On 3/9/2018 12:23 PM, Electric Comet wrote:

many german companies have been sold off whole or in part
usually if it is parted the manufacturing side goes to china

and it does not take long to see that transfer show up in the market

some high quality designs are showing up in low priced tools

if i need a tool and can find it for 20 versus 150 i will try the 20
out just to see how bad it really is since the risk is so low

and if it works well enough then buy a spare or two and still be saving
money and who cares if it breaks or gets lost

two that come to mind are a palm nailer and an paint sprayer

priced so low that its no worry at all and they work as intended

I generally try to fix everything that breaks. Not like the AVe guy,
but I enjoy fixing stuff, or trying. What I have found over the years
particularly modern history, is tools today are designed to fail. Often
you will find the part that broke even in a good item, was crap. For
example, my wife had a jeep grand cherry and the power window broke.
Jeep wanted $400+ to fix it. It took me 30 minutes to replace the
window regulator. The regulator was one unit, including the motor. You
could not buy replacement parts. What broke was a 50 cent plastic gear.
The only reason to have a 50 cent plastic gear instead of a $1 steel
gear was built in failure. I replaced 3 more regulators @ $100+ apiece
with exactly the same problem. Researching on the internet I learned
this was a VERY common problem.

Similar problem with a White-Rodgers zone valve on my furnace. Valve
quit working and when I ripped apart the valve mechanism, it was another
50 cent plastic gear that broke. No replacement parts for that either,
had to replace the entire $125 valve mechanism.

HF tools are amazingly cheap, and more often than not, the things that
make them fail do not amount to all that much, and it seems to me with a
few more dollars they could be make stuff to last a LOT longer for not
much more money. Good example would be the Drill AVe reviewed and
according to him, the lousy heat sink and placement would be the major
failure point. I bet they paid some engineer extra to design in that
failure point, so it cost them more to make an inferior design...

Personally, I think manufacturers could make good stuff for a lot less
than they charge, and they simply price items based on how long before
you will be buying another rather than how much they cost to make. I
know there is a correlation between cost of parts and selling price, but
I know it is nowhere near proportional.

--
Jack
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.
http://jbstein.com