ticket and make $ 500 million, but let & # 39 s face the facts. You can get a good deal, but don & # 39 t. Think you & # 39 re, going to get a totally fantastic deal on a tool that hardly costs anything cuz odds. Are it & # 39 s, not going to be such a hot tool so know you know what I think of harbor freight tools there & # 39 s, good things and there & # 39 s, bad things. Do your research before you buy them and you can make out quite well if you spend a reasonable amount of money buying tools that aren & # 39 t super expensive, but their not the cheapest thing you can get your hands on, and since this is mechanic Monday, I & # 39 m, giving away one of these harbor freight disc brake kits it & # 39 s, the same exact one that I & # 39 ve, been using for years to have a chance to win place. A clean non offensive comment on the YouTube comments below and a winner will be chosen randomly by computer to get this great brake kit. So you can do your own brake jobs. So if you never want to miss another on of my new car repair, videos remember to ring that bell.