Have I mentioned Lately that I HATE SEARS?!?!?!?!?!

ARRRRRGGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Here we go again!
OK... time for the whole story
Long story made longer

Whoever buys the $149 tool set by craptsman or ANYTHING from SEARS AKA "Satans little company store" do so at your own risk..... NEVER AGAIN will I EVER set foot in the "Place where America Shops" ... Bumble Dont shop dere no more.... Fool me once shame on you... twice... shame on me...... 4 TIMES?????? I need my freaking head examined.

HATE is a strong word......... not quite strong enough for these idiots....

OK... some 15 to 20 years ago I was a crapsman tool fiend.. had to have crapsman.... Lifetime guarantee and all that stuff.... Yeah right.. Now about 15-20 years ago I have some of those Crapsman screweddrivers with the clear n blue /clear n red handles... and a couple of the tips are a little chewed up and like to slip and bugger up the screw heads, so I go to the local mall with the big SATANS store in it, screweddrivers in hand..... I go to the clerk in the brightly lit mecca of Crapsman Tooldom and say "hey bub..... gots me some screwddrivers needing replaced like" Rocket scientist looks at em and says....."screwdriver tips arent covered".... Sorry man....... NO JOKE... he actually said this!.. So I ask for a manager... department manager AKA... Dipstick #2 looks at them and says "sorry sir.....not covered.... I storm over to the wall of screwddrivers and pull a set off the wall and plop them on the counter genteeel like and say " do either of you idjits know what the crapsman hand tool guarantee is?.... I get blank stares.. I flip the package over so it is visible to them and without reading the damn thing say

"If ANY Crapsman hand tool ever fails to give complete satisfaction return it for repair or replacement".

If you go look this thing up I may be off a word or 2 but after this incident I have not purchased another tool from Sears and I still remember the supposed guarantee... They refused to exchange the screwdrivers......

Jump forward approximately 1 year...... after busting my knuckles for the umpteenth time after a galled Crapsman open end wrench slipped I staunched the blood and decided to go through my tool box and weed out the ones with obvious wear/ galling. Keep in mind that these are tools I have had since I started wrenching. They no doubt had suffered a little but nowhere near what I would call abuse..... Busted knuckes and 3 wrenches in hand (out of a full set) I head to Satans house of rejection.... Different mall, different dweeb... same answer..... "nothin wrong wit dose....... cant x-change em"... Call the manager.... Same answer... sorry sir.... I dont see"... rip the bandages from the bruised and battered hand and thrust it under his nose...... "nothing wrong?????? Sparkey... I just dont spontaneously erupt blood, skinned knuckels, and bruising....."... same lame response... sorry sir..

"look sparkey" says I... "Can you say store manager?.....here..... NOW!"..... Get this... the store manager comes out says he has to support the decision of his tool department manager and asks me to go......I hadnt raised my voice or anything at this point and the head dipstick "politely asks me to go"....... I know this sounds incredulous but this crap happened... I couldnt believe it!

I swear off Sears..... Years pass... 8 years ago I move to the country .......Momma wants a freezer............ only place in town......you guessed it......SEARS......... Not a big store mind you but a little local branch store with appliances and lawnmowers and a few tools and anything else gets ordered.

I buy the BIG Sears Kenmore stand up freezer that gives you frostbite when you open the flippin door.... 5 year warranty and all.......... uh.... yeah...RIGHT!

Less than a year passes... freezer stops freezing..... I call the local sears..... They say "sorry Mr Bumble.. you gotta handle that through the corporate repair warantee thingie"...... I call the sears repair subcontracted bunch of gradeschool dropout unbonded mother puss buckets. (to be completely honest I didnt have this opinion of them until MUCH later). I schedule an appointment... a week and a half later.. on a day my wife and I are both working, so she ends up having to take off from work.....

The freezer is begining to stink.....we had saved what we could but had to empty the freezer...... trashed the rest.... believe it or not...BIG MISTAKE!

Since they aparently cant schedule an appointment worth a damn and say " the repairman will be at your house between 8AM and 5 PM" my wife takes a whole vacation day off and waits... and waits... and waits... and at 5:00 SHE has to call THEM back only to be told that the repairman was overbooked and wont be out.......................(FUMING)................

