Red✠Baron

Harbor Freight Jack Stands Recalled for Risk of Collapsing
Check yours immediately.

By Bob Sorokanich
May 19, 2020


The Harbor Freight jack stands that we've all bought, borrowed or seen in our friends' garages are being recalled due to a risk of collapsing under load. Go check yours immediately.

In a recall filed with the NHTSA on March 20 of this year, Harbor Freight explains that certain 6-ton jack stands have the potential to disengage their support pawl under shifting weight, causing the stand to drop suddenly. A second recall, filed May 3, extends the recall to 3-ton jack stands. The defect is attributed to aging tooling at the factory that produced the jack stands.

The recall document says that the problem could affect more than 450,000 6-ton jack stands produced between 2013 and 2019 and nearly 1.3 million 3-ton jack stands produced between 2012 and 2020. These jack stands were sold under the Pittsburg brand name, and can be identified by item numbers 56371 or 61196 on 3-ton models, and 61197 on 6-ton models.

Harbor Freight urges anybody in possession of affected jack stands to return them to the store in exchange for a gift card equal to the price of the stands. Any unsold jack stands covered by the recall have been removed from stores. Check on your buddies and spread the word around—these jack stands are ubiquitous, and a failure like this could be fatal.

RatDog

Wow! That’s scary. And there’s nearly 2 million of them out there.

Thanks for posting this.

Steve

smacota1

I think I have a pair of these down at my house in Florida.....gotta check them out.

tuxnharley

Chinesium strikes again.........

Robert61

I wish I could break my HF addiction. All of my real tools are good stuff but for air grinders and some stuff they have they are just too cheap. I've been using my da sander for a few years now. We are going through the little cheap 90* grinders but we are using them all day. I bought one a couple of months back that started off bad. We used it but it went **** up this week so I went and bought 2 more. I may take the first one back but we got our $15 worth out of it. I recently chiseled up my tile bathroom floor with one of their cheapo air hammers. I never have seen anything electrical come out of there that lasted any amount of time.

Easy Rhino

This.

And it's kind of our fault - don't buy Chinesium products and the market for them disappears.

That's why I have Snap-On jack stands.

LouieM

That's looking like a wise choice indeed.

Zoomin

Took mine back to the store today. Apparently this was news to the manager.

Factoid

You know, that style has been sold by many other companies like Northern Tools, Pep Boys, etc. I wonder if they have the same issue?

tuxnharley

Post #1 says the problem is due to aging tooling at the factory that makes this brand causing the engagement pawl to be out of spec and disengage under shifting load.

Factory in China, IIRC. Typical Chinesium quality control and manufacturing tolerances.

rayvaflav

Isn't this was happened to the '65-'67 side exhaust covers ?

Ray

DansYellow66

I have a couple sets of their aluminum jack stands that I hope are made somewhere else on different tooling as I really like them.

Robert61

People think 'I'm not going to buy that HF crap I get my stuff from Northern Tool or Pep Boys'. Yet it's the same crap. I didn't know until they sent us this little virus that they are making most of our drugs now as well. I try to avoid Smithfield Food products and anything else that I'm aware of that company sells. Our government should have never allowed them to purchase Smithfield. While we start to face meat shortages due to processing plant closures our meat exports have grown 40% this year. China has imported record numbers every month this year. Were you aware we make zero penicillin in the US now? Guess who's making it. HF is the least of our concerns.


Just chew on this fact as the meat shortage occurs, we've exported 838,000 tons of meat this year. But prices are going up because there is a shortage.

watson

I just checked the jack stands that I have been using for many years. To my relief, I found that mine are the high quality models not made in China. They say that they came from Taiwan. The world is a scary place when you are relieved to find that sort of thing to be comforting.

Doc

RatDog

I just checked my jack stands. Two are Craftsman. Two are AC Delco. All say “made in China”.

Who sells jack stands made in the good ol’ USA?

Steve

Mikado463

while I agree, much easier said than done .......

and they're made where ??

Easy Rhino

Your'e absolutely correct - easier said than done. In many examples, we've sold our greedy souls to the point that are no longer any US-made equivalents. While we demand cheap goods (by shopping for price only, not value or quality) while demanding more income and benefits, we ensure the continued exporting of goods and services production off-shore. Then we complain about the results.

Example: We blame the airlines for the tiny coach class seats even while we overeat and continue to get fatter as a population, and when we go shopping for plane tickets our top criteria, sometimes our only criteria, is price and then complain that we can't fit in them due to airline greed. Heck, we told the airlines what we value most of all, cost, and it's not comfort, then we blame the airlines for being greedy. Well, we need to look in the mirror.

But you also bring up a great question about where were they made. I'll be checking. They're probably over 30 years old or older, so hopefully I'll get lucky and they're made in the USA.

RatDog

Yep, if you want Made in USA quality, you’re going to have to pay the piper.

Hein-Warner jacks are made in the USA. Their 3-ton jack stands are $80 each.

Choose your poison, price or quality.

Steve

LouieM

Here's a site that lists US-made jack stands, both budget and high-end ones. BTW Hein-Warner is now made of Chinesium, so you have to shop carefully. I've never abandoned my US-made jack stands that are of the older style pin-in-round-post design.

https://allgaragefloors.com/best-jack-stands/

tuxnharley

I agree . All of mine are pin in post types.