My Craftsman 1/2" torque wrench made a big “pop” and no longer measures torque. After only 40 years. Unfortunately the last Sears store in Ohio, my local Sears, closed last week. Crap.
I searched online and it seems Lowes now carries the Craftsman line and claims to honor the warranty. I seldom go to Lowes so I was not aware of it. I went today and presented the tool to the lady at the Return counter. She said to go get a new one and bring it to her.
Now, the new one looks far more expensive then the old one. They are now about 6" longer, far beefier with a nice padded grip and comes in a protective case, about $100. I figure she will balk. Nope. Just handed it to me and said, “You’re all set”. Didn’t even ask for a phone number.
Sears may be dead but their honor lives on. Dennis
They are always my first choice for home improvement, appliance, etc. for customer service, both quality and availability plus range of sufficiently high quality items to choose from.
My dad raised me on Craftsman Tools (and Sears). As Sears started circling the drain about 15 years ago, I migrated over to Kobalt (Lowes) and haven’t had any issue exchanging their tools when needed. I do still have a good number of Craftsman tools and my dad has even more. In the past few years I’ve had two Craftsman Tools break (both ratchets maybe?). It’s a hair more difficult than it used to be with Sears, but I got both of them replaced at Ace Hardware. It sometimes seems to take some convincing or finding the right person to talk to, but I got 30+ year old tools replaced, so that’s good.
About a year ago, I broke an S-K ratchet that’s probably 50-60 years old. I was amazed to find out, not only that they still currently make it (same model number and all, and it’s expensive too), but they happily sent me out a kit to replace the guts. No questions, no charge, nothing. I emailed them and it showed up a few days later.
The experience with SK felt like my dealings with Moen. Every time I’ve emailed Moen about a problem (leaking faucet, shower head wand doesn’t stay put, how do I get this aerator out, anything), they don’t waste anyone’s time trying to troubleshoot it. Instead, a day later I get a shipping confirmation that they sent out a replacement. Even if they lose a bit of money, they build up a lot of good will that way.
Lowes is generally pretty helpful. Like a big box version of True Value/Ace. Home Depot, OTOH, sucks. I, and I’m 100% not joking, assume part of their training is how to avoid customers. I’ve seen them duck out of aisles that have obviously confused customers, multiple employees congregating in one spot ignoring customers and so on. I’ve found that the quickest way to get help is to play with their ladders. Move one around. Climb the first few steps. Stand under it. Suddenly now they can see you.
On their Yelp page for one of the stores near me, someone wrote ‘those guys in the orange aprons, they work here right?’
FWIW, I have three Home Depots near me and I’m at all three on a regular basis and all three of them are like that. So it’s not the case of bad management at one store, it’s just how it is.
Lowes business model is the homeowner DIY’er, so it pays for them to help out. Home Depot however has a model that is for the tradesman who should know what they want and be thee enough to know where everything is. So that may have something to do with the different experience between the 2. As in Lowes needs to train their staff heavy in the helpfulness, HD can get away with less in that area. However in my local HD’s I have found them helpful, but yes there is a difference.
Good to know. I have a whole bunch of Craftsman tools, some more than 30 years old.
Back when Craftsman still belonged to Sears, and Sears still existed, I remember taking a Craftsman screwdriver that I’d seriously abused (I think I’d used it as a pry bar to demolish a brick wall) to return it. The dude in the tool department took it, looked at it, shrugged, tossed it in a bucket with all the other damaged hand tools and told me to get myself another one.
When I bought my 1st house about 20 years ago I went to Sears and got a push lawnmower. Not branded as a Sears but as a Craftsman. After the 2nd summer of mowing the plastic wheels were worn out and all wobbly. Took them back and asked for replacement as they were “broke”. Counter person referred me to the department manger who gave me a line about the warranty only applies to hand tools. I told her that if I wanted a shitty warranty I would have bought the Sears branded mower but I bought a Craftsman branded mower for the Craftsman quality and warranty. She made a “one time exception” and gave me 4 new wheels. These lasted for about 10 years before they started going bad, may have been a bad batch when the mower was made.
As far as hand tools, no problems except they just give you a kit to repair your broken ratchet. But then again I haven’t tried to return anything since the “real” Sears store closed a few years ago. I do have a Sears HomeTown that I could try if need be.