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Old 09-24-2009, 05:43 PM
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Woodz428 Woodz428 is offline
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Location: Freedomia,, Il
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Default Snap-On tools are for fools

I know because I own a bunch.
This is the first post( I will be posting the same on all the forums I am a member of as well as running a local ad indefinetly) of my press on Snap -On tools (trolls??) to get me some dealer service. I have been a Tech since 1969 and have app.$40-$60K in Snap-On tools( that is at the purchase price, not current costs) I have purchased in the last 30 years. I have been unable to get a Snap-On rep to visit my shop in over 5 years. Warrantees are worthless if there is no service. I have contacted Snap-On corp at least a dozen times in the last 5 years by phone and e-mail. Their position is that dealers are independent business owners and they can't make them do anything. Pretty much what I was told a decade ago when one of the dealers overcharged me for an impact wrench. Keep that in mind when you look at the tool prices. I now have to contact a shop that is 15 miles away and then make time to leave my business in order to give that shop a tool and wait until the Sanp -On dealer gets it replaced. Oddly when I owed them for the tools I saw them every week.
If you are a new Tech and looking at buying tools, let me give you some info. Snap-on, like most tool companies, don't make their tools they subcontract out just like Sears,Matco or Mac ( as well as all others). They pride themselves on their quality and service. That only exists while you owe them money, it doesn't seem to apply when you own everything.
Let's see, if I had not chosen Snap-On tools..how would things be different?? I would still possesss the same knowledge, they didn't supply any of it. I would have saved more than enough money to allow me to waste my time trying to get a tool warranteed. The credit that Snap-On extended to purchase tools doesn't go toward your home loan application...or really any credit score...the Sears one does. After buying tools for 40 years from Sears, I would have had some credit to go on my home loan or other loans, plus if I needed a tool replaced..Sears is in the same place as it had been for 35 years. I wouldn't have had to make some of the decisions about what I could get for my children because I wouldn't have been financially leveraged to Snap-Off. I also wouldn't have put my dealers kids through college while I was couldn't afford to put my kids through. BUT, I did it because they SAID that they would always service me...BULL*****.
If you are a starting Tech DO NOT buy into the Snap-OFF propaganda. Save yourself a lot of money and buy from someone that will be there even when you have paid them off. It will help your credit rating as well as cut down some of the spats with your spouse over the amount you spend on tools. I hope they go the route of the Tupperware party, they have a similar business model.
As a final note, although I wouldn't neccesarily do it( I already bought my tools form the charlatans that represent Snap-on)...BUT...for the amount you would spend on virtually any Snap-OFF tool you could buy a dozen at Harbor Freight and never even need to see a dealer. As they break you pick up a new one and throw the other in the trash, pretty much what I am going to be doing with my Snap-OFF tools over the next bunch of years.
I contacted, for the final time, Snap-OFF corporation with my intentions to run this as well as the local ads and gave them more than 2 weeks to respond and they apparently thought I was bluffing...I am not.
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