American-Made Products: A Letter to Lowe's

This will tell you all you need to know on that subject

http://888publishing.com/

Yes I heard that, sure there are things about that sort of thing that are true,

but the adage; "don't bit the hand that feeds you".

This saying now actually goes both ways and is no longer clear who is feeding who.

but the US owing China trillions is not too bad a bargining position in a twisted form a way.

OMG, I should give myself a huge bonus for that idea.

p911

Who is Jimmy Lee? There's JPMorgan Chase Vice Chairman James Bainbridge Lee Jr., but he's not what I'd call a "China insider," and we've got another Jimmy Lee who, it seems, is fond of writing Chinese-food cookbooks and may be a "China insider," but an 'insider' in a somewhat different sense.

So who is Jimmy Lee?

I wrote a similar letter to Sam's Club recently, about products I bought that were not made in America. To wit:

LED Christmas lights - I bought them last year, one section overheated and melted. This year I noticed that many of the socket contacts had rusted. Not tarnished, not corroded, rusted - because apparently copper is no longer the choice for electrical contacts.

Viveo LCD TV - It works fine except for one thing, I have to turn it on twice. The first time I turn it on I get sound only. I have to turn it off, and turn it on again to get picture. And I'm one of those guys who likes picture on his TV.

Reebok 1000X elliptical trainer - after an hour's worth of assembly, it didn't work. I had to spend another hour dis-assembling it, then another hour opening up the bits with "no user serviceable parts inside" to find an unconnected cable and an under-torqued bolt. The heart rate monitor and fitness log don't work either, but I didn't really expect them to.

To that I'll add a trend that I've noticed at Home Depot. A few years ago I bought a sprinkler that worked great. Went back the next year to buy a second one - it's no longer available and the new version is crap. Bought a B&D electric lawn mower - it worked great, went back to get a new blade for it, they don't sell them anymore and don't sell replacement parts for it.

For Christmas I bought myself a Remington electric shaver (I need to shave my head). The last one of these I saw, 20 years ago, had a substantial heft and a heavy powerful motor. The new one is light, plastic, crappy and the motor sounds like it came out of some windup toy.

When I left home 30 years ago I got the old iron that my mom used - the one that she got from her mother 20 years earlier. When it finally wore out after three generations of use, I bought a new one - I'm on my sixth new one now.

Everything is crap.

instead let your customers do their quality control for them at your customers' time and expense?

This frustrates me to no end. It is not only the cost of the item but over a year's time factor in 10% for returns and lost time doing so.

I point this out to my kids all the time and warn them of the perils of not doing your best. It shows up everywhere these days. sad.

Let's ask Del!

It has been a year since I have bought any tools.

One of the last tools I bought was a Black and Decker screw gun.

I did not expect that it would work well, since I am familiar with tools.

Lowes carries Black and Decker, whereas Home Depot carries Ryobi.

Of Chinese made tools Ryobi stuff, is the best deal.

My Makita table saw has been good to have, and helped me make a little money.

B&D has professional grade tools only available, last I knew, online.

DeWalt is tyically 100 bucks more for the same quality you might get from a Ryobi.

Of the Chinese manufacturers, Ryobi bought out the name, and got their suppliers in line to be consistent.

Trying to stand in a kinda neutral position here (not wishing to slag off either USA- or PRC-made goods), but if the US company buys the bits from elsewhere - surely they should do enough by way of quality control to ensure they're not assembling a load of crap & trying to sell it?

Bingo.

Pride in craftsmanship is lost to the almighty dollar.

i design and build high dollar quality product but its damn hard to pay the bills

No, because that costs money too. Take a very small sample, test it, and if it passes, cross your fingers and hope for the best.

Walmart has a large source testing presence in China to get the makers to carefully test and use good components. Corruption is such a part of business there that companies bribe the inspectors so it is hard for Walmart to enforce standards. Here is one thing they are trying to solve the problem.

http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/8437.aspx

recall, the chinese dairies added melamine to milk to fool the protein assays, and sickened babies. They added melamine to pet food for the same reason....to meet protein assays, and killed an enormous number of pets.

