JET brand Torque Wrench?

Okay I have used my meager keyboard skills to search and come up empty handed on this. Has anyone out there used this brand, specifically I am looking at purchase of a torque wrench. The brand is carried by PartSource in Canada and looks to be pretty good quality but I have never heard of it. Its a 20 - 110 NM 3/8 drive. The sticker is $130.00. Its either this one or one from Sears or Canadian Tire neither of which appear to be nearly as well made and will still cost about $80 bucks.

Jet makes industrial metalworking, woodworking and material handling tools, and I doubt they'd put their name on a hunk o' shit. YMMV and assuming it's this same Jet of course.

Aye Matey, that was my best guess as well, thanks for the input.

its jap but good quality jap , lots of hoist and shop tools . the price would be easy to beat , thats as high as some of the name brand stuff . The thing about the Sears is warranty no questions asked , just get a new one and there everywhere . I have a craftsman ft lb 3/8 drive and SK in lb 3/8 , both 20 + years old no problum . SEYA

Thanks pal, it is pretty pricey. I'm definitely leanin towards the craftsman, i have one already but in the low range and have had no problems either. Problem is I will have to order it cuz none of the sears stores here seem to have one in stock.

Jet, quality?? we have a few of their hoists and tools around work. I always considered them a harbor freight special +1.

I can't really comment much, but I've always understood them to be some sort of chinese deal with a fancied-up name/label. Maybe that's just their mills and lathes.

FWIW, I have a Husky (Home Depot) which costs $70. Has worked well so far. Lifetime warranty, but it's 1/2" drive.

G

Sears lifetime warranty doesn't apply to torque wrenches and power tools. Actually Craftman torque wrenches only have 90 day warranty.

Torque Wrenches aren't considered 'hand tools' and don't have the lifelong warranty. They only have a 90 day warranty. I'd like to get one of the new digital ones though.

I think the only brand out of the consumer tools with a lifetime warranty is Kobalt. These are sold at Lowes. Although there stores aren't as plentiful as Sears/KMart. Oh Husky (Home Depot) might
also have them with a lifelong warranty. Can't remember if they do though.

The three largest tool makers in America are Stanley (Jenson Tools, Stanley, Mac Tools, Goldblatt, and Proto Tools), Danaher (Armstrong, Matco, Sears Craftsman, Allen, KD-Tools, Holo-Krome, NAPA, Kobalt (since 2003), and SATA tools), and Snap-On (makers of Snap-on, Blue-Point, Williams Tools and Kobaly Pre-2003).

That being said, my Craftsman[SIZE=-1] Digitork[/SIZE] 'Clicker' is abour 15 years old and going strong.

Not "hand tools", my ass.

Sears used to have an unlimited satisfaction guarantee. Your silver bullet was to say "I'm not sastified with this purchase", and they'd trot out the manager, you'd argue a bit, ask if they'd like to call the headquarters and clarify the meaning of "satisfaction guarantee" and you'd get a replacement.

Now, apparently, Sears doesn't feel you deserve satisfaction for longer than 3 months, and will bone you 15% if you dare return an unsatisfactory product that falls into certain categories, including "automotive", never mind that I would never sully my tools on a stupid cage.

I've pretty much sworn off buying anything but ratchets and sockets from Sears anymore. I went to buy a battery load tester, and they were made in China, in a glossy box, and cost $70. So I went to HF and bought one in a crap-looking box for $20.

Sears just ain't what it used to be.

Check with Armstrong -- their entire product line is made in USA, and has a lifetime warranty.

http://www.armstrongtools.com/

Can't speak about what they are now, but the Jet label was created by a guy named Les Sussman for equipment he imported (mainly from the far east if my memory is correct) back in the late 50s. At that time Jet was the label, the company name was Equipment Importers, Inc. I learned about Jet when the company I worked for was hired to computerize their order processing system around 1977.

Looks like they've come a long way since then (assuming there is some connection other than the name).

// marc

True story from today:

A kid was torquing head bolts on a 3.5 Briggs to 140 in lbs. He stretched one bolt and snapped another with a nice Proto torque wrench, while set properly. I asked"WTF?". He says "It didnt click". I found it worked fine; he just was expecting a more audible click. !!!!!!!

We had ANOTHER long lesson on bolt torque and wrench use.

Amen, Brother. Jet was the original crap out of Taiwan, and when the quality of goods from Taiwan began to get better, they moved their operations to China. I've been finding that the quality out of Harbor Freight is getting better anyway, and I try them most of the time for the best prices.

Thanks Jeffy for the list of toolmakers which will definitely be useful in the future to sort the wheat from chaff. A lot of these I haven't seen in Canada, just the parent manufacturer like Stanley etc. My digitork in the small range has worked well but I've never liked the plastic bits, what with my fascination with shiny machined objects and all.

I checked out the Husky brand at Home depot and the package did say lifetime warranty and didn't appear to have any limitations on it for comparison with the craftsman. The one I looked at didn't have metric units embossed on it which is not a real big deal but once you take into account the beer factor and my math skills and adeptness at losing things like conversion tables at inopportune times is probably not the way for me to go.

So at this point I have decent quality, limited warranty crafstsman or mastercraft with plastic bits that cost up here, 70-90 bucks, none of which are in stock versus this JET brand, fancy shiny metal one for 130 bucks that I could pick up on my way home and sports a lifetime warranty at PartSource a block from work. Gonna choose by end of work today, got some work to do tonight..and I could afford the 40 buck...

Thanks all for your 0.02 will post with decision and my 0.02 if I try out the JET.

Cheers

+1 Thats some cheap shit!!

I just bit the bullet and bought a nice one from snap-on. Sears didn't have one? Anyway, since I do all my own wrenching and would rather not bust a bolt, I spent the bucks.

A lot of Jet bashing going on here. I have a Jet table saw and drill press I bought about ten years ago and both are a huge step up in quality from any of the other consumer-level power tools that were available for a simlar price: Delta, Ryobi, Sears, etc. Definitely not Harbor Freight quality. Maybe things have changed.

- Mark

No experience personally with Jet, but have talked to some power tool (machine work) owners who tried to get replacement parts for repair--to no avail. They said OK till something breaks and then you are screwed. For what its worth.

Ten years ago would have put you in the window of when Taiwanese manufacturers began really putting out some great product, on par with Japanese. Take a look at your machines and see where they were made then. Still, my only caveat being that sometimes even the cheap junk can last a long time. I have a 22-year-old Harbor Freight bandsaw, and a 20 y/o HF chop saw. Both have been seriously used daily.

Just sayin', but if you buy a Snap On torque wrench for that money ($130 canadian, what's that, like $140 american LOL) In 10 years you'll still be able to sell it for about what you paid for it.

Even if the Jet is similar quality (I sure don't know either way) it's going to be worth about $20.