I read with great interest the thread on the new chop saws, and I think I am going to get one. Overall I find Harbor Freight to have the best prices when handling and shipping are factored in. I get tons of catalogs from Harbor Freight, and they price the same item differently in each catalog and use different stock numbers. I think that one of the reasons they sell so cheap is their customer service is impossible to reach and get real information from.

Do any of you guys know how to find their lowest price on a particular item without having to save 6 months of catalogs and search through each catalog to find the best price? I have seen the price for a single item vary by up to 50 dollars from catalog to catalog with no rhyme or reason that I can figure out.

perhaps this is just my imagination but it seems that once you become a preferred customer (spend about $100 or more i think it takes) that almost immediately after that order your catalogs have prices that are lower than the avg. catalog that everyone else gets. Then after a month or 6 weeks after ordering you're still a preferred customer (get a slightly different catalog than the avg person who's never ordered anything) but you're not getting the super prices like the catalog right after the order. There is definitely some magic going on with the catalogs though ...

My theory seems to hold true when comparing my catalogs with my buddy who also orders a fair bit of junk from them ... or maybe i just think too much :confused: :D

- jack

My Dad and I are always getting things from HF. If you want to save a little more money, you have to take the time and read every catalog they send you, note here soem are only good for certin times. Also check their web site, also diffrent prices there.

Because they have so many prices floating around in different catalogs you can usually figure out the best price at their website. Just enter the order from catalog link and put in the item from any catalog that you want. If I recall, their are 3 fields, the 2nd field is a single digit # folowed by the 3rd field with 3 leters, like vga. If you change the number in the 2nd field ...say from 1 vga to 2 vga you can find the current lowest catalog price. Sometimes you will get an error saying the # does not exist, just hit cancel and try the next number...like 3. You usually only have to try 5 or so combinations to get the lowest one. Its easier to do than to explain :D Good luck!

Half my shop is from hb from my blast booth to my cherry picker.but with harbor frieght you relly have to look out for quality..but you usually luck out most of the time . but what ever you do do not order ther trailers from them. my word what a mess that turned out to be . they don'e have a clue where there titles are and half of them are wrong.it took me 4 months to register one after i put it together and i could not bring it back cause i had welded it !!! i hate the thought of holding a trailer sqaure with grade 8 bolts !

I try not to buy anything made in China so I rarely get anything from them. A while back there was a post on changing the number after the dash or something and getting better prices.

i had one of those $60 14" chop saws from HF....chinese made worth about $50 maybe.....the POS died after like 6 moths of heavy use....

basically if you don't "really" need one....buy it....it's cheap

if you plan to use it frequently....or like to keep the tools you buy..... get a Millwaukee, Hitachi, or similar.


here's to the POS motor in the HF saw :mad3: :mad3: :flipoff2:


Matt