They do not think there is anything wrong with this. They steal all manner of secrets/patents/copyrights and ignore protests. They have active cyber forces trying to steal whatever they can online.

Unlike the USSR, which broke down and collapsed, China will not do that because we buy too much from them, along with the rest of the world. In time China will completely dominate the world, economically as well as militarily. If the muslims bother them, they will kill them, as they do with the Uighirs.

This is an intractable problem

I do not believe Black and Decker is made in the US any longer. Years ago, this was my brand of choice for power tools. Today, one gets about 10 holes from a Black and Decker drill before it breaks. One can usually return it to Black and Decker to get a replacement for drilling another 10 holes. I no longer buy Black and Decker anything. Dewalt actually seems to be a better product, but i have switched to buying no-brand Chinese made power tools- I can drill more holes per dollar, and throw the damned thing away when it wears out without a guilty conscience.

I have bemoaned the decline of once-favorite brands over the years- Hewlett Packard, Fluke, Motorola, Westinghouse, GE, most American auto brands (few, if any, still made from american parts), many others. I was not aware that Tektronics had gone the same way, but am not surprised. I have reached the point where I will not pay for any brand that I once considered a mark of quality...If I am going to get cheap products, I want to pay a cheap price. The problem is, quality no longer seems to be available at any price...

rant/

One of the pernicious things we face is the law of unintended consequences.

We think the organization of labor, and their receiving 2-3% wage increases every year as well as a COLA, or cost of living allowance of another 2-3% (varies with inflation, of course), This pair, which we will average at 5% in total will result in a doubling of wages every 14 years. The minimum wage and non unionized workers wages are at about 2.5%(more or less), which doubles every 28 years.

In our foolishness, we feel this is a good thing. As we can see, it allowed the autoworkers to drive up their wages to $85 per hour(all in), and unintended consequence is the loss of almost 90% of the autoworkers jobs to both automation and offshore suppliers. Offshore suppliers were, for a long time, kept at bay by the freight and shipping barrier, It cost a lot to ship a car and took a while to load it. Of course, in time specialized fast loading car carriers were made that also went quickly, so the freight barrier was defeated and imports flooded in.

We will be in this position until the Chinese worker is paid the same as the US workers. Why then import at all. China resists exchange rate excursions that will move their currency and the US$ closer together. They know what side their bread is buttered.

Of course, long before this the Chinese monolith will come to dominate global manufacturing with quality goods of Chinese manufacture quickly driving out the low grade good from Taiwan and even from China.

The US can yap about intellectual property earnings, and watch them fade as world taste shifts and patents expire. New Chinese scholars and research institutes will creat new items and new patents and they will get counter earnings from licences or forbid manufacture and insist on making it in China.

We have to stop our kids from feeling that sports are a path to greatness. Sure some guys make millions, most fail. Same with music. I am amazed at the enormous number of failed sport and music kids, who let their chance of college pass them by for their sport/music and now are so burdened them can only get low end jobs.

We have to make people like Hawking and Einstein idolized to a far higher degree so large numbers of people are streamed into all manner of sciences. We need far more doctors. As it is now, the AMA restricts to medical school student spaces. They do this to avoid price competition amongst doctors. They also bar fully qualified MDs from various countries, under the guise of maintaining standards, when it is really maintaining wages to doctors.

Obama must initiate a process to double MD graduated over the next 5-6 years.

/rant

Rem Acu Tetigisti

"... once-favorite brands over the years- Hewlett Packard, Fluke, Motorola, Westinghouse, GE, ..."

In September I bought Fluke's top-of-the-line DMM, the Fluke 287. It was fraught with bugs.

Here are three:

1. The Duty-Cycle Bug

The 287 is able to display various related measurements while, say, in the AC Volts setting. Measurements like frequency and duty cycle, for instance, along with voltage. But if you change ranges (say, from 0-5V to 0-50V), it grossly miscalculates the duty cycle from there on out.

