Worst tool you ever bought

[arkangel06]

Yes mac come round every tuesday and snap-on every wednesday
And yeah i agree i wish more brands would come round aswell.. though there is a beta tools van that comes round probably once a month or so. I think beta are itallian but the quality seems pretty good and about half the price of snap-on.

with snap on its mostly the name

you can take a doller store wrence put a snap on logo on it and charge 40$ for it

 

[RED1]

Rolson TWIN BARREL footpump for RAPID tyre inflation £4.99 from local garage.

Broken on first outing, when rapid tyre inflation was most urgently needed :full

Now remember, that was the Rolson TWIN BARREL footpump. Utter crap.

 

[TurboShed]

Anything Halfords own brand. Nuff said.

 

[malcolm]

Anything Halfords own brand. Nuff said.

What's happened? You've had a bad experience with something/everything?

I've found some of their standard stuff reasonably good, and will tend to buy from their professional range of tools in preference to other makes. Though that's spanners and sockets and the like.

 

[TurboShed]

What's happened? You've had a bad experience with something/everything?

I've found some of their standard stuff reasonably good, and will tend to buy from their professional range of tools in preference to other makes. Though that's spanners and sockets and the like.

Ok, from memory:

Halfords Alloy wheel cleaner - wrecks the finish on your wheels. Your wheels now need a refurb.
Halfords "Rotary" sander/polisher - isn't a rotary, is in fact orbital, totally underpowered anyway, foam head started fragmenting on first use, velcro attachment of head lost a lot of it's hooks on first use. Returned for refund.
Halfords battery charger - crocodile clips so flimsy the metal folds up in your hand.
Halfords jump leads - seem to remember they were similar in the crocodile clip way, a long time ago now.

Sometimes, yes you're forced to buy Halfords brand stuff, but we shall see how many other people leap to defend them

 

[malcolm]

I can believe all that. Sockets and spanners are what you go to Halfords to buy. Can imagine the rest will be just as rubbish as the stuff you would pick up from any other mainstream hardware store.

I was going to say "the problem is mainstream people buy on price not quality" though there's decent stuff around elsewhere at the same price or a little more. Probably the problem is they need to make 100% profit so tend to sell stuff that doesn't cost them much to source. The guy behind the Halfords Professional range has probably already been fired.

 

[hareng]

Must admit i bought the micro ratchet jobbies as a set and i have give them some stick plus added two more that dont come in the set, lifetime guarantee. I have been known to break torque wrenches, tommy and respectable socket ratchets none of them ******.
Dont normally buy from Halfrauds but picked up a toolbox half the price as elsewhere being a sell off.

 

[Vanny]

Workzone spanners, there made out of the most bendy metal ever and thus COMPLETELY pointless! Actually a lot of the Workzone tools are pointless cheap imitation metal, butt hent hey are from Aldi so thats not a huge surprise.

And i like my SIP 130 welder

 

[Charles]

Worst tool erm all the pre mentioned cheap stuff but have stopped that, the most recent was a storage cabinet from machine mart for work, I think the guy must have been drunk the shelf that was closet to level was 10mm out over the width of the shelf needless to say the cardboard was wrapped around tapped up and sent back. So decided to make my own, it took me about 3 hours to figure out why i couldnt get the frame square the four main lengths of 2" x 2 meter angle resembled bannanas.

 

[cobminor]

What's happened? You've had a bad experience with something/everything?

I've found some of their standard stuff reasonably good, and will tend to buy from their professional range of tools in preference to other makes. Though that's spanners and sockets and the like.

The proffesional range is better than their normal offerings, and has a good guarantee. They are still not in the same league as 'proper' tools, such as Facom, Britool, (now one company), and my personal favorite, Stahlwille. Never buy cheap tools if you are in engineering of any sort as a proffesional. Draper, Hilka, Halfords, Teng, and the like are for bank clerks that want to play at the weekends, they never use a tool to its full capacity so the tools are OK.

 

[Luke]

are for bank clerks that want to play at the weekends, they never use a tool to its full capacity so the tools are OK.

nothing like a sweeping generalisation is there!!!

And for the record, I'm not a bank clerk!!

