So I bought a new floor jack. And, it's awesome. It can lift my Prius WAY up -- I can work underneath with about 2 1/2 feet of clearance. I can practically walk around under there, once I get big enough jack stands. Anyway, it turns out that this Harbor Freight jack I picked up is a 100% clone of a Snap-on Tools jack. Somebody here pointed me to this thread on a different message board, and apparently there's a lawsuit over this jack. I joined the message board to ask a question about the jack, and then I said that the two jacks do look 100% identical... this somehow led to me being branded as some sort of "plant" for the Snap-On Tools company. So here are the two jacks. They are super-identical, except for the color. If you look at the exploded diagrams... I think for sure one of them must have copied the other. I'm glad I bought the $200 jack and not the $600 jack.
idk, don't all floor jacks look similar? must be my untrained eye. is there some innovation that makes them far superior to others? let's ask the expert, @Mendel Leisk .
My guess? A Chinese company cloned the Snap On jack, or they are produced in the same Chinese factory, and someone just rebranded the original.
Nice addition to the garage. You find a taker for your old craftsman jack, or keeping it around just in case? I had to use both my seasoned harbor freight floor jack and inherited bottle jack today. Both somehow are missing the handles but still powered through. Today was drain and fill day. Both coolants and atf. All done in about 3 hours which included a nice leisurely lunch with my old man.
Bottom line: you've got a champion floor jack. Get some jack stands, give it a try. Heavy rubber wheel chocks are a good idea too.
i found an article in biz times about the law suit. no idea who will win, but it won't affect end users, unless you need a part i suppose.
@Rebound This is the best place I've found for placing jack stands on the front end. I think you can orient from the L-shaped bracket in the picture. It's at the leading end of a "beam":
