Doc, I think what I appreciate most about this video is how fair and objective you are. Especially considering you being such a long time Snap-on user; as well as your appreciation of the overall quality of their tools. Personally, I refuse to patronize HF at this point. And it's not because I am an elitist or think they don't have some excellent offerings at very reasonable prices. In fact, I am just an all-around DIY guy, not a professional. And many Icon and Pittsburgh tools would be good enough for me for almost any project. I just have issues with HF on a different level. But I would never tell people not to buy their stuff; especially if financial limitations are a consideration. Personally, I prefer using some of the more premium brands for the pleasure of using them, fully acknowledging that they may indeed be above my skill levels. I have a nice collection of Snap-on tools that took me a while to acquire, and I prefer to save and wait until I can afford them rather than jumping into a cheaper tool (unless out of immediate necessity). You know, the buy once cry once thing. And I like whenever possible to support USA products. And Snap-on is a time-tested true Americana brand. Not everything they make are winners, but overall, I trust and enjoy the quality and the subtle nuances.
Craziest part about this is the Icons also have a hassle free lifetime warranty, which is what most people use to justify the Snap-On price. $20 and I can walk in and grab a new pair if something ever happens? Sign me up.
If I walked into any of the HF's in my area trying to warranty these pistol grip pliers they're gonna tell me tough luck because they're out of stock and won't be back for months. The HF warranty is great and all but it's useless when they don't have the supply to keep icon tools in stock
I was only half paying attention during the intro where you were showing them side by side, but I guessed that the ICON was the Snap-On simply because I thought the finish looked a little nicer. I really like my German and Japanese tools, and Harbor Freight isn't my first choice (now that I'm established in life and have more disposable income)...but I'm glad they exist and I have a local store just a couple miles away. Having serviceable and reasonably priced options is a great thing to have nearby when I'm doing an evening or weekend project and you find out there there is some tool you need to grab in order to get the job done. Also for the young guys just starting out, there should be no shame in buying some reasonably priced Taiwan or Chinese made tools/boxes to get started, instead of going into deep debt on the tool truck. Snap-On will still be there if they want to upgrade and add over time (when they can afford it).
Hi . Thank you for sharing your experience with us. A lot of big Branded hand tool brands are made in China (obviously they follow the Quality control instructions from the overseas branded company just look at Apple 😂) . I Assume that Chinese manufacturers have shared the knowledge of overseas companies with each other , or have opened up their own companies taking their experience along with them... I have noticed that recently nearly all of the different tool brands have a Premium feel to them . I guess eventually everyone has improved their craft. It's not difficult to (Induction Heat) anymore (it used to be the big bragging technology) . I guess they realized that if you add a little more Carbon steel to the mix and heat it up just right , along with a good pivot and Solvent resistant handle , you will get a good product. 😂 And they are cheap ! Dam I put all my German and Japanese tools in a special cupboard to show off to my friends , but of late I am adding Chinese branded names to that pile (after using my Kapusi 8inch linesman for 6 months) and considering what I put it through ... It (identical brand new brother) belongs on my "shelf of fame"
The one thing I’d like to know is how the hardness of the steel compares to Snap-On. Particularly how well the “talon grips” hold up. Would also love to see a comparison on the 8” Slip Joints (47ACF)!
It’s expected when HF pulled a bunch of snap-on executives to their team, to create Icon. Big money was spent to head hunt. I have both of a few hand tools. I can tell the difference in the hand, the rubber molding feels way different, snap-on being more squishy while the icon rubber is stiffer and slightly thicker. Love the videos keep them coming!
You mean they just buy Snap-on, 3D scan, reverse engineer and reproduce. It’s not rocket science just IP theft that will inevitably result in bankruptcy for companies that actually innovate rather than replicate.
I bought a pair of Icon hose clamp pliers, they've been solid. I love Snap-On, but I've got a HF near me, I can exchange tools like I used to with Sears Craftsman. I can see a whole bunch of young folks starting out with Icon.
I got them this weekend with Harbor freight's 25% off coupon so there were 15 bucks. I do prefer USA made tools but I'm not a pro so I can't justify the cost
Thank you for your excellent review of the ICON Pistol Grip pliers! I have one SnapOn Pistol Grip Diagonal Cutter 86EP, which is smaller. I am disappointed with the quality of these SnapOn pliers. The spring is very weak, and one of the handles has a very big drip, three times the size of the other handle. I just got the ICON Pistol Grip pliers, and I am pleasantly surprised by the high quality being on par with SnapOn. I got both the ICON PSRP-10 Long-Reach Pistol Grip pliers with the screw extracting feature and the ICON PLNLP-11 Needle Nose Pistol Grip pliers with talon grip. I also got the ICON PSH8 Hose Grip pliers. I will compare the screw extracting feature with my various Japanese Engineer pliers. Thank you for saving me a lot of money by getting these ICON pliers instead of SnapOn, which I was planning to do at a later time. Again, excellent review!
