Got to love the Snap-on tool grauantee! (1 Viewer)

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May 13, 2017
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Wickenburg, Arizona
My dad worked at North American Aviation during WWII as a warehouse superintendent who was in charge of all government furnished tools and equipment. At the end of the War, they were told to scrap everything. They sold partially finished P-51D Mustang fighters for scrap. He filled 55 gallon drums with all kinds of tools and sold them for scrap. He personally packed for himself a couple drums with hundreds of small hand tools and about 200 pieces of Snap-on, Blue Point, Williams, etc. He bought them by the pound.

Funny thing was, he couldn't use tools or fix anything. When I became a teenager and needed tools to work on my first car, he gave me these tools. Most were still factory wrapped and packed. Been using them for fifty years.

About a two months ago, the side of a deep 13/16" socket blew out. The socket had a date symbol of 1945. Before calling Snap-on I remembered a ratchet that had been broken since my dad gave me the tools. Called Snap-on. When I read them the part number off the ratchet, the guy said, "Those aren't in my system." He came back on the line and said, "That is a really old ratchet from the 1940s and isn't made any longer and the parts aren't available." They sent me a prepaid label. I sent both items in hoping for the best.

About three weeks later, I received a new socket, nice but not nearly the quality of 1945, and a brand new 15" ratchet. Checked on the Internet and found out the MSRP on the two items was in the $200 range!

Thanks Uncle Sam, Snap-on and Dad!
 
Thaws a pretty cool story! Amazing how the government wastes things though.
 
nice, you lucked out. the newer snapon tools that are made for the government and their school programs dont have the lifetime warranty like the retail tools because they sell them at a lower price point. the gov and school tools will have a different part number so they know when it gets looked up
 

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