On 1/15/2017 4:18 PM, Leon wrote:
On 1/15/2017 3:20 PM, Bill wrote:
Electric Comet wrote:
birds of a feather flock together so now craftsman stanley and black
decker will all become equally crappy

but i wonder if the craftsman tools with lifetime guarantee will still
be honored or will they just throw that out and go for complete
mediocrity

If you just spent 900 million on the company, what would you do?

What you paid for a company has nothing to do with whether you honor old
guarantees/warranties or not.

You may or may not be obligated to honor those warranties.

You are simply the new owner of the company, the company still has legal
obligations.


Maybe some legal eagle can weigh in on this.

If B&D bought the manufacturing arm (there isn't one, AFAIK) or the
sales arm, then I think the issue would be moot. The buyer of a
corporation assumes both the assets and liabilities of the corporation.

B&D under that scenario is required to honor the existing warranties but
is not compelled to continue issuing that warranty with new tools any
more than Sears is. Since there did not appear to be any requirement
such as proof of purchase, etc. with Craftsman tools, it might be real
hard for Sears or Black & Decker to back out now other than by coming
out with Craftsman II tools, so marked, but no lifetime warranty.

I would hope that B&D looked at this and said, "let's buy the Craftsman
line if Sears will sell it. It has a sterling reputation and is
profitable. Buying it separately from them will likely cost us more
than what it will go for if K-Mart puts the entire company on the
auction block; and if we're going to spend damn near a Billion dollars
for it, let's keep doing it the way Sears has sold the brand with added
value and not screw it up.

OTOH, if B&D, like Sears did many years before it, only purchased the
exclusive rights (eventually) to produce tools under the Craftsman brand
name, I'm not sure what liability they assume, if any, with regard to
warranties on the preexisting tools sold by Sears.

Calling Perry Mason, calling Perry Mason, please report to
rec.woodworking!