Who Makes Pittsburgh Tools, And Are They Any Good?
The concept of "store brand" products has been around since the 1970s – generic products you can buy on the cheap directly from a retail location at the cost of some of the quality you'd get from name brands. In the last decade, though, rather than marketing store brand products as generics, many retail companies have opted instead to spin off their store brands into an entire brand identity of their own. It's been pretty successful, to the point that you might not even know some brands are actually store-owned unless you look into it.
One good example of this is Pittsburgh Tools, a brand of handheld tools and utilities you can purchase exclusively from Harbor Freight. However, that exclusivity is not a result of some kind of marketing deal. Harbor Freight is the creator and owner of Pittsburgh Tools, which is why it's also its primary marketer. Since it's technically a store brand, it's natural to wonder whether or not a set of Pittsburgh Tools is good for your next home repair job.
Cheap, yet sturdy starter tools
The general consensus on Pittsburgh Tools, based on reviews and ratings on Harbor Freight's digital storefront, as well as on third-party stores like Amazon, is that the tools meet a good middle ground between effectiveness and affordability. The tools are great at best and average at worst.
Compared to most name-brand tools and tool sets, Pittsburgh is a bit cheaper, and while they may not have all of the latest bells and whistles, they're sturdy and resilient enough to get most jobs done. According to a Harbor Freight statement on the tools' quality, all Pittsburgh tools and sets maintain an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars across various storefronts and publications. That's mostly true – if you look at both the Harbor Freight digital storefront and Amazon search results, you'll see 4s nearly across the board, plus an occasional 3.5 as an outlier.
However, when it comes to more complicated jobs, Pittsburgh tools may eventually prove insufficient, whether due to missing features or general wear and tear. As such, the brand is most often recommended for those just getting their start in the repair scene. A Pittsburgh Tool set can make for a good bedrock for a burgeoning toolbox, but once they wear out or run up against a complicated job, it may be better to upgrade to new tools rather than buy more Pittsburgh tools.