The Harbor Freight Product Users Say It's Probably Best To Avoid Buying

Over Harbor Freight's history, the retailer has sold a lot of useful products. The store is famous among tradespeople and gearheads, thanks to its affordable prices and huge inventory. The chain owns dozens of exclusive, in-house tool brands, each offering different price tiers, categories, and power levels. And while Harbor Freight is perhaps most popular for its expansive selection of hand and power tools, the store sells everything from painting supplies to outdoor recreation gear.

However, despite Harbor Freight's reputation for selling quality tools at affordable prices, not every item on its shelves is a winner. As with any retailer, user opinions will vary regarding the quality of Harbor Freight's selection, although some items have received considerable backlash. Looking through Harbor Freight's website, as well as numerous enthusiast forums, there's one product that users consider to be especially bad.

The Pittsburgh Waste Oil Storage Container comes with moderately-positive reviews on the actual Harbor Freight website. However, a closer look reveals that many customers were displeased with their purchase, while the opinions we found on off-site forums were undeniably negative. But what, exactly, is so bad about the Pittsburgh oil pan? Let's dive into the user reviews and commentary to find out. 

The Pittsburgh Waste Oil Storage Container comes with 4 out of 5 stars based on over 1,100 Harbor Freight customer reviews. At first blush, that appears to be a relatively decent rating. However, when we look closer, we can see that there is a substantial number of poor reviews in the mix. 

On the product's Harbor Freight page, one unsatisfied commenter stated, "The cap leaks oil and won't tighten enough to not leak. I do not recommend this oil pan." Another described its poor quality, saying that the plastic was incredibly thin. The same user went on to say that the weak material caused the pan to flex and spit out oil, resulting in excessive mess and making the product virtually unusable. One Harbor Freight shopper echoed those complaints, explaining,"when the warm oil went into it, the plastic went flat and 15 quarts of oil went everywhere, the plastic had 0 durability for warm oil. It was like putting oil in a plastic bag."

Forum reviews for the Pittsburgh Oil Storage Container are even worse. One Redditor shared their experience with the product, warning buyers, "Avoid, even on sale. It's not very tight, and it leaks in the middle part when standing up. I forgot it at my friend's house and never miss[ed] it." Others shared similar experiences, with comments frequently focusing on the pan's poor design, excessive leaking, and splattering when in use, making the product one of the top tools you should think twice about buying from Harbor Freight.

To figure out how users feel about the Harbor Freight Pittsburgh Oil Storage Container, we first dove into the customer reviews to analyze real-world opinions and experiences. We also checked out some tool-enthusiast and Harbor Freight fan forums. While reviews for the product on Harbor Freight's website were overall decent, there were a large number of negative reviews complaining about the issues described above. 

On the fan forums, opinions were less divided, and users didn't mince words when it came to describing the Oil Storage Container's faults. While a handful of customers may have had success with the product, our research indicated most users recommend avoiding the Pittsburgh Oil Storage Container altogether.