Example: I was getting the strangest results from a circuit I had prototyped until I realized the bizarre values I was measuring were entirely the 287's doing. And it became plainly obvious once I connected my (old) Tektronix scope up to the circuit to see what was actually going on.

At one point my scope showed the duty cycle at 47% - well within my expectations - whilst the 287 claimed it was 98%. And, just to see what would happen, I bumped the actual duty cycle up to around 55%. The 287 OL'd, which brings me to:

Q: How in Bog's Name can you overload a duty-cycle measurement?

A: If you can, it's gotta be a Fluke.

-

2. The DC-Volts-Range Bug

The lowest DC Volts range is completely inaccurate. Period.

-

3. The Sleeping-Menu-Buttons Bug

The 287 often gets "stuck" and fails to recognize that its menu buttons are being pressed. The workaround is to turn the main knob one click and then back again. This 'wakes up' the menu buttons (and trashes any stored relative-measurement reference values you may have painstakingly measured earlier).

Several years ago I bought a Black and Decker "weed wacker". I worked well for about 15 minutes. After many rounds of putting back on the parts that fell off I finally was not able to fix it anymore. Since I paid about $80 for it I kept it as a "future home brew redesign" project. After a few years of it sitting in the corner I heard that there were so many complaints AND INJURIES that a free repair kit was offered. I got one. I wish I kept all the paperwork. The kit was "MADE IN USA" but 100% of the items inside it were "MADE IN CHINA". I don't know what was worse, paying $80 for junk or having them being able to distribute "MADE IN USA" kits where all they did was bring over Chinese parts in boxes and drop the parts into a plastic bag in the US.

I'm not 100% against imported products, but if something is 100% imported then it should say so.

I do believe Black and Decker (at least, those B & D products available in Panama) are all pure Chinese...

On a lighter note, I have an old, good-quality wok that was Made in the U.S.A.

I still have my mom's Revereware copper bottomed pots - they are at least as old as I am. And made in the USA (of the 1950s).

In reality, the reason places like Lowe's or K-Mart or Do-It Center or any of these other outlets sell inferior quality products is because consumers will buy them. Over the years, I have know far more consumers that bought by brand name rather than quality- not only for tools, but for virtually everything from food to clothing to soap. I have never been able to figure out how imprinting "Tommy Hilfiger" or "Amy Vanderbuilt" on an article of clothing made it any more valuable than the same item produced on the same production line without the special label.

It is obvious to me that there is a significant difference in quality between, say, a Black and Decker and a Makita power drill. Of course the Makita is 3 to 5 times more costly than the B & D. I will pay that extra, if I can perceive the quality difference (and, of course, if I happen to have the funds available!). I know too many people who just assume that, Black and Decker being a better-known name, it must be a better product.

I have also known way too many people that, although burned for buying bad quality from a manufacturer, CONTINUE buying the same poor quality product, just because they are familiar with the brand name. I do not understand the root psychology behind this...

I bought Tommy Hilfiger first because I liked the style and later because I noticed how high the quality was. I have shirts that are five or ten years old and still have all the buttons. That's unheard of these days.

I have shirts that are five or ten years old and still have all the buttons. That's unheard of these days.

When I had my fabrication/design shop, I was reminiscing with my engineer and some of the office help about the same company where we had worked about 10 years prior, looking at the pictures, we comment look on how much hair I had back then, Him how thin he was....we were laughing.

Then I noticed I was wearing the same green print polo shirt (one of my favorites) that I was wearing in the picture.... more faded but definitely the same polo shirt. THAT took a while to live that down. My only defense, I knew how to wash clothes.

One of my secretary could not believe it was the same shirt........I like to think she was impressed........NOT. but at least we all got a laugh out of it.