Its a terrible conundrum. To pay an American worker a decent living wage to make a pair of pliers, what would they cost? Im guessing no where near $20. Snap-On at least gives us the option to buy American made tools.
Just purchased both the one and the needle-nosed version a couple of days ago. Should get them in a few days. Looking forward to testing them out. But basically saving $150 in total is significant.
"Designed by Icon"? More like ripped off from Snapon lol. Never seen a company so blatantly copy/rip off another company's design and engineering like harbor freight has done. From toolboxes to wrenches, pliers etc...Is Snapon overpriced? hell yeah. But we as consumers shouldn't support this type corporate stealing. I guess making things overseas has it's perks. Good video btw.
I despise HF they just copy and steal designs they don’t invent their own tools no engineering just contract to overseas plants! I do not care if hf is much cheaper I like quality American made and I can afford it. If I don’t want snap-on I buy alternate brands like Proto
I got the Icon's for $15 this past weekend. I am sure that the Snap-On's are higher quality but I wonder if thats really needed here. For myself, and the vast majority of people these will get used a few times per year most. Sure if you are constantly using them the Snap-On's may begin to show some superiority, but if these things only really get usee 5-10 times a year will you notice any real difference? I am betting not. I also have the flush cutters. They were my first Icon pliers and I was impressed enough to slowly grow that collection.
I have really gotten into icon, their pliers have shown me what better quality for a small price difference can do compared to your husky/milwaukee/pittsburgh brands. I’ll probably have the whole set by next year. Their basic needle pliers impressed me when I had to remove a stubborn worn round screw from a tight spot. 30 minutes of fighting with allen keys and it just grabbed and let me rotate it out when everything else was too big.
Hello again, Doc Thank you for another Great Video 👍 I have a suggestion for you or Harbor Freight. I am surprised that no one has come out with a copy of the Insider Ratchet. Usually within a couple of months. Somebody copies someone's ideas. Or is that supposed to be a surprise for us? Again thank you and Happy 2024 to you and your family.
What's frustrating (and I don't have a solution I'm just saying it)- Some of the Icon stuff is on par with Snap On, I own some pieces- I like them. When that happens it feels like Snap On might be overpriced. But Icon wouldn't exist without Snap On. Snap On has a lot of innovations and many of their tools are of the highest quality possible. If Icon were to some day put Snap On out of business- would HF be able to innovate like they do? Who knows.
FWIW - My Icon pliers will close at the jaw just slightly before the handles touch, so there is a minor QC delta on the products coming out. It doesn't seem like yours are impacted negatively, but looking at mine, I would say it's not a problem with all of them.
There seems to be a lot of these “screw extraction “ pliers on the market for a tool that is very specialized. Honestly, I rarely need to yank a stripped screw out but I have 3-4 different tools for the job.
i have both of those pliers. Snapon at work and HF at home. Going to swap them around and beat on the HF more. So far in use i cant see any performance differences . KTC also make a smaller version of that light. same thing. snap on at work at KTC at home. The KTC does have the longer light on the opposite side tough.
For such a specialty plier. I’m happy with my Icon I picked up the other day, with 25% off. I love my Knipex and Vamplier nut grabbers. All the Icon pliers go well with the rest of my collection.
I've cooled a bit on the Vampliers. They don't hold up the way I expect a good pair of pliers to. I take decent care of my tools but shouldn't have to baby them. I still think Icon is in most respects not equal to the best, but good value for money especially when on sale.
Doc, I love your videos but there’s no way I could justify paying $95 for something like that and I’m a guy that loves quality tools but at this point harbor freight in this particular instance has snap on beat
The significant price difference is crazy. Snap On fan boys argue that you’re paying extra for the lifetime warranty with Snap On but Harbor Freight also offers the same warranty on their Icon tools so that’s no longer a selling point for Snap On. They really do perform the same and I’ve never broken a HF tool personally. Using the right tool for the job is the biggest savior of hand tools regardless of the brand.
