Stuff Made in the USA?

[chefcraig]

Only their mechanic sets are still US manufactured and they're not of the quality they used to be. Back when my father was still alive he believed in Craftsman tools (as well as SK). So did my grandfather who bought Craftsman tools from as way back as the early 1950's. "They are the shit" my dad would say to me only to have his heart broken by seeing a "Made in China" emblem stamped to the side of a miter saw.

The merger between KMart and Sears has been proven to be an unmitigated disaster when it comes to quality. Rather than maintaining the standards of Sears, things have shifted to beneath KMart standards. I'm not kidding. You would simply not believe the cut rate crap that flooded both stores in the months after the agreement. Tape measures that would slice your fingers to pieces, screwdrivers that stripped at the slightest urging and tool boxes that wouldn't last three days on a job site.

It's genuinely appalling, as these mediocre/poor products have filled the shelves now that the Craftsman line has been reduced. Of course the Sears guarantee of lifetime replacement was often abused by careless consumers (the type that would return a non-dull pair of tin snips a week after purchase, leading to the product no longer being made by Craftsman) which greatly curbed sales in the first place. The result is diminished product availability, yet considering the economy and the fact that the people that make up a great deal of the sales for tools are unemployed, there is little alternative at this point.

[Kristy]

K Fart always struck me as selling its soul to the lowest bidder in order to maintain those comical "Blue Light Specials" they used to throw back when I was a kid. My mom used to shop there all the time for both me and sister not because the products were of quality but just that they were cheap. K Fart built its empire of chains on being cheap. Nowadays it's just sad - I was in one oh, about three weeks ago to buy a USB cable for my laptop (hey, it was on the way home) and the first thing I noticed when walking into that sterile Soviet-style warehouse Xerox-copied Wal-Mart "Superstore" was how vacant it was. It was like America's economy metaphor taking place right before my eyes. Little evidence of employees (or any kind of help) and the ones I did see had the most forlorn faces trying to smile through their button-plastered red vest (probably also made in China) waiting for their minimum wage Zoloft pay to kick in.

As for finding a good percentage of products made in the USA collecting dust on their shelves you can forget it. Yeah, I know being a woman I purport the stereotype and shop around for a deal but all that was in there could only be described plastified junk from Mp3 players to patio furniture again, all bitch slapped with a 'Made in China" sticker somewhere on the back of the product (and I thought the shit they sold in Macys was bad). I had to leave because the place was depressing me so much. I can probably safely say me and K Fart won't be crossing paths again.

[hideyoursheep]

China

What kind of car do you drive?

Just curious...

[hideyoursheep]

K Fart always struck me as selling its soul to the lowest bidder in order to maintain those comical "Blue Light Specials" they used to throw back when I was a kid. My mom used to shop there all the time for both me and sister not because the products were of quality but just that they were cheap. K Fart built its empire of chains on being cheap. Nowadays it's just sad - I was in one oh, about three weeks ago to buy a USB cable for my laptop (hey, it was on the way home) and the first thing I noticed when walking into that sterile Soviet-style warehouse Xerox-copied Wal-Mart "Superstore" was how vacant it was. It was like America's economy metaphor taking place right before my eyes. Little evidence of employees (or any kind of help) and the ones I did see had the most forlorn faces trying to smile through their button-plastered red vest (probably also made in China) waiting for their minimum wage Zoloft pay to kick in.

.

Which one were you in again?

[FORD]

K Fart has the red vests. Wal Fart has the blue.

At least I think so. I avoid Wal Mart like the plague (which it is) and haven't been to the local K mart in years.

I will admit to going to Target on occasion though, and I'm reasonably sure everyone there wears a red shirt. Don't think they have vests.

[katie]

.

[katie]

[Kristy]

What kind of car do you drive?

Just curious...

I drove a 1995 Ford Thunderbird for years until the maintenance started to outlast the mileage. Now I drive a pile of shit 2004 Mercedes SLK300 that I was suckered into buying (car was originally a lease). Think I had a even crappier Nissan somewhere between the two.

[Nitro Express]

I haven't been in a Wal-Mart store for four years. I needed a new battery for a four wheeler and in Chicken Screw, Idaho where I was running on some sand dunes outside of town Wal-Mart had the monopoly on batteries in the area. Anyways I walk in the store and I get hit with this familiar smell I haven't smelled in years.

