Was dead wrong about that whole 'buy once cry once' tool thing

I rolled my eyes at my buddy for spending $350 on a single cordless drill when a $50 one from Harbor Freight worked fine for 2 years. Then that cheap chuck stripped out during a deck rebuild last Saturday, cost me 4 hours of extra work and a trip to the store. Has anyone else had a tool fail at the worst possible moment?

3 comments

3 Comments

ellioth3728d ago

Learned that lesson myself when a cheap wrench rounded off a bolt on my water heater on a Sunday.

stone.lisa28d ago

Elliott, I bought a cheap set once and my 9/16 socket split like a walnut on a rusty alternator bolt. A decent wrench from Home Depot cost me twenty bucks and has outlasted two cars so far. Sometimes cheap tools just cost you more in time and blood pressure down the road.

gracec1628d ago

@ellioth37 did you end up having to drill that bolt out? Because that's the kind of Sunday project that turns into a nightmare real fast. I keep a can of PB Blaster and a set of Irwin bolt extractors in my garage now for exactly that reason. The extractors are like $15 and they've saved my butt more times than I can count. A cheap wrench set is fine for hanging pictures or something, but for anything with rust or torque, you're better off spending the extra ten bucks. I learned that the hard way when I snapped a harbor freight ratchet trying to get a brake caliper off. Now I just buy midrange stuff from auto parts stores and it lasts forever.