I did not know 10 years goes by so quick. And now I have to buy jeans or new shirts every 6 months now.

p911

Any one want to buy an old all metal craftsman drill?

the thing must way 6 pounds or so 1/4 chuck & only goes forward

I don't know if milwaukee tools are still made in the US, but I've got a 15 year old hole shooter that was dropped off the top of 10 foot ladders more than once, had to put a new cord on it after one of my co workers chopped it 1/2 with a welding gas tank. The boss told me to throw it away, he didn't want the potential liability of a replacement cord. I haven't seen any bad milwaukee corded tools.

You are spinning the pipe cutter the wrong way. I can't remember if the wheel should lead or lag

"You are spinning the pipe cutter the wrong way."

It makes no difference which way you spin this particular pipe cutter. It's that bad.

The wheel lags and Milwaukee in name but Ryobi is parent.

lAlthough your aample size is very limited, and you have not ruled out madein-America as being coincidental rather than causal (all your purchases were also packaged in cardboard and plastic?, you bought all these from a retailer with a very high ceiling?, you paid for all these items an amount denoted in US dollars? Right?) and you certainly have some confirmation bias.....I strongly believe you are right on track. Good news. The cause of the problem you have correctly identified is known.

All these problems can be traced back to....
...
(wait for it)....
.....
...
...The US tax system.

(no really)
Stay with me for a moment.

The decline (historical and continuing) in quality of Made-in-America products can be attributed largely to the dynamics of the US tax system specifically when exposed to increased global competition.

The majority (per dollar or equivolent) of all business is transacted in the US The majority of that iis made up of consumer transactions. The majority of consumers give large preference to price advamtage for similar featured items, since quality claims are not reliable and brands are no longer consistent, These factor put huge priicing pressure on consumer goods in the US..

Cheaper labor overseas was typically offset in part by better technology and reduced shipping expenses.

As excesses are squeezed out of the system, advantages become more significant. Labor is typically the largest expense for most products/companies. This is where the US tax system comes in...

Because the US tax system gains revenue from employersr for the amount they pay employees (wage taxes), employees the amount they are paid, and Social security and Medicare, these costs are part of the cost of any product built in the US.

This m?eans that the system functionally discourages business in the US, and encourages foreign businesses. The products made in the US must now save money whever else available.

Why build/employ/conduct busine

Aurizon, Benbenben & Rhabe

Are all hitting on the root [who around here doesn't love failure analysis]

The tax systems will encourage whatever behaviour.

The US was founded in response to trade & tax weirdness.

There is nothing wrong with promoting local & regional manufacturing...

multinational corporations are the main beneficiaries of what is being called free trade.

A combination of rising energy [transportation costs] prices, value added & consumption taxes could equalize the situation.

Which then leads to the equally thorny, responsible utilization of the funds.

Somehow government bureaucracy missed the point of the revolution in information technology & has increased middle management [justifying their own existence] instead of streamlining operations & reducing costs.

Wide disparity in wages of people who do similar tasks is the worst aspect of trade unions.

The complexity of a UAW job at $85/hour all in, how does that compare to a supermarket stocker who gets about $12/hour all in.

Since all UAW tasks have been destructured to be done by a fresh hire off the street in a week or less, I call them similar.

Skilled machinists are only used in autofactories to set up the robots etc.

The stocker can not buy the cars made by the UAW men. They must use used cars, bikes, shank's mare or public transit.

A key to Japanese success is the way they have avoided these wide disparities. The Japanese unions will not sign a contract that is bad for the company, so Japan works as a unit factory.

Japanese will not buy USA cars, it is bad for Japan. US workers are not like that = zero loyalty = zero pride.

I think the USA will have a long and slow period of stagflation. Canada will do better, we still pump a huge amount of $$ out of the ground and that is driving the C$ higher every year. Soon it will be above the USA$

I also feel we need a maximum wage, say 3x the minimum wage.

europium Guru Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 4618 Good Answers: 84	# 81 In reply to #70 Re: American-Made Products: A Letter to Lowe's 01/16/2010 10:42 PM
	Thanks. Btw, Lowe's Companies' CEO, Robert Niblock, apparently isn't very well liked in some circles. One reason: in 2008 Niblock's salary for that year increased by 11% even while Lowe's Companies' revenue dropped by 22%. His total income for 2008 (salary + options + etc.) was over six million bucks.

