Comment by tombert

FWIW, I bought a Craftsman 1/4" drive ratchet/socket set at a Lowes Home Improvement store last year, and when I got it home and started messing with it, the ratchet jammed up immediately (before even being used on any actual fastener). I drove back over there the next day and the lady at the service desk took a quick look, said "go get another one off the shelf and come back here." I did, and by the time I got back she'd finished whatever paperwork needed to be done, handed me some $whatever and said "have a nice day."

Maybe not quite as hassle free as in years past, but I found the experience acceptable enough.

> My dad broke a Craftsman shovel once that he had owned for four years, took it to Sears, and it was replaced immediately, no questions asked. I broke a socket wrench that I had owned for a year and had the same story.

This is covered by consumer protection laws in some places. 4 years on a spade would be pushing it, but I’d try with a good one. Here in New Zealand it’s called ‘The Consumer Guarantees Act’. We pay more at purchase time, but we do get something for it.

Lots of tools have lifetime warranties. Harbor Freight's swap process is probably fastest, these days, for folks with one nearby. Tekton's process is also painless, but slower: Send them a photo of the broken tool, and they deliver a new tool to your door.

But I'm not old enough to remember a time when lifetime warranties were unusual. In my lifetimes, a warranty on handtools has always seemed more common than not outside of the bottom-most cheese-grade stuff.

I mean: The Lowes house-brand diagonal cutters I bought for my first real job had a lifetime warranty.

And before my time of being aware of the world, JC Penney sold tools with lifetime warranties.

(I remember being at the mall with my dad when he took a JC Penney-branded screwdriver back to JC Penney -- probably 35 years ago.

He got some pushback from people who insisted that they had never sold tools, and then from people who insisted that they never had warranties, and then he finally found the fellow old person who had worked there long enough to know what to do. Without any hesitation at all, she told us to walk over to Sears, buy a similar Craftsman screwdriver, and come back with a receipt.

So that's what we did.

She took the receipt and gave him his money back.

Good 'nuff.)

Harbor freight is like that too.