We reschedule... and I have to take the day off.... one of my few vacation days... (I get 40 hours a year) and schedule for the following week..................Again.... I wait for the %*&(*&G* &^%$D%&I*IUBHPB(&* repairman..... as the day draws to a close I start making calls and generally pissing people off at sears repair then sears corporate because ... you guessed it...... overbooked .. wont be out.

Reschedule #3... another week.. again...my work day so I am into ANOTHER vacation day.. this is 3 burned days between my wife and I.......Guess what... no show..... I am FURIOUS..... I start calling people and raising mortal terror when the lady at corporate calls the repair service and then calls me back and says .... he will be out tonight Mr Bumble... it will be late.

At 2100 hrs this truck pulls in my drive and a disgruntled, subcontractor, dropout, ex con, rocketscientist drags his sorry butt into my kitchen... opens the door to the freezer... looks inside and goes out to get a torch...... like flames and stuff....... no joke.....By the way..... the inside of a freezer is plastic....yeah..... to there he is with his torching goggles on melting my plastic panels inside the freezer and then shuts off the torch, surveys the destruction he has created and LAYS THE 1200 DEGREE TORCH DOWN ON THE NICE LENOLIUM FLOOR... PICKS IT UP... LOOKS AT THE MELTED SPOT HE JUST CREATED AND .....YEP...LAYS IT DOWN AGAIN!!!!!!!.

My eyes are about to pop out of my head when this one celled wonder opens his maw and says... "I dont have the stuff I need on the truck to finish... I will be back first thing in the AM"...... Of course "Pyro Boy" never comes back after exiting stage left.

After spending literally hours on the phone with Satans corporate hold pass the buck execuitive suite who "couldnt believe that the repairman would do that" I finally said... "hey...give me an E-mail account for you........" She didnt want to.... I dont know why... I wasnt going to send her an electronic bomb or something.... I got out the digital camera and took and sent half a doz pictures... she was back on the phone in 10 minutes with me and had a new freezer enroute the next day after hours on the phone and after losing 3 days off. She did make sure to have them deliver after hours to make sure we didnt lose any more vacation....

Now for the kicker......

It took almost 4 weeks to get the freezer replaced......4 WEEKS!

There is a clause in the "warranty" that they will cover $300 of food loss if the freezer fails........

Know what I was told???????

'WE DONT HAVE ANY PROOF YOU HAD FOOD IN YOUR FREEZER MR BUMBLE"

Yeah.... I keep a big electricity eating thing in my kitchen so I can see what the artic looks like!..... And no... they didnt repair the floor either.

Present Day.... If you havent already....... Read "the Dodge truck /transmission rant"... this has led up to the tranny and my skulking back to "Satans Shop of Delays and Misfortune"

So I have to have the Big A** C-clamp type valve spring compressor from hades to remove the 2 servos from my POS dodge A518 slushbox.......... AND SATANS has it CHEEEEP. I give in and grovel before the feet of the Crapsman Tool altar AGAIN.....(MORTAL FOOL!!!!!!!!!) The demon on the othyer end of the phone with the gravely voice takes my credit card number and orders the tool..... I ask most sheepishly (or is it foolishly) when can I expect it to be in..... (I hear demon laughter in the background) and he says "on the truck Wednesday" Call Wednesday bootlicking pondscum...welcome back to PAIN"......It is currently Thursday the 13th.............

Jump Forward to Today... Wednesday... the 19th.......I call.... get a sweet little helpful siren (mythalogical creature lured sailors to their doom) on the other end... I give her my name... nope... cant find it.... phone number...... nope... cant find it........cell number ........nope..........nope.....wait...wait.....FOU NDIT!!!!!!! "Mr Bumble"... the sweet voice beckons.... "It says here.... promised on Wednesdsy...............the 26th" NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! !!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Look sweetie.. Says I ..... cancel the order.... refund the card...."

"Done" says the Siren

I HATE Sears.... Tigh Pennington.. you have a great show.... help lots of people........ get a new sponsor man...it's degrading......

