HF JACK-STAND RECALL EXPANDED

[Saabist]

The only HF stands I have are a set of their "3 ton" aluminum jobs. They are used mainly for working underneath the riding lawn mower. I also have other brands of Chinesium stands as well as some old-school US-made stands. I always use secondary supports if crawling underneath a car no matter what kind of jack stands are being used.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted by Trav

Originally Posted by user52165

Originally Posted by Trav

Yep they are going to steal Snap on/tool truck customers.

Are you afraid of competition? Do you think a young mechanic should be beholden to Snap on for massive debt and interest? I'm sure if HF does this it will be after extensive research. Mods - before you accuse me of thread hijacking, see where it started.

For the same or very small amount more you can get very high quality tools. Their Icon brand is or almost in the same price class as first world high quality tools so no they are not a good value IMHO. Many really good brands can be had at similar prices if you look around. Those are the real value tools without going on the truck and some are owned by Snap on.

I got some good deals on Williams tools over the past year or so. Which makes HF Icon tools even less appealing than they already were.

 

[Trav]

Just one example of many... https://www.toolsdelivered.com/cdi-torque-2502mrmh-dual-scale-adjustable-preset-click-torque-wrench https://www.harborfreight.com/38-in-40-200-in-lb-professional-compact-torque-wrench-56614.html The picture of the CDI is not the 3/8 it is of a larger tool, the 3/8 in.lb is very small. The CDI is very good quality and far superior to the Icon for $4 more.

 

[jim302]

Originally Posted by bullwinkle

The new design with the weld up the unreinforced side was a really bad idea, welds open up like a zipper under load from the bottom. Unfortunately there's a LOT of retailers selling these, and I think they would all be prone to this issue.

There are also a decent number of complaints about weld quality on many different brands of jack stands. Harbor Freight definitely screwed up - they need to do a better job of inspecting their safety products. They can't rely on the factory to do it for them. I'm surprised to see that we haven't heard of other recalls from other companies reselling identical jack stands from the same plant, just with a different label and color of paint.

 

[boom10ful]

Originally Posted by jim302

Originally Posted by bullwinkle

The new design with the weld up the unreinforced side was a really bad idea, welds open up like a zipper under load from the bottom. Unfortunately there's a LOT of retailers selling these, and I think they would all be prone to this issue.

There are also a decent number of complaints about weld quality on many different brands of jack stands. Harbor Freight definitely screwed up - they need to do a better job of inspecting their safety products. They can't rely on the factory to do it for them. I'm surprised to see that we haven't heard of other recalls from other companies reselling identical jack stands from the same plant, just with a different label and color of paint.

They probably crunched the numbers and decided that it would be cheaper to settle a lawsuit than to recall them.

 

[jim302]

Originally Posted by boom10ful

They probably crunched the numbers and decided that it would be cheaper to settle a lawsuit than to recall them.

If the feds know who else is selling the same jack stands from the same factory, they may not be given the option to not recall and just settle lawsuits. At least one of the manufacturers is named on the NHTSA web site and Harbor Freight is cooperating, so more information will probably become available over time. Regarding recalls for other brands, it might be hard to find a customer list for a Chinese company, so maybe we won't see any forced recalls. If someone else is selling these stands and they start to fail, it is going to become a lot more expensive to settle those lawsuits now that the issue is known to the world. They might even find someone who doesn't want to settle, but rather wants to make an example out of this situation.