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Sears is TERRIBLE

  • Thread starter Thread starter midnightcafe
  • Start date Start date
M

midnightcafe

Guest
Seriously, how can I shop at such a place? I just bought a Craftsman rotary tool on sale for $60 instead of 70. Brought it home, thought okay, good deal. opened it up the next day to find a decade old, used, broken rotary tool, rust and all-no accessories!

GREAT! had to drive hour and a half round trip, quarter tank of gas to return it.

SEARS has excellent customer service, their saving point, but also their downfall. I could have easily put a brick in the tool box and returned it and got my money back.

Also, Pep Boys is terrible-$22 for a gallon of WD-40. Lowe's sells it for a standard $14. Advance auto parts FTW, exccept they don't sell spark plugs for suzuki gs's.

Anyone know any good online tool websites? I heard www.harborfreight.com is cheap, but cheap quality??
 
midnightcafe said:
Seriously, how can I shop at such a place? I just bought a Craftsman rotary tool on sale for $60 instead of 70. Brought it home, thought okay, good deal. opened it up the next day to find a decade old, used, broken rotary tool, rust and all-no accessories!

GREAT! had to drive hour and a half round trip, quarter tank of gas to return it.

SEARS has excellent customer service, their saving point, but also their downfall. I could have easily put a brick in the tool box and returned it and got my money back.

Also, Pep Boys is terrible-$22 for a gallon of WD-40. Lowe's sells it for a standard $14. Advance auto parts FTW, exccept they don't sell spark plugs for suzuki gs's.

Anyone know any good online tool websites? I heard www.harborfreight.com is cheap, but cheap quality??
Click to expand...

Most stuff you buy from harborfreight expecting it to break at some point. Fortunately, they're generally so cheap, it doenst matter. I HAVE bought some nice stuff there, ive had a couple of torque wrenches i got from them, both in/lbs and ft/lbs i got for about $15ea. and they havent let me down yet. If you watch you can get a whole shop full of stuff from them on the cheap, and it will last you long enough to make it seem worth the money to me.

Its odd, some people complain about AutoZone and Advance not selling plugs and such for GSs. Both sell plugs for ALL of my GSs around here (the 8v and 16v plugs as well) They also both stock oil filters for them (Advance can even get you K&N filters for your GS) maybe its all about location...
 
odd, i've never had problems getting NGK plugs nor oil filters from advanced, they even told me they could have a k&n Air filter for the GS overnighted.
 
If you have a Harbor Freight near you, they're a good source for oddball tools and things you don't need that often. Some of their stuff is high quality, some is junk. You have to be able to tell the difference.

You can order all the same stuff through Harbor Freight's web site, but their shipping and handling fees are absolutely exorbitant.

AutoZone does not stock NGK plugs, but Advance, Napa, and Pep Boys do.

Advance sometimes stocks Fram oil filters, but the oil filters from Napa are much better quality. They usually have a few GS filters in stock, or they can get them easily enough.
 
bwringer said:
"The sensitivities of the humourless cannot be my concern, anymore than composers should worry about how the deaf will respond to their music.".
Click to expand...


I just read that tag line.......excellent choice!:)






(even though I had to correct the spelling);)
 
I'm a big fan of Harbor Freight but I'm also lucky enough to have two within about 30min of me. I usually head down there around once a month to find some new gadgets or tools. My top three purchases from them last summer were:

A french fry cutter for $3
A kite for $7
and a set of gear wrenches for $20


You really do need to be able to see what you're buying though, some of it is total carp and some of it is a great deal.

/\/\ac
 
bwringer said:
Wait, something seems fishy here... :p
Click to expand...
t


What can I say, I'm a Union writer and I work for scale.


I've also gone to O'reilly for plugs. They seem to be the only place around that stocks motorcycle specific oil in my area too, at least as far as autoparts stores. The staff at the few local stores I've been to actually seem to be useful too. Uncommon lately.

I've used their "house brand" front semi-metallic brake pads on a couple of cars and they see to have good grip and feel with fairly low dust.

/\/\ac
 
Let's differentiate "Sears" from a few of its, perhaps less-than-dedicated, employees.

******<Quoted>*********

I HOPE you have all seen the reports about how Sears is treating its reservist employees who are called up? By law, they are required to hold their jobs open and available, but nothing more. Usually, people take a big pay cut and lose benefits as a result of being called up.

