Crack in the armor

[visenfile]

Across the years decent treatment by Harbor Freight, both in store and with online evaluations of purchased products. But.....suddenly (for me)) a hiccup in form of failure to publish a critical evaluation of a newly purchased "Bauer" 4 x 24 belt sander. Questioning HF failure to publish resulted in a response that "offensive" material is not published. Huh??? Perhaps they should say "embarrassing" material. Here's the story.

HF offered a 4 x 24, variable speed belt sander previously under a different brand and SKU. It was very powerful, but the variable speed did not work, even after exchange and return of a second unit. The sander raced full speed while set on slowest. Shortly thereafter the brand and sander simply disappeared from HF offerings. Was this due to storewide problems?

Last month purchased a newly advertised Bauer 4 x 24 unit. It appears identical and is very powerful, but also fails to provide reliable variable speed after several minutes of operation (it races). The unpublished report is a "3 star", " recommend buying," "same sander with previous problem," and "overpriced with the faulty speed control." I have kept the unit despite the problem.

Online is risky and reviews a debatable subject, but I like to see a spread of good and bad. Whether real or "fake" someone like Amazon does this. In the event that HF does publish I will update the readership.

 

[darkzero]

That's unfortunate & I can imagine your frustration. Fortunately HF has a really good warranty/return policy.

Many tool related forums have a HF Good or Fail thread. We have one also. Would be useful to share your tool experience in that thread for others to see that are searching for feedback on that particular tool.

Rate the Harbor Freight Tools Thread- Pass or Fail?

I saw this idea on another forum, and it is a great resource. So here goes, of the Harbor Freight tools that we use as home shop machinists, which ones are satisfactory (pass), and which are not (fail)? Nelson

www.hobby-machinist.com

 

[C-Bag]

HF has had many just outright fails and fortunately for me their online reviews have saved me more than once along with their return policy. My experience is there is quite a few neg and brutal reviews on the bigger stuff I was looking at in the past. Some that demonstrate the users have no experience, some that show the lack of QC by the various manufacturers. They used to have several models of basically the same thing and the same price or minor price difference. So it helped me weed through by the reviews and for the most part feel like I did good.

But like all things HF it is subject to change and they have been doing a lot of that recently so it is conceivable the reviews could now be edited and re marketing of past failures. I think all importers are feeling the squeeze with the trade wars. Something to watch and thanks for the headsup.

 

[4ssss]

If you're going to use a tool once and let it sit on a shelf, HF is the place to go. If you're looking for a tool you'll use all the time, buy a good one and don't waste your money at HF.

 

[matthewsx]

If you're going to use a tool once and let it sit on a shelf, HF is the place to go. If you're looking for a tool you'll use all the time, buy a good one and don't waste your money at HF.

I use a bunch of my HF tools all the time, even in my shop where I got paid for the work I did with them.