The failure of Sears is really the success of Chinese manufacturing and the rise of disposability and dramatically lower prices that followed. Craftsman used to be tools that would last you for decades, but you paid. Now it’s the same crap everyone else is selling with a different logo thrown on.
> Craftsman used to be tools that would last you for decades, but you paid. Now it’s the same crap everyone else is selling with a different logo thrown on.
Only certain items. They certainly have fallen victim to slapping the Craftsman label on cheap plastic "things" out of desperation which has definitely impacted their reputation as of late, but for those of us who can't pay Snap-on prices for everything what remains of Sears' actual tools are still light years better than the malleable/rusty junk Lowe's, Home Depot, Amazon and Walmart sell.
No, I didn't have power tools in mind when I said that. Anything with a motor or more than a few moving parts is worth shopping around.
The basic hand tools and precision instruments are the Craftsman products I find are still worth using. The wrenches, torque wrenches, calipers, hammers, screwdrivers and the like. Nothing electronic or mostly plastic.
This is a problem with software as well -- someone creating quality long-term-viable systems has to fight harder than someone creating shaky facades. Everyone wants long-term-viable systems, but it is an easier, faster, cheaper task to build junk that lets you meet/beat this quarter's numbers.
I wonder if that mentality just grew beyond the point of no return.
If you watch DIYers, technicians or engineers on youtube you'll see that.
You also get to see differences between product you cannot see. I just saw a super glue benchmark and well loctite won, but some "neat" brands failed early.
