I wait until they go on sale and pick sets up when they are 50-60% off. I usually get them for $40 or less. Thats less than $5 a wrench. Even if they are made China they are still decent quality - especially for the weekend mechanic. It might be a different story if you are a mechanic, working flatrate and making your living with your tools - but for most of us, that just not the case.

 

I use MAC's for work and they are great, ive put some good torque to em and they aint broke yet (knock on wood)

 

The GearWrench brand is owned by the Danaher Group, who is also the parent company of Matco Tools, Armstrong Tools, and a host of others.

GearWrenches are made offshore--usually Taiwan-along with many of Matco's tools--and some are from China.

The GearWrench ratchet drive is different from the Matco branded ratchet wrenches. The Matco ones are slightly stronger, but are also made offshore in Taiwan.

Craftsman offers two types of ratchet wrenches. The old-style coarse tooth "junk" design, and a professional series fine tooth style that rivals the Matco and Snap-On units for strength, erognomics, and usefulness. IMHO they are better than GearWrenches.

I own ratchet wrenches made by Snap-On, Matco, GearWrench, and Craftsman. I haven't used my GearWrenches in years (literally). I use my Snap-On and Matco wrenches every day for work, and the Craftsman Professional line are in the car trailer for use @ the track.

Snap-On makes varying degrees of quality in their ratchet wrenches as well--I use the fine tooth Flank Drive Plus combination ratchet wrenches. They are fine tools, as are my Matco ratchet wrenches.

The only thing that bugs me about Matco is they will put their brand on a tool not made by them. Danaher owns a huge assortment of brands so 'technically' it's the same company, but I get pissed off when something off the Matco truck is $80 and the same tool in K-D brand at the local hardware store is $35. Snap-On uses the Snappy brand on tools made in-house....all rebranded tools are badged Blue-Point. But, Snap-On owns a bunch of companies now as well, so it's not always that simple.

Tools are a PITA.....

Hope this helps,

Dan-

 

Doesn't Danaher make Craftsman and Kobalt as well?

With just about every tool company you haven't mentioned being owned by Stanley?

 

Stanley Works owns MAC, Proto, and Blackhawk, among others...

Craftsman is a low-bid company with tools made by nearly everyone, all over the world...rumors are their U.S.-made tools are produced by Stanley, Danaher, among others. They got in hot water @ one point about their "made in USA" slogan...guess it should have said "put together in USA" or something....

Kobalt...Rumor has it the U.S.-made tools are produced in a foundry owned by Snap-On, but to different quality standards. Many of their tools are rebrands of other companies. (Klein, Sheffield, K-D, etc).

Husky is the same way as Kobalt & Craftsman, although back in the day Husky was a brand unto itself.

There are many many many more.....

 

Not exactly, There is plenty of stuff that says snap-on that snap-on does not make.

I can pull plenty of kits off my tool truck labeled MAC and then go pull the same thing off the Snap-on truck with there name on it.

 

i have seen tools on all four of the tool trucks that use to come by have there own name and be the same things.

 

Yep... And all 4 have a different price too.

 

I love my Snap-on! Sorry Bobby! I dont have a Mac dealer that comes in. I wish I did because I have a few broken Mac tools. Lol. But on the other hand I like having one truck so that I dont have too many payments. Lol. But I started with Gear Wrench. They worked well. I only broke my 8mm about 4 times. But other then that no problems. I had Gear Wrench back when they didnt have the reversible yet

 

Examples please. Thank you.