These Two Harbor Freight Icon Tools Have Near-Perfect Reviews, But There's A Catch

Harbor Freight is, of course, known for its inexpensive tools. Of course, words like "inexpensive" can get some of their meaning by comparing one product to another similar (or, often, identical) offering from another tool manufacturer. And so it is with Harbor Freight's Icon line, one of the many tool brands owned by Harbor Freight, which are professional-quality tools often designed specifically to mimic very expensive tools that mechanics buy from tool trucks. And in this sense, they're quite inexpensive.

Aside from comparison, tools also get their sense of "expensiveness" from our expectations. In this sense, Icon tools can be expensive — maybe not as expensive as the tool-truck versions, but certainly pricier than the average Harbor Freight customer expects. Consider Icon's five-star, $19.99 Long-Reach Pistol-Grip Needle Nose Pliers. Expensive pliers, right? But to the untrained eye — and more than a few trained eyes — they're indistinguishable from Snap-on's $92 pistol-grip needle nose pliers. From that perspective, the pliers are cheap as chips. Then there's Harbor Freight's five-star $27.99 Icon 9-Inch Long-Nose Slip-Joint Pliers, priced far less than the Snap-ons they're modeled after but more than any slip-joint pliers you're likely to find at Walmart. And if you buy the pair, you're investing almost $48 for two pairs of pliers. Doesn't sound like Harbor Freight.

The Icon pliers' price tag has one of two effects on shoppers. If they're familiar with Snap-on quality and prices, even from scoping out looking out for valuable tools at garage sales, it seems like a great deal. If not, you get someone staring at the price and saying something like, "Has Harbor Freight lost their collective minds?" But which of these reactions is justified?

If tool trucks are outside of your experience, you'll probably fall into the "how are they charging $20 for needle nose pliers?" camp. After all, you can buy 11-inch needle nose pliers for under $6 at Walmart and, in fact, at Harbor Freight as well. For consumers that aren't always quality-focused, $19.99 seems excessive. After all, who wears out 11-inch needle nose pliers in a lifetime? Mostly the people considering the Snap-ons.

Quite a few companies make pistol-grip pliers, including Harbor Freight's Quinn brand. But it's the Icon Long-Reach Pistol-Grip Needle Nose Pliers that are compared to Snap-on tools — and favorably, at that. Reviewers seems to understand both the need for them and the deal they're getting. "These things are great for reaching deep into confined spaces to install, retrieve or manipulate small fasteners or wiring connectors," writes one reviewer on Harbor Freight's website, "and the pistol grip design offsets the handles from the jaws just enough to allow more working space and a lot more squeezing power." Another explains that he "used some at work that were our mechanics tools but off the tool truck. Picked these up for a fraction of the cost and the same quality as the tool truck brand."

In fact, 12 out of 132 reviewers mentioned Snap-on, and all compared the Icon pliers favorably. "Paid $90 for a [Snap-on] set, these are identical to them for $70 less," one explains. "Will absolutely get another set to have as back up." What does it tell you about the price of a tool with a second-to-none warranty policy like Matco or Snap-on when a purchaser would consider buying a backup?

Harbor Freight's $27.99 Icon 9-Inch Long-Nose Slip-Joint Pliers represent a different situation altogether. Everyone uses slip-joint pliers. In fact, they're probably what you think of when you hear the word "pliers." But the Icon slip-joints are special, and priced that way. They include a patented three-position joint and precision-ground jaws that can literally pick up a coin by grabbing the little raised rim around the edge. But here's the thing: Harbor Freight doesn't own that patent, Snap-on does — for its $71.75 Talon Grip long-nose slip-joint pliers. As far as we can tell, only Snap-on and Harbor Freight make three-position long-nose slip joint pliers.

So, the Icons are a great deal, right? Except that those slip-joint pliers you were picturing earlier are $2.67 at Walmart. Are the Icons really that much better? Reviewers seem to think so. "This is a big help to this 70 year old handyman," writes one on Harbor Freight's website. Some aren't shy about naming Icon's inspiration. "[Snap-on] with a different name and price," a reviewer says. "These are so close to the [Snap-on] pliers that even side by side it's nearly impossible to tell which is which without looking at the name."

So, they're more expensive than you expect, but they're also probably the best deal you can get on comparable tools. Maybe you're paying a little extra for the right to brag that you got a great deal compared to Snap-on's prices — a sort of everyman namedropping. Besides, who says only the buyers spending the least deserve a good deal?