Icon released a few new pliers recently and I got them over the holidays. Haven't had a chance to put them to use yet other than checking them out in the shop, but they do seem solid. Hard to complain about the price too....If there is an advantage to the Snap Ons, it won't be worth the extra $75 IMO. I also got the 17 in. S-Jaw Quick-Adjust Pliers Wrench for $25 that they compare to a $92 Snap On. Can't wait to see a few more of these comp vids.
try the hypertough 200 lumen folding penlight to compare to the snap on. i really wanted the snap on when i came out but couldnt afford it. got the hyper tough to try and loved it so much i now have 3. the hypertough looks very similar to the atd pen light but the hyper tough is only 15 bucks. i remember your review about the snap on penlight and you had to click through the brightness levels to turn it off. the hypertough is a one click off as long as its been on the same setting for like 30 seconds. it also has usb-c charging which i didnt expect. id be very interested in a comparison between the two.
Are you an ITC member now? 🎉 The only good thing that's happening in 2024, Icon tools
5 месяцев назад
I have the Icon, and mine does not have that issue where the handles touches. It looks more like the snap on when you close it. I'd check another pair at hf. Maybe it's a quality control issue.
@@chrisohanlon69 Me third but I see a difference. My Unilite is the IL-925R. It has 925 lumens. It's the same size as the Snap-On with more lumens. I would not recommend this light. If you look at the Snap-On, it has the smaller light on the outside. When you flip it up the main light is on the bottom. That makes much more sense to me. The Unilite has it backwards so the smaller light is in the more adjustable position if that makes sense. Not sure how they got this wrong. You don't know what you don't know. I have the Astro lights. The wheel style and the bendy. They blow anything else away except size wise. I also like the wireless charging on the bendy. Going to HF today to pick one up as everyone mentioned with a 25% off coupon.
Hard to tell just from a video, but the Icon actually looks like a slightly nicer finish, and from what I can see, not much worse of a fit up than the snap-on, if it's worse at all. Both have a lifetime warranty, but one is less than a quarter of the price. I think I'll go with the Icon.
When I was a kid and doing something bad my Dad would say "You're cruising for a bruising!" Harbor Freight is really cruising for a legal bruising from Snap on. Their new line of pliers are a blatant copy of Snap on.
Everyone has their opinion and price points, we are all entitled to both. I would like to point out a few aspects of why Snap-On costs more... R&D. Icon could simply come along and copy someone else's work, Snap-On put the work into finding out what mechanics want and then creating that out of thin air. In addition their employees live in the United States, which means they get fair wages and benefits, unlike their counterparts overseas. Lastly, brand recognition, they know they have a solid, popular product so they charge as much as they can. That's the American way baby! Lol. I'm not trying to lecture and tell people they shouldn't shop at HF, it's a free country and you should buy whatever fits your budget! Just adding a little context.
If I buy five icon pliers, it’ll be $100 but if I buy five Snap-On pliers it’s gonna be $500 that’s the equivalent of 25 icon pliers or 25 snap on pliers are 2500$!
Hey Doc. I found some issues with the HF versions of two of them and maybe you could make a video about it. The first one is the ICON Slip Joint (PSJ8) on the 2nd position (middle) the jaws are completely disaligned for some reason. The other one is the Multi Slip Joint Parrot Nose Pliers (PSGJ10) The upper Jaw angle has a slightly less aggressive angle than the KNIPEX version and this result on the tool wanting to cam out from the bolt. If you put them on top of each other you will see the small angle difference. Very small but enough to make huge difference in the real world use and how hard you have to compress the handles to avoid cam out. Check it out and hopefully the next video will be about this issue. Thanks and Dock Out...
@@chickwithstick7695 maybe it's intentional then. But the ICON Parrot nose pliers have definitely a slight less aggressive angle on the top Jaw than the KNIPEX version and this make it requiere way more pressing force on the handles to avoid cam out from whatever your tighten or loosing up
Thank you for this video... Snap-On boys will die to say that these new ICON pliers are SO different... It's just NOT true. They are incredibly comparable.
I can't afford snap on 😂 so hey i buy harbor freight tekton gear wrench etc etc But honestly i love em they work awesome and i just bought the icons plus the needle nose pistol grips Just buy Milwaukee 3/8 impact and Milwaukee big boy 1/2 both fuel and you good boys lol
The guys that make it known that when they grab a wrench it’s a snap on wrench. Gonna take this o ring off with my SNAP ON pick. Talking to you wrangler-star. Where did I put my snap on bottle opener
Don't waste your money on Icon. Don't waste your money on Snap-on, neither. Craftsman makes good tools and has a lifetime warranty. Irwin does the same.
