PSA: Harbor Freight Jack Stands

[dstevenson]

Hi, so I assume the 3 ton jack stands are the typical smallest ones HF sells correct? It's easy to say:

1: Inspect them before use. Welds look fine until they break/fail
2: If you are looking for better quality, try and find stands that are not knocked off in China.

I think even the Heim Warner stands are from China. If anyone has a good quality jack stand please post the brand/price etc,

Thanks

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Found these on amazon. Similar ratchet type, but with an additional locking pin. Seems like a good safety improvement, and at that price point should be able to return all the HF stands and replace with these. Probably will do it.

[varg]

Check the teeth, the locking pawls and the welds. If they're good than there's likely no reason to worry. If you're still concerned, buy some reputable stands of the tube and pin type or make some wooden block stands and rest easy. It's probably too much to ask for a company like HF to do reliable batch testing, and better off to not trust the cheapest possible safety equipment. My 2 HF jackstands are the big ones for trucks and in good shape, my other 2 are from who knows where but still seem fine to me. I still have the jack under the car too when I'm under it in most cases, so a jack stand and the jack would have to fail for it to fall.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

I guess my main concern here is to understand if the failure mode is something I can obviously identify as an individual to then make a decision to return them the HF or not... From what I understand so far, the failure mode isn't necessarily related to the basic design but poor QC tied to a couple specific batches. I've got a total of 10 jack stands from HF x4 6 ton x4 3 ton and 2 others... for tools I use on a very regular basis it would not be ideal to get rid of them if I don't have to. But at the same time I certainly do not want to keep something that has any potential to severely injure me. Just want to make a rational decision that's all.

[roguetoaster]

lol! They don't pay people enough to care in the chinese factories these things come from.

Yeah, the workers don't care, but management does, especially if you are a serious customer. Even in China overseas buyers have some level of control over products, and to not at least mandate regular outside sampling is inexcusable. That said, maybe they were, and the results were fudged, which is also a possibility, but like every failure of a product there are so many layers where anyone can flag a part or process, and not doing so, or failing to heed a warning is a failure of leadership. Clearly the prevailing culture in China makes this difficult, but companies that do business know this, and have to be factoring it in to their processes.

[varg]

Yeah, but not completely. This is an organization, and their intermediaries, getting caught napping on QC more than just once. The upside is that they went beyond what they needed to for liability and consumer confidence reasons. If there was any earlier desire, or even after reported failure one, to do it right, how they could not have been doing daily or weekly batch testing prior to packaging.

lol! They don't pay people enough to care in the chinese factories these things come from.

[SD-KC]

If you're curious,I watched some YouTube videos on how these fail. It's interesting. Looks like the teeth slip out of the retainer. There's a channel called Murphy's Law Garage that has videos on the initial teeth slipping and the now weld failures.

[roguetoaster]

Yeah, but not completely. This is an organization, and their intermediaries, getting caught napping on QC more than just once. The upside is that they went beyond what they needed to for liability and consumer confidence reasons. If there was any earlier desire, or even after reported failure one, to do it right, how they could not have been doing daily or weekly batch testing prior to packaging.

[varg]

No. The initial failure that caused it was apparently down to a specific fault with the teeth being rounded off due to worn tooling. The stand could collapse easily because the inherently self locking nature of the mechanism was prevented by the rounded teeth. Then the superseding part apparently had a batch with bad welds.

[roguetoaster]

I still don't quite understand what the failure mode actually is on these stands? Seems like maybe HF is just not taking chances and recalling everything? Their stands are pretty much the same exact design of like 95% of all jack stands out there... they're all probably made in the same china factories.

Pretty sure you nailed it. As to why, they might be out 20+ million over the recall, but that's the price of just a few settlements.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

I still don't quite understand what the failure mode actually is on these stands? Seems like maybe HF is just not taking chances and recalling everything? Their stands are pretty much the same exact design of like 95% of all jack stands out there... they're all probably made in the same china factories.

[phillipj]

I searched and didn't see a similar post but sorry if this is a repost.
i was at Harbor Freight to return some items including an unopened box of 3 ton jack stands. I said that I just didn't need them. They said they are recalling all Jack stands whether they were initially part of the recall or not. The people there said they are requesting that anyone who has these to return them. They said they are prone to failure in multiple ways. They will accept these and offered me either $29.99 store credit or $24.99 cash.

Thanks for the heads up; just found I have a couple friends using these who were unaware when I just mentioned it.

Other friends/shops using Hein Werner, also Esco. Im using some older craftsman

[Das Delfin]

I picked up a pair of 6 tons just before the recall email came out. I used a 20% off coupon and spent $44. They ended up being a bit too big to fit under my car so I brought them back in and the girl working the counter gave me $63 in store credit!

[dnguyen1963]

I buy all of my tools from HF because my rate of usage is extremely low. I really have not had any issue with their tools. But, I'll be bringing my jack stands in for a replacement.

[roguetoaster]

I can't understand why anyone would go for the cheapest available option for something like jackstands, which is keeping your 2500+lb car from falling onto you while you're under it. Everyone knows HF is cheap junk.

They might be cheap, but they're often not the cheapest out there. Further, many of us have years of experience using them with no problems, and they are probably the most common stand in the US. So, given that experience set, and the fact that they decided to replace all of the extant units, why spend more on a less well known product?

Not trying to make HF out to be great, but they do offer some items that have proven cost effective over time.