For anyone reading this and wondering if it's the rantings of a deranged mind?.....nope.. it happened......

By the way.... Tool-sale.com has 2 sizes (8 and 10 inch) $12.90 and 29.99 respectively...

Later guys......

Keith/Bumble

Now don't hold back on us man...let us know how you really feel!

I feel your pain, Sears has pulled that not covered thing too often...luckily I had a nice long (and slightly loud so everyone could hear it) discussion in store over this...inviting others there who buy craftsman to join in and also had the same problem before...and the store manager caved and agreed to replace my broken and worn out tools.

Never had much of a problem after that...but I really don't buy a lot of craftsman anymore, the Snap-on guy that used to be in the area caught wind of my discontent with Sears...was real good to me before he moved away. Lately I've been lucky, haven't had any tools breaking on me....guess I'm not wrenching as hard or as often as I should be!

But I am still guilty of buying from Sears...
Mike

I'm Guilty of buying the Craftman tools and have not had any problem returning them except for the rachet which they wanted to give me a kit to fix it with. I played dumb and asked where was an authorized shop that I could bring it to so that they could put the kit in. The girl called the manager to ask where the authorized shop was and he just pulled a rachet off the shelf and gave it to me. LOL On the repair man level I had Lightning hit my house and it burned out a bunch of stuff TV'S TreadMill Microwave Garagedoor opener Computer ect. ect. So my insurance wanted me to get someone to check all this stuff out and verify that the lightning caused the trouble so I called our friendly sears service center and asked if they would send someone they said yes but I would have to make a ticket on every item seperately at $42 dollars a ticket minimun one hour. I didn't care I thought that I could screw the insurance conpany and sears at the same time. so I ordered a seperate repair man for every object I think some where between 12 to 15. They started coming at 8am an sometimes I had 4 trucks at my house at one time. I would only handle one thing at a time and the rest had to wait. The first guy had a TV I told what had happened with the lightning showed him the TV he told me to plug it in and I told him No it was hit by lightning so this idiot plugs the TV into the wall of course a large pop and black smoke tripped the breaker well he must of warned the other repair guys because everyone else just took my word. LOL

Sears...used to be the #1 retailer in the USA. They made good stuff, not exceptional stuff, but good enough for the average working man to use and pass down to his kid. They gave a good warranty, even better- stood by that dammed good warranty...

OK, fast forward 20 years or so...

The #1 retailer is Wal-Mart, they buy dammed near everything in China, Taiwan, Singapor or east Buttphuckembad, India; can't keep the shelves stocked. Americans are losing manufacturing jobs, complaining about low wages - and Wally World can't keep the shelves stocked? i must be missing something!

Sure, Sears "should" take the unlimited warranty off the package if they have no intention of honoring it. I have faced the same run-around as MR. Bumble; with tools, service and appliances. I used to think of Sears 1st when it came to household appliances, tools and services. Not any more! What I do now is go buy a book, learn how to do it myself - or buy the cheapest crap I can tolerate, then replace it when it breaks. Let's be honest here - all you Sierra Club, green peace, re-cyclers need to understand that the real reason there is so much trash is base on the fact that you can't fix crap. You can only replace it. Most of the time, even if you can fix the item - by the time you take it apart to get to the 10 cent part - you have destroyed the plastic housing, end up tossing it anyway - there is only so much that duct tape can fix.

Dammitt Bumble! Bumbles BOUNCE!

I TOLD YOU I'd send you my c-clamp style spring compressor at no cost so you can use it for your rebuild... All you gotta do is send it back some day...

PM ME, I ain't Schittin' you! You will have it in two day's, not on the 13th or the 29th or the 43rd or february

FE
P.S. You should write a book! I'll bet that your office likes reading your incident reports.... LMAO

I was thinking the same about Bumble writing a book. He wouldn't even have to have it edited, it should be great just the way he writes it. Sorry about your misfortune with Sears. Personally I haven't had any trouble with them. From what you're saying it seems like it's the employees. I deal with the same people when ever I buy something there. I've also raised some hell, but they always seem to give me good service.
Is there a dark cloud over your head or something. I'm just joking with you man, please don't take it personal. BEST of luck.