Is this guy worth anywhere near the $3000 per hour he's being paid? How can he be worth a 50-100 times what a manager is?[lowe's isn't nearly as generous as the UAW]

I have generally made 2-4X what the lowest paid in the facility made.

differences of up to 10x could logical in extreme cases. I don't understand how a board of directors justify such gross negligence. All too often such nonsense is considered the price of doing business.

Another basic problem is the granting of legal rights to corporations equal or greater than actual people

Another basic problem is the granting of legal rights to corporations equal or greater than actual people

Another?? It's prime. I've posted it before... go to gangsofamerica.com and read the book "Gangs of America". The corporation was feared and tethered (and now should be tarred and feathered) in our country's earlier days. Eliminate the "powers" given to corporations and a large part of the mess our country is in probably wouldn't have happened... or at least not in such an irreversible way. It's going to be tough going getting rid of these evil business "entities".

Yes, Yes, Yes!

We will have - sooner or later - find some way to compensate the large difference between wages.

If not: commercial, industrial, economic, humanitarian collapse.

Jared Diamond was good in description of small scale collapse, but if we proceed further the globalisation (without any taxes to lower the consequences of much different payment) then we will decline pretty soon.

We = the Atlantic community including the rest of the World by secondary breakdown.

Same situation was in late Roman empire.

So I would suggest to improve western world quality again and rescue all involved countries including VRC: collect a tax at the frontier proportional (20%) to the difference between actual payment and mean (geometric?) worldwide payment.

At both frontiers to cross!

Collect this too on any money transfers and speculative engagements (oil market and more). This at lower rate of 0.01%?

Divide the thus realised income into two equal parts: one for paying state debts the other one for financing future needs: education.

If we do not succeed in implementing this, then the quality will stay bad, the pile of paper-$$ in VRC will grow despite their attempts to buy anything valuable.

This pile of paper-$$ will be enriched by a lot of paper-€€, all may be worthless pretty soon!

So to come back to craftsman's quality we will need this or go down with our wages a factor of 3!

The problems recognised by the above posters (in the US) are nearly as severe existing all over Europe too!

A scrap-quality but new screwdriver will cost 0.2 € (near 0.3$) the best available industrial quality will cost 20€ (Belzer, Hazet...)

Same with Bosch: the green-housing machines are good but much inferior to the blue- housing machines and still the competing FEIN are much better but much more expensive.

If you count the time and the trouble, then - I guess - it is best to buy one of the best ones.

As this will over-stress everybody's budget, I changed my habits to buy used stuff of minimum good quality:

FLUKE 27 from US military, HP power supplies from German military surplus, Makita and others from local flea-market, if there not available then looking at Helmut-Singer.de, lasermotion.com and Helmut-Heller.de

RHABE

Taxes and cheap foriegn workers are part uv the money problem. Its really unavoidable. The number 1 parameter for most people iz price, so whoever can make & sell the product cheaper winz, even if they are making junk.

A big problem with newly invented products is that the money people decide how much it has to cost before the manufacturing design begins, so the product is often doomed to be crap before it even gets to the drawing board.

I got a flattening garden hoze reel a few yirz ago and the reel was so flimzy that it woud warp and bind when you tried to rewind it. It seemz They decided that keeping it under 20 bucks was more important than it actually working.

I just bought three board lengths of Douglas Fir. These trees grow in the upper NW of the US and Canada. Closer inspection revealed that one board had markings on it indicating Chinese origin. Douglas Fir does not grow in China.

Can somebody explain to me how a tree cut in the Pacific NW, gets milled in China and then gets sent back to Ontario (of all places) still manages to be cheaper than our local sawmill can do.........? I don't get it.

are we (USA/Canada) logging for foreign markets and then buying back value added.

its hard to believe that.

