is harbor freight moving up?

[LCHIEN]

just out of curiosity I browsed consumer reports review of electrical generators.
Sure enough they evaluated a Predator from HF.

They give a ranking based on their factors which include power availability, ease of use, noise and power quality.

Surprisingly to me the 7KW Predator 68530 earned 5th spot of the 19 portable generators. It had the lowest price at $600, there was also a Generac 5500W in 6th place for $700. The first four places were 2 Hondas, a Brigs and Stratton and a Troy-built. The average price for the four was $2250 (the Hondas were real expensive but the B&S and Troy were $900.
7th place was $1500.

So what did they ding it for?
noisy. Lack of wheels (in a portable) except as a $35 option and lack of a $35 battery you had to buy extra for the included electric start. The Generac was also faulted for being noisy but apparently it has wheels and a starter battery but 1500 watts less for $100 more.

Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Scored 68 with the highest being 72 and the lowest being 35 (an $800 Briggs and Stratton model). They gave it one of their coveted Best Buy ratings which means its not only among the top scorers but has significantly better value.

Curiously , if you believe in CR's reports you will find it interesting that brand names don't mean a lot sometimes.
The third place was a $900 7KW B&S they gave a 69 score to. LAst place was a $800 5.5KW B&S they gave a 35 score to.

[leehljp]

I'm not surprised that HF is included. HF started cutting down on the number of items within a categor several years ago and the remaining items seem to have increased a tad in quality in the past two or three years.

Someone posted a link about a year or two ago of the disagreement between the father and son over the operations of HF. I have noticed that the prices overall have increased considerably in the past three years. Is there a correlation between the father son dispute, the price increase, decrease in stock items and subtle increase in quality?

AS to CR, they do some good work but they are very also biased, IMO on some things. They tend to let philosophical company differences influence their grade (and I don't want to get into an argument on this). I noticed that attituded way back when we had black and white tires!

[gerti]

AS to CR, they do some good work but they are very also biased, IMO on some things.

I have come to the same conclusion about CR many years ago.

[tfischer]

Someone posted a link about a year or two ago of the disagreement between the father and son over the operations of HF. I have noticed that the prices overall have increased considerably in the past three years. Is there a correlation between the father son dispute, the price increase, decrease in stock items and subtle increase in quality?

Last time I went to HF, there was a big blurb in the sale flyer about how many millions of dollars they were investing in their factories, design, and quality control departments.

[Kristofor]

I don't have the personal experience or exposure across a broad swath of brands to judge most of the things that Consumer Reports evaluates, so at times I do look at their reviews. However, when they review things where I feel that I do have a pretty solid grasp on the category I find that I often disagree with both their criteria selection and the specific ratings.

Honestly for most things these days I think I'm significantly better off looking for online enthusiast group(s) relating to any given topic.. They tend to have more detailed and nuanced guidance than a 4 page article, and if there are two or more competing brands then the pros and cons of each are typically not too hard to find...

[capncarl]

Not having owned a "complex machine" from HF I may be wrong here, but any high dollar tool that I purchase that has a good likelyhood of requiring some kind or service or repair parts, like a generator, I want some kind or dealer/parts/service somewhere within reasonable driving range. Maybe HF equipment has this and I have not seen it?

[dbhost]

HF parts can be obtained from the HF support center. Yes it is mail order, and a lot is DIY, but the machines they sell are pretty simple. Most cities have places that repair Generators all day long, and the components typically are common. the engines for example, I understand on the HF generators are Subaru, and pretty easy to get parts for.

[JimD]

I haven't noticed HF prices increasing, if anything they seem to be going down. I noticed a lower price on their "700 ft lb" impact wrench recently, for instance.

When CR provides test data, I think they do us all a service. They are one of a very few places to actually test. I'm interested in their data. But they intermix opinions and data a lot making it hard to separate the two. I am not nearly as much interested in their opinions. In many cases I would come to a different conclusion based upon their data.

