Harbor Freight gets million dollar fine

As said above you get what you pay for. Still I like HF. Certain tools, I want quality. I do most of my own work on my vehicles so I use nothing but good quality hand tools. Nothing worse when having a socket crack in the middle of some big job.

But for a lot of things HF stuff is just fine. I have one of their cheap cordless drill I keep in the trailer and mostly use it for raising/lowering the stabilizers, a 2 ton bottle jack that I keep in the back of my truck, ratcheting tie downs, a polisher/sander, and a few other things. My dad has tons of tools that came from there. The only thing I ever bought from there that failed after a while what a 3" pipe spreader.

Too bad we can't get what we pay for out of the gooberment.

What a crock for the gov't to do this. Was the kit sold as a "Full, everything needed, covers all trailers" lighting kit? If not,then it's a crock.

What about center clearance lights for wide trailers? What about the front amber clearance lights, or the top clearance lights for tall trailers? What if the trailer that the buyer of these lights were going on was planning to use separate side marker lights?

For commercial users that will be using a tool daily, spend the bigger bucks; for most other occasional users, HF tools are fine. I do all of my own maintenance on my vehicles, my toys (ATVs, Jet Skis, M/Cs, trailers) as well as around the house. I have quite a few HF tools, as well as more expensive tools. Coincidentally, I've yet to break a HF hand tool, but I have certainly broken Craftsman. Look any tool over before purchase; sometimes the fit & finish is not up to par; so pass on it. Otherwise, as long as you don't expect it to last through heavy daily use, HF tools are sufficient in most cases. Yes, you get what you pay for. As someone else said, you don't always need a Lincoln Town Car; sometimes a Ford Focus is more than sufficient for the job at hand.

bid_time wrote:
You get what you pay for. On the other side of the coin, You don't always need a Lincoln Town Car, sometimes a Ford Focus will do the job. Case in point, I have an $80 air compressor that has been working just fine for about 10 years, but I only need it a few times a month for mundane tasks. Same for my cut-off saw, air nailer, drill press, 2-ton jack, etc. My cordless tools are Makita, Dewalt, or Ryobi, I use them a lot.

Well said! That is exactly the way I look at it. ;)

Its Harbour freights fault for getting into a sales arena and not knowing all the rules and requirements. They crossed a line and unknowingly found themselves under the NHTSA jurisdiction. When they decided to sell trailers they needed to do their homework and know all the requirements to sell them on a nationwide scale.
Ignorance of the law is seldom a viable excuse.

The problem is a guy goes out and buys a trailer light kit from Harbor Freight. He pays less than half of the Napa price. If he was smart of enough to read the drivers license manual he would have known that he also needed more than what the kit offered. So he then complains that he got cheated.

I've had pretty good luck with the cutoff tool and their blades. Body panel cutter works fine.
Drill bits were total garbage in steel ok for plastic or wood.

Mag lights for $10 work as good as my $50 ones.

agesilaus wrote:
Do the pliers and adjustable wrenches have too many moving part?
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Well their vice grips, don't. Grip that is and their adjustable wrenches have slop in the movable jaw so it does not reliably lock onto a bolt head or nut.

The alarming thing from RVers standpoint is that the towing supplies they sell do not meet the required standards

I have one of their 18V cordless drills around here. I got it to use on the jacks on a RV. The battery is lucky to last thru 2 uses on the jacks and the torque is underwheming. My 18V Dewalt will just about twist your hand off and when used in raising and lowering jacks the battery lasted for weeks last summer.

I've never tried their adjustable wrenches. The pliers are okay.

Are you familiar with the top ten things to not buy at HF? :)

1) Parachutes
2) Fire Extinguishers
3) Pacemakers
4) Vaccines
5) Birth control devices
6) Elevators
7) Bullet proof vests
8) Trigger locks
9) Pitons (I didn’t know what this was either…)
10) Scuba Gear

Well the fine is only for the trailer light kits it seems. Nothing else! But knowing what you need is also important! If you don't know you need side lights on a trailer then you need to do more research. And what happens when you buy the kit and have a longer trailer that requires a middle market lamp? Is that Harbor Freights fault for not knowing what it's going on?

"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has hit Harbor Freight Tools with a $1 million civil penalty because it did not follow federal guidelines regarding the recall of more than 800,000 trailer Light Kits (improper side light)."

I sometimes think the Federal Government would rather harm an American business than provide reasonable guidance.