Hell import/export inspections just for building shipping crate the wood has to be certified and stamped as such. (for beetles and other insects)

There has been a huge beetle kill of various trees in the NW. This leaves a huge stock of dead standing trees. These are being cut down and since there is more than can be used domestically, there are exports. There are some stain problems from the fungus, but the wood is otherwise OK.

If not cut, they would rot/fall en situ = a waste

What you say is true except that Douglas Fir (and cedar) have not been affected by the mountain pine beetle. There is another type that does infest Douglas Fir but it has shown no unusual increase from the norm. Compared with the pine and spruce infestations certain Douglas Fir areas have shown a decrease in infestation eg the Kootenay ....and a basal increase in younger trees.

Having said that I also purchased some stained pine flooring milled in BC (the stain is grey) and stained it grey/green using aniline stains. Looks not too bad.

I would be willing to bet the board never left Canada....that the lumbermill is now owned by a Chinese consortium. We in Canada have been selling our natural resources as fast as we can....

"have been selling our natural resources as fast as we can...."

This is a world wide problem.

If we would collect sufficient tax, then this problem would be much smaller.

So this is a result of globalisation. Neither politicians nor big companies want to see the consequences.

The Chinese get $$s for their products - ok.

The dollars are converted into US-Governments paper-$$s.

Who wants to pile paper-$$s to immense piles - nobody.

So the Chinese governments tries to buy something that will be valuable for the next 10, 50, 150 years.

Everybody with a huge pile of $$s would do so.

So not they but our wrong globalisation dogmas are to blame!

Collect sufficient tax and the problem will vanish.

Don't collect sufficient tax and the wealth and the skill will be gone in a few more years.

Wait and see or protest and act!

RHABE

If we would collect sufficient tax, then this problem would be much smaller.

Taxation for the sake of taxation, there has to be controls on it. for one they have to start spending the tax dollars more intelligently.

As history shows, nothing wrong with running a deficit as long as its reasonable, but Christ. why throw more green backs on the fire.

p911

That thought crossed my mind. However, I couldn't find any grade stamp. Black market timber in Canada? Now there's switch.

re nat resources.....Alberta tar sands and BC nat resources have been squandered yes......Nfld and Labrador are playing it smart and holding out for the long haul (or rather, the short haul to it's own smelting operations re Veseys Bay and oil royalties).

Alberta is an environmental catastrophe in the making. BC govt changes its policy everytime the dime drops.

Japan used to excavate an iron ore rich mountain range (Kudremukh) in India, ship it to Japan, convert it to steel, ship steel back to India and sell it cheaper than Indian made steel. India has "cheap" labour and steel is 8-10 times heavier than wood.

HOW?

My wife bought a self propelled lawn mower from Lowes that had the Troy Bilt label on it. It failed after two cuttings. We took it back and the model we had was sold out, so we upgraded and paid the extra money for a more expensive model we could not justify at the first purchase. This one went bad as well. The girl at the service desk wrote up the return and gave us our money back and we were prepared to continue shopping. Then a manager showed up. He rolled the machine outside to start it and finally got it to run and of course the problem with the drive train would not recreate itself on the flat pavement and tried to shame us into keeping it. At that point we were not at all happy with the mower and just wanted our money back. As we parted ways, I could hear him tell the teller that it was near the end of the cutting season and we had just scammed the system to use the mower for free.

The mower's cost was about $400 . We went to a store that sells machines that are produced by the manufacturers that the label represents and now have a $1200 Honda self propelled that appears will last us 30+ cutting seasons.

We have found out that Lowes has made deals with big labels like Troy Bilt and JennAire (oh yeah! , we bought a gas grill with a JennAire name plate as well that I am continually fixing) to supply cheaper made in China versions of their products. Try to get a John Deere dealer to say something good about one with a Lowes model number.

The items you thought were American made may have been made eleswhere. I know from experience that the Lowes brand of Troy Built and JennAire are made in China. I am not sure where the label was made. When looking for a tractor, the fact I could not cross reference any Lowes brand John Deere model number to a real John Deere tractor made me try harder to find the differences. Thinner steel was among the differences. I am sure the comments by the John Deer dealer were seasoned with contempt for the cheaper competition, but any bad experience from the knock off version would hurt his business as well. satiaction

We definitely learned our lesson and will never buy a "big box store" machine or appliance. I am now wondering if the tool lines are similarly negotiated and produced. We have not been back to Lowes since (2 years and counting) and have taken our lumber and hardware business to Home Depot.

