SO just blatantly lies and people love a sales pitch so much they eat it up and pay $600 for a $60 tool. Because that’s what HF tells me,they have an honest business model. I own basically every brand of tool you can think of and use them daily,I know for a fact HF hand tools are tough.when I go to HF I get a Chinese made tool with whatever specs it claims. There’s a plethora of comparison videos testing these tools side by side and don’t act like HF is the only company to use different companies designs…they all do it. No matter what, everything you buy will have something from China…you just pay for a name. You see this with all the major brands oftentimes even having the same color scheme. They then just stamp the part with a logo of the primary contractor,owning the original piece/design they can then sell it without the logo (that they don’t own) to another company. Some companies even design them with little to no input from the contractor. These Chinese companies get contracts on different levels that build and/or manufacture huge and I mean huge quantities of tools etc. China can make the parts and they can be assembled or polished in the USA and they can say “Made in USA” and fanboys go crazy for it. All these “Made in USA” tools are manufactured in China,one way or another. I doubt harbor freight owns SO,or vise versa,but…if you worship SO, you’re in for a rude awakening. ‘I’m smarter because I’m getting the same tools at a lower price.’, rather than a more reasonable ‘I’m getting tools that do the job and have a lower price because that works for me.’ I’d guess this is just some kind of reverse tool snobbery of certain people who shop at HF who do mental gymnastics to make themselves feel superior to buyers of more expensive tools, i.e. They only look similar in images where the size difference isn’t apparent, not to mention the difference in metallurgy and internal mechanisms. Thing is, these people have never held both tools in their hands side-by-side, or maybe never even held another ratchet at all, and seen for themselves that the SO/GW ratchets are much more compact. and the power tools really being made by Dewalt/Milwaukee/etc. I’ve also heard the same about HF tools really being Matco/Gearwrench/Danaher/APEX/etc. The justification I’ve heard is mainly from those who think HF’s ratchets, particularly the soft handles, and some other tools have the same appearance as SO, therefore they are actually the same ratchets, from the same company, and so HF is just selling the same tools at a higher price to those other people with the SO branding. Unless anyone can come form with concrete information, it’s safe to say that NO, Harbor Freight does NOT own Snap-on Tools. There have been lawsuits between the two companies, and Harbor Freight often “compares” their tools to Snap-on’s higher-priced offerings in marketing language. There are April Fools Day jokes on public forums every few years, about Snap-on buying parts of Harbor Freight, or Harbor Freight owning Snap-on, but none of that is true, at least not to my knowledge.
This is an unsubstantiated falsity, one that’s no more true than the idea of Home Depot owning Lowe’s. While in theory Harbor Freight Tools could own shares in Snap-on Incorporated, that’s not what would be implied by “Snap-on is owned by Harbor Freight.” I could not find any known, acknowledged, or suspected connections between the two companies. Harbor Freight is a privately-owned company. In other words, individuals and institutions hold shares of the company in the same way as with other publicly-traded brands such as Coca Cola, Apple, Home Depot, and Stanley Black & Decker. Snap-on is a part of Snap-on Incorporated, which is a publicly-traded company with symbol SNA. To my knowledge, NO, Snap-on is NOT in any way, shape, or form owned by Harbor Freight Tools. I’ve had a few guys get on the truck in recent weeks and say “Snap-on is owned by harbor freight,” but I can’t seem to find anything about ties connecting these two companies. Hello, I am an assistant to a Snap-on mobile dealer.