It was a musty and oily type smell. Where have I smelled this before. Then it hit me. It was the smell of the cheap markets in China. The whole fucking Wal-Mart store smelled like a cheap Chinese market.

[Nitro Express]

I drove a 1995 Ford Thunderbird for years until the maintenance started to outlast the mileage. Now I drive a pile of shit 2004 Mercedes SLK300 that I was suckered into buying (car was originally a lease). Think I had a even crappier Nissan somewhere between the two.

My dad was a Mercedes man. He had a big 500 SEL and the 450 convertable. They were quality cars. My neighbor has one of those newer 300 Mercedes and I couldn't believe how shitty it was build and fit and finish wise.

The best car I ever had was a BMW 325. I drove that car forever.

[Kristy]

Really? My car is a pile of shit. Paying close to $300 when a starter goes out is a bit ridiculous. The only upshot that I can find in owning it is that at least it's not an SUV.

[sadaist]

Ugh...in my nearby area there is one Walmart, two Targets, and one Kmart. Walmart is always packed to the gills. Even at 3 am. I went into Kmart a few months back just to check what they had for sheet sets and it was exactly like you guys described....DEAD. I mean scary dead. I maybe saw one other shopper quietly perusing an aisle. Very quiet music piping through, no hustle bustle, no sounds of shopping carts, children, cash registers, etc....eerie to say the least. I remember it being like this about 3 years ago too when I last stopped in. How are they still open? I doubt they made enough in sales that day to even pay for the electricity. Even Montgomery Wards was like Disneyland with crowds compared to Kmart & look what happened to them.

As for Sears, it only seems that the people in there NOT shopping for tools are people browsing as they pass through because they happened to park at that end of the mall. On a personal note, I used to like Sears for shopping for fishing stuff while the woman I was with was spending forever in Macy's or something. Now they don't even sell fishing gear anymore.

[sadaist]

Really? My car is a pile of shit. Paying close to $300 when a starter goes out is a bit ridiculous. The only upshot that I can find in owning it is that at least it's not an SUV.

Well, when your car is running well, it runs like no other. That's the big upside. But yeah, expensive as hell to maintain & repair.

[chefcraig]

...I went into Kmart a few months back just to check what they had for sheet sets and it was exactly like you guys described....DEAD. I mean scary dead. I maybe saw one other shopper quietly perusing an aisle. Very quiet music piping through, no hustle bustle, no sounds of shopping carts, children, cash registers, etc....eerie to say the least. I remember it being like this about 3 years ago too when I last stopped in. How are they still open? I doubt they made enough in sales that day to even pay for the electricity.

KMart started instilling some questionable practices soon after the merger. For instance, the floor emplyees (including department heads) were required to unload the stock trucks each day. You guessed it, people who are to deal with the public all day would need to work first thing in the morning at the non-air conditioned oven known as the recieving department for a couple of hours. Once they'd worked up a miserable sweat, these same employees were expected to spend the rest of their shifts as if they felt pleasantly refreshed to take care of customers. And coincidentally, the once stringent safety rules requiring liftbelts for back support and certain types of shoes were suddenly erased.

The overnight crew was cut to a minumum of at times 2-3 people, who were to then fully stock all departments (except shoes, which was done by the department head). Long-time employess making wages a dollar or two above the norm were forced out by being made to work ridiculous shifts with unreasonable demands, and all employees were treated with little more than contempt bordering on outright harrassment by management. In turn, the managers themselves were supposed to meet absurdly unreachable standards, leading to an entire work-staff being reduced to a miserable crew of disenchanted and frustrated drones.

Rainman was correct, as KMart indeed sucks.

[Nickdfresh]

Mercedes, and to a lessor extent BMWs, have quality control issues and routinely record below average reliability in Consumer Reports ratings giving them something of a "garage queen" reputation...

They're beautifully styled, but can be maintenance nightmares. I think the saying regarding overly complicated, German engineering is something to the affect that, "why would one make something that works perfectly well with four parts when you can use 16 parts?"

Even the Volkswagens, which are nice cars with very good fit-and-finish, have had "slugger" problems with their turbo engines requiring them to use synthetic oils...