 

[zardoz]

I bought a set of cheapo screwdrivers from a local garage, made from non hardened mild steel! We had done making our own small tool set at an engineering class at college, after i left school. Even before that i made a screwdriver at school in metalwork. So i knew all about how to harden then temper a work tip. If i remember correctly the teacher saying the correct heat temperature for screwdrivers was when the colour at the tip got to "wheat straw"

I don't know who made those screwies or why they bothered, but i do know they bent at first try. Never even been hardened never mind tempered. Pathetic was of 70p (this was in 1979 when 79p was worth a kings ransom, in blackjacks and mojo's.

 

[bleach]

that want to play at the weekends, they never use a tool to its full capacity so the tools are OK.

i may play on the weekend as well but every cheap tool i have had has bin scraped.

fyi. never ever in a million years will i buy a cheap hammer again. it's not worth the headache you get from them.

 

[Charles]

Would keep away from Britool these days as they really should have a name change to chinatool. We used to supply Britool stuff for a while before it got moved over to china then they became a nightmare to deal with couldn't get anything out of them. The problem with a lot of tools and products from china is that they are all manufactured in the same factories (material spec, manufacturing process etc just not up to standard) and just re named at a later date. Personally if your looking for decent weekend tools then somthing along the lines of Facom and Tengtools and really some of the lesser known american made tools aswell. If your a weekend tool user then somthing along the linees of draper proffessional. Like most things everybody will favour one particular make of tool. But dont be surprised if that 5 quid set of spanners bend like a chocolate bar on a hot day. Buy cheap buy twice.

 

[dazzis]

a set of berlan exhaust flaring tools, main bolt is made from butter :shock:

 

[cobminor]

Brotool and Facom are one and the same now. The quality went down some years ago and I stopped rating them highly. My son has just got some britool stuff and it is good.

 

[cobminor]

Personally if your looking for decent weekend tools then somthing along the lines of Facom and Tengtools

Facom are one of the best toolmakers in Europe if not the world. I don't go for their stuff, that is my choice, but I can't deny its quality. Teng are on the 'second' list.

 

[baconsdozen]

In terms of lasting effects the worst tool I ever got was a big sealey bench grinder got in for a customer.Curious,I thought I'd try it out before sending it and plugged it in on the bench.Just after getting up to full speed one of the chinese made wheels disintegrated.
The wheel guards flew to bits and didn't stop one bit of the wheel hitting me on the shin and leaving a hole full of powdered carborundom that took eight weeks to heal,cost me a fortune in trips to and from outpatients and loads of prescriptions when the thing got infected.Had it have been my face I'd have been scarred or maybe lost an eye,and had it have happened to my customer I'd have probably faced a law suit.
I've tried but it's next to impossible to source English made tools anymore that are economic to sell,I've had some supposedly made in Birmingham arrive in boxes stamoed "Made in Korea".In fairness some of the imported stuff is OK but a lot is total junk.

 

[Sid]

Bought some cheap swan neck spanners, and they were exactly that. Cheap, nasty, and soft. The first one to bend almost hypnotised me. I was hardly applying any force and it just bent and bent. I could see it and carried on turning.

In another sense it was a good lesson, and a blessing in disguise. If at all possible I shall now avoid buying cheap tools. I'm really glad I learnt this lesson before buying my welder.

 

[Wedg1e]

I've tried but it's next to impossible to source English made tools anymore that are economic to sell,I've had some supposedly made in Birmingham arrive in boxes stamoed "Made in Korea".In fairness some of the imported stuff is OK but a lot is total junk.

I know for a fact that there's a Midlands-based so-called 'manufacturer' of machine tools (run by an Asian gentleman) that used to import tat from Asia, tidy up the rough edges and flog it on with Union Jack badges all over the place. Can't recall whether they actually claimed 'Made in England' but there was a lot of purporting going on.
I've just checked their website and they seem to have cleaned up their act but reading between the lines they don't deny most of the stuff comes from Crapland.

Rumour has it (ie, someone who works there told me) that they flogged a large bandsaw to ****** Cars. The saw had an integral blade-welder which monumentally failed to weld blades. ****** kicked off (understandably) and our man Gupta had to fork out to have a 'proper' blade welder installed instead, which (alas) cost them more than they'd sold the bandsaw for.


***** Edited 'cos Malcolm might get on my case if I don't


...and as to the original topic:

Most things from Machine Mart

Almost anything from B&Q (Performance Power Pro or whatever)

Anything by Hilka, Kamasa or Draper, and quite a bit by Stanley.
Nowadays I only buy cheap tat if it only has to last one job AND the company will refund me for it. If it lasts two jobs, bonus.