Sears is voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus programs, for all called up reservist employees for up to two years. I submit that Sears is an exemplary corporate citizen and should be recognized for its contribution.

I suggest we all shop at Sears, and be sure to find a manager to tell them why we are there so the company gets the positive reinforcement it well deserves.
********<End Quote>*************

From Snopes.com:

Sears is indeed one of the employers who take additional steps to show support for workers involved in serving their country (either in the Reservers or the National Guard) by guaranteeing the continuance of their civilian pay (for up to 60 months) and allowing continued participation in life insurance, medical and dental programs. Although Sears is singled out in this examples, many other American businesses, large and small, do the same for their Reserve and National Guard employees. A listing of such businesses can be found on the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) web site.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff
 
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good point, they definitely do their business better than other corporations (Walmart), but the select store I had visited was running under poor management. I also asked if they carried vice grips, to which a store employee replied, "yeah, over there" and pointed across the store. He obviously was trying to get rid of me-it's a cheap trick to satisfy the required customer service duty by sending them on a goosehunt across the store so that the employee can do his floor duties (I know this because I've seen it/done it when I worked at a grocery store years ago). That Sears would be a better store if employees knew what they were doing.
 
I'm right there with you on this, but I still stand by the craftsman tools.
Not 6mos ago I was on here ranting about getting the run around in-store
on an impact driver that I ended up picking up from the same store three
hours later after buying online and doing in-store pickup. Their service is terrible, but their products are not. I'll take the craftsman over the autozone/CAP/VIP/harborfreight chrome job any day.

They are just starting to put Harbor Freight stores up north, but none as far North as I. Their quality seems on par with the stuff you get at any parts store, but one step below craftsman, and two to three steps below anything you'd get off a tool truck. If I'm ordering out of a catalog, I've preferred NothernTool to HarborFreight, but that's probably just a matter of habit than of any quality difference.

Just my .02 :) (Fell out of the habit of posting after the forum went down a few mos back, heh)
 
Customer service basically sucks everywhere.

I like Sears for their Craftsman stuff. Good quality, great warranty.

My mom usually gives me a Sears gift card for Christmas. I gather up all my broken craftsman tools (if I have any), and sort through my stuff to see what's missing (usually a few wrenches and sockets), and head on down. It's a fun trip!
 
One of the first credit cards I first got in life was from Sears, I bought just about everything from there for the house and shop due to their no problem customer service when something went wrong.

I wouldn't buy a stick of gum from them now, in fact I canceled my card with after 20 years. They are not the same "no problem, we want to keep you as a loyal customer company" they once were, they are just like their sister company K-Mart now. As far as their tools now, they aren't the same quality as they used to be and definitely not up to Snap-on or MAC. Compared to HF tools they might be a bit better but they too get a lot of their products from China. The pricing is for the name now mostly, I could have bought 10 HF click torque wrenches for the cost of 1 craftsman. I checked the HF one for accuracy and it was equal with my brothers Craftsman. Sure they have junk but so does Sears, all companies cut corners on some of their products now, just don't rip me off on the price like you'll stand behind it when you won't like Sears does! :mad:
 
I'll back you up on that one -> The craftsman torque wrenches suck.
And you know that they know they suck, because they are not lifetime
warrantied. Hard tools though, still have the lifetime, and are still good quailty.
 
Shaughn said:
They are just starting to put Harbor Freight stores up north, but none as far North as I. Their quality seems on par with the stuff you get at any parts store, but one step below craftsman, and two to three steps below anything you'd get off a tool truck. If I'm ordering out of a catalog, I've preferred NothernTool to HarborFreight, but that's probably just a matter of habit than of any quality difference.

Just my .02 :) (Fell out of the habit of posting after the forum went down a few mos back, heh)
Click to expand...

Shaughn, they have a store in Albany at 1770 Central Ave Albany, NY 12205. Kind of a haul just to go there unless you had a long list but you might want to check it out if you happen to be down in that direction.

/\/\ac
 
Macmatic said:
Shaughn, they have a store in Albany at 1770 Central Ave Albany, NY 12205. Kind of a haul just to go there unless you had a long list but you might want to check it out if you happen to be down in that direction.

/\/\ac
Click to expand...

You know, now that I'm over in VT I always forget to search in NY for things.
I always live in Boston in my mind, I guess. I'm in wholesale tires now, and our nearest sister DC is in Albany, so I've always got an excuse to drive down there. Thanks for the tip, Mac!
 
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