[bombcar]

Harbor Freight offers the same warranty now on their hand tools, and Home Depot on Husky's (Home Depot even did a promotion around the time Sears ended their warranty where they'd replace a craftsman tool with a husky for free).

The cost of the replacement is marketing at some point; replacing a obviously abused tool may be a technical loss but you've a customer for life; unless you betray them as Craftsman did (which is why people are still so heated about it twenty years later).

[dessimus]

But no one looking to seriously buy tools goes to Harbor Freight, expecting to pass that tool to their child or grandchildren. They go there to buy the crappy chinesium grade tool that gets a job done. If they find that they need the tool often enough, then they buy the heirloom grade one.