At that point we were not at all happy with the mower and just wanted our money back. As we parted ways, I could hear him tell the teller that it was near the end of the cutting season and we had just scammed the system to use the mower for free.

If I would have heard that I would have made a 180 right back at his face. I am sorry to say by non-action, your are just as guilty as that piece of crap manager insinuating and questioning your integrity. Integrity does not come easy, and the only people that knows the price of honesty and intregrity are the ones that actually has it. How could you do that, just walk away?

We had purchase an older used John Deere 320. not the brands they now sell at Walmart. It was 5 years old when we bought it 5 years ago., should last another 20 years at least......at least.

pick-up a new poulan push to get under the bushes, yah that a consumable....but love that Honda engine.

p911

I tend to be choosy when picking which fight to get into. I was all ready mad and the comments by a stupid Lowes manager was not worth the hassle. We had our money and other options are available for shopping.

I don't ever intend to go back.He's probably been promoted to head of customer relations for Lowes by now.

Maybe there would have been some immediate satisfaction. The look of disgust at his comment by the teller was comforting, but I still tend to hold a grudge along time.

That has happen to me, I was so surprise I got dumbfounded not believing what I just heard under slightly different circumstance where the service manager did say things simuliar......and actually not believing what I heard, walked away, Until it sank in later.

Yes, the teller knew what was the right thing. And the manager was a poor managing yes man.

p911

In my case the term might be " delayed intelligence"

hah....how bout prudent

I have to give you a GA.

HEADS UP AMERICA!!!

Hi europium,

Black & Decker has always been crap. So why not buy something better like Craftsman? I bought a lot of stuff from Montgomery Wards before they folded. They were good quality for the most part. Fluke has never been known for reliability either. I have some Hewlett-Packard stuff that is 40 years old and still works.

-S

Though the hand tools from sears are OK

I've never had much luck with sears power tools. I've melted more than one sears plastic case drill, seem to be overpriced [undervalued] quality on a level with skil.

The gas fired stuff is about the same quality as murray, which may still be made in Cleveland.

craftman toolboxes got very thin over the years & would stress crack at the corners

My sister had a B/D electric mower that broke in 1/2 the 2nd time she used it a couple of years ago. Might as well go to harbor freight, if your going to buy B/D, only good for one job or so.

Porter cable is ok, will take a fair amount of abuse.

I played with a good [rigid] & no name pipe cutters this afternoon. 3/4pvc because it's soft. The ridgid only worked if the wheel lead...the cheapie lag? cutting 3/8ths copper either one either way

Though the hand tools from sears are OK

There are Sears tools (lower quality and then there are Craftsman Tools, big difference. But I did buy a set of box end offset Sears wrenches because Sears at the time were out of stock of Craftsman offset. I still have them, but only because of the light usage.

p911

Oh picky, picky

craftsman/sears difference not withstanding,

the power tools have been crap since the 80's for sure

MTD/murry is ok low end gas powered stuff, is fine for intermmitent use. I recently fixed a 2002 snow blower, which was made in cleveland. For some reason it stopped after sucking up a log. Fixing it must have been good luck, the owner who lives at 6000feet haven't had to use it so far this winter. Climate change has been good this year

more so price difference between the two

Apart from Honda who's making good snowblowers these days?

Ariens

Brillion Wisconsin.....at least HQ and main fabrications plant

http://www.ariens.com/corporate/pages/ourbrands.aspx

I've had, still hav, good black & Decker drillz.

Craftsman duznt make anything. Its just a label. Usually good stuff, but I've gotten sum junk frum them.