[JSUPreston]

It seems like every time I've purchased a CR best buy, it's been a dud. Could just be my luck, but if I'm interested in something by a certain vendor, and CR recommends it, I usually get the one made by a competitor.

[LCHIEN]

usually the problem with CR is that the recommended Best Buy model is no longer available (maybe this is because their tests take several months and model production runs are short - 1 year and I read the report months after it has been published - because that's when i need it).

AS I illustrated a model by the same manufacturer close in price (the two briggs and stratton models I noted) may score a lot different.

The good thing about CR reports is that they often explain features and tell you the things you should be worried about.

[dbhost]

I did have an interesting side by side comparison between a long time, made the same way old HF tool versus a new model recently...

As some may recall, I am doing a lot of automotive work lately, now that the truck is mostly done, I am moving on to fixing up the old Saturn... Replacing the growling power steering pump, and squealing AC compressor clutch, leaking water pump etc...

To handle these tasks, and because some of my old brand name test tools have gone bad with no repair parts available, I opted for the HF variants.

Specifically the Radiator Pressure Tester Kit. http://www.ha rborfreight.com/radiator-pressure-tester-kit-69258.html and the Pulley Remover and Installer Set http://www.harborfreight.com/pulley-...set-40749.html

The Radiator Pressure tester, fit, finish, and function so far anyway, appear top shelf. However the pulley remover / installer is rough, the metal appears poorly cast, and even the Blow Molded case is substandard by a large margin.

Sometimes it seems as if HF has 2 distinctly different levels of tool quality with the same name brand label, kind of like Sears with their Craftsman line...

[LCHIEN]

Dave, my suspicion is that HF buys from a large variety of manufacturers, like Sears they have no captive manufacturing that manufactures solely for them and has the manufacturers place the Central Pneumatic, Pittsburgh, Chicago Electric and Predator or other HF trademarked names on the equipment manufactured in a run for them.

I presume the HF buyers roam the Chinese OEM manufacturers tradeshows and look for interesting tools that fill a niche in the HF catalog at an attractive price. You know if HF is selling calipers for $20 then they must be paying between $5 and $10 for them.

SOme popular items seem to be around for ages so they enter long term contracts but other items seem to come and go regularly.

HF is going to be more picky about price and less picky about total overall quality than say Sears. Sears tends to buy form established manufacturers with good quality programs (the Toshibas, Samsungs, Ryobis of the world) and HF probably deals with OEMs that are not well known household names..

I'm sure that HF keeps track of returns and if they are too many precentwise it affects their bottom line and they won't deal with that supplier again. But since there are so many first time OEMs bidding for low price the quality is going to be very variable and all over the place. I'm betting that HF Eats the quality problems and doesn't return them to the OEM for credit... too expensive in shipping and paperwork.

[dbhost]

Agreed. Some long time items that HF has had in the past I am actually wishing I Had jumped on when I had the chance. Most notably the 8" jointer. My little benchtop job works okay, but lacks capacity I really want, and I can't afford a Delta DJ-20 unless I get REALLY lucky and FAST on Craigslist...

[LCHIEN]

Dave, think of it this way: the stuff that doesn't stay in the HF catalog long is usually an experiment/new addition and either the sales are slow or there's lots of returns so perhaps you should be glad you didn't get one after all.

[tfischer]

I haven't noticed HF prices increasing, if anything they seem to be going down.

They're cutting corners, if not prices. I noticed that many of their air tools just come in a cardboard box now instead of a blowmolded carrying case, for example. And the table-top tile saw I purchased maybe 15 years ago has gone through several iterations of cheapening... first they replaced the beefy power switch on mine, with a rubberized water-resistant coating, with a standard power switch like you see on their drill presses. I thought that was a really bad idea as this tool gets very wet and indeed throws water back at you - wouldn't feel safe touching a standard switch while using it. Then I noticed the other day they have again cheapened it, made the whole saw smaller, thinner, and generally shoddier. I probably wouldn't buy/recommend it anymore.