Of all of the ways I could potentially come to harm doing what I love, the scenario of being trapped between the earth and at least three thousand pounds of automobile might scare me even worse than fire. With fire, if I keep my wits together long enough, I have a chance of making an escape. If I’m pinned between car and ground, there’s only one word that describes my situation, and “stucked” is as close as the censors are going to allow me to get. Having to go under a vehicle for work is an inevitability if you spin your own wrenches, and when you do, being safe needs to be your paramount concern. Jackstands are top-tier on our list…always have jackstands supporting the vehicle in the correct points. They taught you that in shop class, they taught you that if you were working with the old guys at the shop. You rely on the jackstands to keep the vehicle from falling on you…and you pray that they don’t fail.
Which means that if you’ve bought jackstands from Harbor Freight, you need to go inspect them right now and verify that you don’t have one of the versions that have an issue where the locking pawl could “disengage from the extension lifting post”, which means sudden collapse. There’s two words that should bring you right into sobriety.
If you have one of these jackstands, take it to your nearest Harbor Freight store where you can exchange for a gift card equal to the “shelf price” of the stand. And be sure that you look. I know for a fact that the Rough Start Fox is sitting on a pair of stands I purchased from Harbor Freight, and you can bet your ass that I’m going to be inspecting them ASAP.
Never trust you life to a Ching Chong piece. Recall or no recall.
Tell you what. Try and find a jackstand that isn’t “Ching Chong” ,as you so eloquently put it, sold by anyone short of ONE manufacturer.
And it isn’t where it’s made but rather the quality of how it’s made. If a Chinese company made a superior part then it’s still better than a half ass one made in the U.S.
My jack stands are so covered in paint overspray I would never be able to read those labels. It would be better to know when they sold them. Mine are over 10 years old, so are they outside of that window?
I’ve had this-type jack stand that was NOT from Harbor Freight fail because of the pawl slipping around on the release bar until full engagement was prevented as the curved handle was knocking against the jack body (helluva surprise…), so it’s not just them. Any of these that look so safe, no matter where you got them from, need to be checked when used to see that’s not occurring and the ratchet is locking in tight.
Cinder blocks, baby! What could go wrong?
I have a set of those from Home Depot. Husky brand., and a set from Sears. So just not Horrible Freight.
I had the stamped metal piece that the cast stand “teeth” rest against. The weld about failed and that allowed the cast part to start coming down. Look them over and put a good weld on them. I redid all of mine when i saw that.
I just bought my first pair and used them last week. I turned 61 last month and finally decided that working under a car using just a hydraulic jack (or 2) is pretty stupid….(never had an accident but that is no excuse when one finally happens). Luckily they are not on the recall list, but upon looking at them closely the only thing holding the pawl onto the release bar is a roll pin….THAT’S IT. All that weight on a thin piece of metal. Why wouldn’t they use a solid pin? Are other brands manufactured in this way too?
The pin holding the pawl to the handle isn’t responsible for supporting the weight. That goes to the pawl engaging the extension. Properly engaged you could take the handle completely off and the car would still be supported.
This is true and have replaced the roll pin on all the Harbor Freight jack stands we have already because they’ve sheared off.
Um, no the roll pin doesnt do anything about holding weight.
The cast pawl, locked into the movable part, sitting on the base, is what holds things up.
The roll pin is what turns the pawl away from the movable part
Someone tell me how long those labels survived on your jack stands? Mine came off a week after purchase.
I have 10 jack stands in the garage (yea maybe a little bit of hoarding). Haven’t bought one in about 10 yrs. Most of them were swap meet bought anyway. It’s amazing they would build something that holds 3 to 6 tons and fails. Scary thought. I also usually double the jack stand in the area I’m working.
I have a few sets of harbor freight jack stands, all about 20 years old…still going strong.
Where are all the “Harbor Freight is just as good as Snap On” people now?
Harbor Freight made it’s business in part by literally buying Snap-On products and shipping them to Chinese Mfr’s challenging them to reverse-engineer and build the same. With no normal development costs then, it’s not so hard. Good for them they didn’t try to copy something like my Snap-On wire stripper I could have bought on a payment plan, that broke the first time I used it. Lots of guilty parties here.
Most Mfr. labels around my digs say “Craftsman”.
I recently bought a Craftsman bench vise. Waited too long to install it, tossed the box and receipt. The top was so sloppy on the base I took it apart. 9/16 shoulder on the bolt through a cast hole that was partially 11/16 and partially 3/4, it wasn’t even round. I made a bushing to make it work. Craftsman was once good, I’m assuming Sears sold the only profitable name. I have 50 year old Craftsman sockets that I have abused the crap out of but still work as new.
How do you screw up the manufacture of a jack stand! Got to expose all the crap CHINA junk now – this isn’t the only junk product. Anyone who has shopped for auto parts on Amazon and has been often disappointed with quality and fit knows what I am speaking about. It is getting to where they cannot even knock off a good part any more.
Hey, my wife can wreck anything. She once wrecked my anvil.
Now I know why my wife insisted on getting me a set of jack stands for fathers day