My best drill iz a 3/8 Makita VSR rite angle cordless. I think Milwaukee iz the best quality, but I think their hand drillz hav way too much tork.

fyi,

Kennedy manufacturers Craftsman Tool boxes

Of course if you leave it parked in the corner of the garage it's probably fine

StandardsGuy- your 40 year old HP equipment was manufactured in the US by a company that understood not only quality, but customer support as well. This is not the Hewlett Packard Computer Company of today. The company Hewlett and Packard founded in their garage no longer exists...

Sad.

B&D products here in Germany have to have at least a 2 year warranty, I personally find them better than Bosch. Bosch mains drills have gearbox failures if you "REALLY" use the drill a lot, like building a house....seen this many times here.....

AEG make the best mains drills here, but very expensive. Last forever....

I only had one bad B&D tool, replaced after 6 months, and that was a jig saw that the bottom plate was made too weak and the first time the saw snagged, the bottom plate boke too.....

Matsushita (I think thats the name) and AEG products are expensive but very good, I do not personally have any, too expensive for me for home use. If I needed the tools for a business, only these two makes would be acceptable for me personally..... provided they made what I needed of course.......!

Everyone responding to this thread keeps saying "my B&D drill I bought 30 years ago" or whatever other product, keeps forgetting all consumer goods made today cannot be compared to goods made 30 or more years ago. There was a time when product development meant an improvement in some way over the previous model. Today, it now means making it at less cost, even if quality has to suffer. I have tools that are more than 50 years old and although they don't have all the bells and whistles of the new stuff, I treasure them because they are reliable. Back then, a company didn't have to claim a "lifetime" guarantee. They didn't need it because they were built to last. I know those tools will still be around long after I have passed on.

Craftsman hand tools have a lifetime warranty, and Sears do honor it.

I never had a problem, even when you break a cresent wrench, screwdriver tip.

I can't say much other positive about Sears though.

I think you are badly mistaken as someone previously posted Black and Decker as far as I know does not make anything in the USA anymore. They had 3 plants in NC and now they have none. I would also ask what gives you the idea that they are made in USA I have seen practically nothing made in USA in the last couple of years. At most I think I might be assembled in USA, and I doubt that Black and Decker has several plants in Mexico.

I didn't comment about where they were made, only on the various spec's to which they are made and the resulting quality issues.

Doogleass, I am preparing a letter to Lowe's Corporate and I would like to include the substance of your post, above, in the letter. May I do so? I will post the letter here for peer review prior to sending it to LC.

I am also soliciting related experiences from others reading this thread and would like to include those, as well.

-e

Yo....guess what

I recently had the opportunity to visit a gigantic warehouse in Toronto where all things pertaining to consumer sales for Loews, Canadian Tire, Home Depot and Rona are kept for distribution. Green Lawnmowers for Canadian Tire are identical to the red lawnmowers for Rona which are identical to the yellow lawnmowers at Loews. However, if one goes to Quebec the yellow Loews lawnmower miraculously becomes green and the green Canadian Tire lawnmower becomes red.

This also holds true for snowblowers even though the names have been changed. Interestingly, some of the engine covers differ slightly in design but on further investigation one notices they are attached through identical mounts on the engines.

I loathe big box shops.

Its not uncommon for one monufacture to build for others

I know.........but all of them? This is monopolism!

My Craftsman tracked snowblower is in fact a Murray.

I was going to mention murray,

My dad had bought a White garden tractor 30 + years ago. at the local Farmers Co'op. When I was sharpening the blades I saw on the axis Murray Corporation

My Girlfreinds Craftsmen push lawnmower is identical (only one step up with traction drive) to my Poulan push lawnmower I bought at Mills Fleet Farm. (Fleet Farm ia Midwest Area farmers supply store here in Wisconsin)

I don't know what to say about that.........^{shaking my head}

My snowblower is 30 yrs old and still works fine. Mind, I have to make the parts for it these days. Engine is the original cast iron Tecumseh Snow King. I meant to put rings in it twenty years ago but they're still ok.

I dunno about the new stuff. Unless it's pedigree'd forget getting parts for most of it.