Harbor Freight is bringing their best game to market with Icon ... and by their I mean Snap-On and Knipex designs. If Harbor Freight was smart, they would quit copying Snap-On double dip handles and make everything Knipex style two part over molded VDE.
@@svn5994 IDK what to say if you are offended by rip offs, technically everything has been ripped off in some form or fashion. How would you iterate if you were forced to reinvent the wheel? How is being safe a gimmick? Have you even used VDE Knipex style handles?
I want to by made in usa from an american company, but I just cannot afford it. 80 ish bucks verses 20 bucks. and with the high cost of everything, what do you do. I wish snap on would come down in price to somethign more reasonable, even if it was in the 30 dollar range, I would buy the snap on over the Icon.
My big thing with the icon is how long will they last. I have a few icon tools and so far my non slip wrenchs are wearing pretty fast on the open end, same with the socket set I have. They aren’t bad tools but the metal seems soft and doesn’t hold up long term using them everyday.
If HFT were not thieves and and paid our wages they would be the same price as snap-on. I wish people would stop supporting crooks. One day China and Japan are going to own the USA. Japan just bought US steel which at one time was THE largest company in the world.
@@BL-yj2wp They don't care about laws. They are crooks. They break in to our banks, computers, hospitals, every single day. They are experts at theft it is almost impossible to fight knockoffs. Consumers have to smarten up and stop asking HFT to make knockoffs such as he did with the knife.
@@BL-yj2wpif an active owned patent is still present then yes they can and should be sued. Vast majority of carbon copy icon stuff is released after patent expiration from what I’ve seen. That said, for the price point many of the icon tools are very worthwhile if you can’t afford or don’t want to fork over the extremely overpriced gouging of Snapon. (Except ratchets, SO can not be beaten in my book)
@@seansiar6121but US patents don’t apply to Taiwan or other countries so that’s likely why. Snapon has already tried suing HF over the jack situation and failed.
Harbor Freight is the scam because they are coping a product. If Snap-On was not the best harbor freight would not copy it. Every time you buy an import item you are selling America down the river one item at a time. Some day your grandchildren will be owned by China and Japan. US steel was one he largest company in the world now it is owned by Japan. They are buying everything in America every single day and you guys keep supporting them.
No, they make and sell (and rebrand) tools.. I promise they are either real/legitimate, or this is one of the most elaborate pranks ever played… ..I just checked and I hadn’t imagined having snap on tools. They do exist. Wait, unless I’m imagining this!
Nah, it's not a scam if every buyer knows they are paying at least double so they can have a warranty replacement if something breaks. You know, the replacement they already paid for...
Have you ever bought $90 pair of pliers that started rusting in your box after 1 weekend sitting next to $15 pliers that haven’t rusted in years of use? I definitely thing snapon has its use case but man something about snapon metal rusts so quick. Even the chrome pick sets started to after a week.
@@deedeeramone34 I actually have some in my Amazon cart lol. I have used used motor oil up to this point to help prevent it since it’s basically always right next to me.
I’ve got quite a few ICON tools (used professionally, daily) that are plenty good. But this is probably the one I definitely wouldn’t buy. This style pliers has a very specific job and you need to know it’s going to work the first time, because you usually only get one shot at it. When it comes to sockets or flush cuts or needle nose, an average grade or “pro-sumer” grade tool will almost always get the job done. But there are some specialty tools where just looking or even feeling like the expensive brand doesn’t cut the mustard, and this is one of those tools. This is definitely the kind of tool where spending less money will end up costing you more down the road.
I dont agree with Icon ripping off SnapOn's designs all the time. Its just not right. For that reason, I couldn't support them. But I certainly get why people do.
So nobody but the first guy who made a screwdriver, should make and sell screwdrivers? Sockets? Extensions? All the designs we call classic are copies...we (a lot of us) call adjustable wrenchs, Cresent wrenches, we call tongue and groove pliers Channel Lock....this Harbour Frieght sucks because they copy .... is a load of crap. Every tool company copies. The best companies innovate, Snap On, Knipex, to name a couple. I own many of both, but I really like my Tekton, Capri, and yes, select Harbour Frieght tools.
Use a hobo freight socket, then use a Snap On Made in the USA socket as a technician, no some backyard know it all, and you will see the difference. Guys who can’t afford Snap On will always hate. Must suck to suck.
Another example of an American company designing something and putting Americans to work making a great product at a decent price, only to have a foreign company copy their design and put out a cheaper product using developing nation labor.
Strange that in all of the comparisons of snap on and icon nobody addresses bootleg version verse’s original design. Try reselling the bootleg and find out the difference. 🗑️