Originally Posted by Beoweolf

Let's be honest here - all you Sierra Club, green peace, re-cyclers need to understand that the real reason there is so much trash is base on the fact that you can't fix crap. You can only replace it. Most of the time, even if you can fix the item - by the time you take it apart to get to the 10 cent part - you have destroyed the plastic housing, end up tossing it anyway - there is only so much that duct tape can fix.

Not to mention that most everything out there now it's cheaper to replace it than repair it if you can't do it yourself. In some cases even when you can do it yourself it's cheaper to replace.

My heating element died in my dryer but good ol craigslist came to the rescue. I found one posted the next day identical to mine but the on switch didn't work. Now I have extra parts for mine except the on switch. That'll probably be the thing that goes next!

Sad to see. I just tossed my microwave that I had for 20 yrs about 2 yrs ago. Since then I've had 2 of them already. Things just don't last anymore. There's still fridges out there from 1950 that are working! I'm sure there are a lot of old automotive related items still going strong also from yesteryear. It's become a throw away society.

As for the book writing idea. I'd love to read one of them! Reading bumble's posts make me think of Erma Bombeck and her books like "The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank".
Fun reads! Get to work bumble! You will have a few sold right here before you even finish!

Deb

... Sad to see. I just tossed my microwave that I had for 20 yrs about 2 yrs ago. Since then I've had 2 of them already. Things just don't last anymore. There's still fridges out there from 1950 that are working! I'm sure there are a lot of old automotive related items still going strong also from yesteryear. It's become a throw away society....

Ain't that why we keep rebuilding these Galaxies, Mustangs, Falcons and Fairlanes?

Hot Rodders are the ultimate recyclers ... Most of us, besides working on our cars, also tinker on the house. At the very least are more likely to have the house remodeled than to move, unless its really necessary.

I'm not into this ancestor worship thing, I have faith that this too shall pass. Americas best days are in the future, not the past. We just have to quit moaning 'n Groanin'; get back to the job of building a better home instead of looking backward, over the fence or over seas - more worried about what we don't have instead of appreciating what we do have.

What I do know is I really could care less about what is happening in the EU or Asia. I'm not a big fan of the Global economy or NAFTA. One of the reasons America was founded, was to make a clean break with the crap that was happening in all the different places we each came from. The point was to start fresh...not bring that old crap over and start it fresh in a new place. We seemed to have forgotten that ... don't ch'a know. As a people, we are much better at finishing a fight than starting one. Now everyone is a hyphenated American and we are in deep dodo. When we were commited to making things work 'cause we were all in it together...we were much better off.

So true. My dad's uncle has an old Craftsman tiller from God knows when and it still runs, w/ original spark plug, oil, and filter and is a tank. On the other hand, the 7 hp mower we have (w/ the large rear wheels) lasted two weeks before the rear wheels bent due to turns I make on a steep hill. Ironically, the wheels on our old 10+ year old mower swapped right on and never bent (and in fact still has thread left). Also, worth bringing up, the torque wrenches from Craftsman DO NOT have a lifetime warranty and loose their accuracy very quickly. After dealing w/ all the BS from Sears quality, I'm sticking w/ their tools only but never w/ their outdoor stuff (and I'm only doing so because I can't afford better stuff from companies like SK or Snap on).

I stopped buying tools at Sears after I started comparing prices. They are out in left field and not just with tools, everything. I wanted a set of the flat ratchets and Lowes has a set of Stanley for $32.00 with a lifetime guarantee. Sears wanted $62.00 for the same set. And watch out guys. Not all of their tools are made in this country anymore. Another time I went in there to get some paint accessories. I wanted a little paint roller with tray to do a little touch up. They have one for $4.95 and Lowes has the same exact thing from the same manufacturer for $1.95. I send Sears an e-mail asking if this was an error. No reply and the next time I HAD to go back into that store, the tray was still $4.95. I now refuse to go bck to Sears. I go to the local hardware store for the small sales but if I need a lot of stuff I go to Lowes.

Later!
Mr. Ed