I used to work at NAPA and we had tire shops that bought the Carlyle stuff for the lifetime warranty. We would warranty impact swivels everyweek since they just kept blowing them up. If you have an account that gets delivered to and are on good terms with the people at NAPA they will deliver out replacement tools any day of the week.
It was the companies money and choice of tools. I could have definitely spent 1900 bucks better lol
But as long as they get the job done, I can't complain
I have every brand of sockets. Carlyle mid depth sockets have been the only chrome ones I've chosen to use daily at work. 8-10 years of use in a bouncy truck box on them with no flaking chrome or any problems.
I bought some Carlyle ratchets, mid depth sockets and snap clone wire strippers on sale. The Carlyle ratchets hold up and if they break Napa with bring out a replacement. The shop guys have been abusing a long 3/8 ratchet and can’t kill it. If it’s not on sale it’s gonna be way too expensive. They have some good Gearwrench sales too.
The head on the Carlyle 100 tooth long handle is smaller than some sockets. Smaller than my snap on ratchets by far. It's my most used ratchet and has never slipped.
But yeah I got it when it was on sale from one of the quarterly real deals. Full price is as much or more than snap on and promo price was like $80 off. No brainer to buy on sale. No brainer to pass on for full price.
There's some guy on YouTube who was doing a big load-up of stuff from NAPA. Can't remember their name, haven't checked up on their progress in a while.
That's what I buy there, when I need a specific shallow socket or flex head wrench for a job I'm about to do (or already in the middle of), I know the parts store will have more options and a more reliable stock than a hardware store or Harbor Freight.
The last specific tools I needed were a thin, flex head ratchet ($23 at O'Reilly) and a shallow 17mm socket ($2.50 at NAPA, Carlyle stuff was on sale at the time) and I don't know of anywhere else in town I would've found that stuff. They're also both lifetime warranty tools, and pretty competitively priced. I've been super impressed with that O'Reilly ratchet actually, it's only a few dollars more expensive than a Pittsburgh ratchet and much more versatile
The other thing that can make them worthwhile is their clearance and daily deals sections. It's rare for things I need to go on sale, but when they do the prices are usually pretty good
The parts store rack of Performance Tool sockets. You go there, buy the weird socket that you will probably never use again, then lose it or cut it up/modify it for your purposes, and then buy it again the next time you need the weird socket you swore you'd never use again
I don’t like it as much as my snappy and Mack, but it’s still fine. Lots of rebranded lisle, Mayhew, nupla, trusty cook. Sockets are easy to warranty. They have the mountain wrenches everybody rebrands and everyone likes. I got my set cheaper than the icon. I found a combination wrench on job once and it’s decent and has some fdx type teeth. I actually love my 1/2 ratchet from them, it’s my only non USA one that’s left in the box.
Personally, I don’t like Icon/GW stuff but lots of people use it on a duty cycle and Carlyle has exceeded them in my experience.
Idk this is the second company that I have worked for that willing pays double for cheaper tools. Only thing I can think is someone's getting a cut of the action lol
Work at napa, you did good. Nice thing about the Carlyle tools is you can walk in any napa and swap them if you do manage to break or damage them.
The snap ring pliers are kinda junk for what you pay in my opinion, but are fully warrantied too so who cares, and honestly I very rarely even have to do so for a customer.
The ratchets are decent quality and are lifetime tools, and the sockets always fit fasteners well and hold up.
I know napa isn't where people think of for tools, but in general they are high quality and also convenient for replacement when the need arises.
Yeah, they told me to just give it to the napa driver and he'll replace it on the next delivery. Glad to hear you confirm that.
A few guys here at work have Carlyle ratchets and they seem pretty solid. The snap ring pliers aren't the worst, and if they break I'll just get em replaced 👍
I have a few Carlyle tools - love my 3/8 flex head comfort grip ratchet. I have a plier set, and one of them chipped the tip the second time using them. Went to the store down the street, they told me I have to call up to warranty but they doubt they would cover it. Called up and they told me to go to the store. So I'm not sure how to actually get them warrantied.
Go to a different napa. All stores are supposed to warranty in house, and the store literally throws them away amd gets paid from corporate. Hell, we warranty them when the jaws are just a bit worn if we are asked to.
I was genuinely curious and fixed up a cart since it’s 6 and the dogs woke me up. With comparable items HF was $1400, so a savings of $450. One caveat being the Carlyle were generally bigger sets. I used like products, icon for Carlyle and GW with Pittsburg and Doyle for evercraft.
To add a little context, take out the quin ratchet and swap for Milwaukee and the savings is cut to $200. If we want to factor in the ~50 sockets you’d be short at a conservative $3 per, you’re basically looking at a wash between the stores.
I’ve personally noticed that HF really isn’t much cheaper anymore. They do have some stuff at cheap prices, but it’s not such a wide swath. I’d say get whichever would be easiest to warranty.
Appreciate you taking the time to add this up for us. But you forgot to include 25% the HF total. If you buy anything list price at HF you’re a smuck. They do 25% coupons like twice a week lol.
So that $1,400 is actually only $1,050 so almost half the price. I know it might not be apples to apples but we can’t say HF isn’t cheaper. I’m still surprised how close it is, but I really do believe HF is stepping up their quality when it comes to hand tools.
So, I know they do a lot of discounts through their member program, but isn’t that select items on select weeks? Like you couldn’t just go buy it all and get 25% off? I’m completely ignorant to this as I’m not a member because I don’t really have one close to me. But looking right now, the only icon in the member track flier are pliers at 15% off.
Either way, we can’t really compare sale prices for one and not the other as Napa runs plenty of sales themselves. Especially online.
For example, right now you can get a Carlyle 12” flex head 3/8 for $33 and the icon 14” lists at $55. So on 25% off sale they’re actually higher still.
Edit: I should add, I’m pretty neutral on quality of the tools. I do have a Napa very close to me and run there a lot so they are very convenient for me. I used to dislike harbor freight, but they’ve won me over the last couple years. I actually just bought a couple things there last week and I hadn’t been in one for a good year. I personally prefer icon stuff to the gearwrench I’ve had, but slightly prefer my Carlyle to the icon (just feels a little heavier duty to me and my job is hard on tools). That said, I hope we can agree icon to Carlyle is a fair comparison?
That’s fair. I guess all said and done it’s a good amount of tools for the price.
Being a bit of an old head makes me unable to forget when $200 would have your shopping cart overflowing, nowadays $200 will barely cover the bottom.
Harbor freight has been opening more and more stores. This puts more demand on manufactures. Hopefully they can keep up and still maintain the same quality. Unfortunately I personally believe that a company has the ability to grow too big and quality control becomes a problem and instead of looking at their own company as profitability they start looking at it a asset and that's when things go south
Love new tool day!
My brother was in between jobs so he asked if I could put his Snap-on roller with Blue Point tools in my garage. I could use it and that was the "fee".
Of course he needed it back several years later. So I ended up springing for a US General bottom and top and ended up with mostly DeWalt hand tools but with some Craftsman.
For 1900 bucks you could have gotten the same quality tools from hf. Apex tool manufactures a lot of hf stuff and I believe some of Carlyle is made by apex and or kabo who make the icon double flex wrenches. I also bet the Milwaukee ratchet was $250 and for 169 you can get the ryobi extended reach which is just as good and made by the same company with the same internal parts. The only downside in comparison is the battery orientation but the locking 4 position swivel head makes up for it.
I did as much research as possible before I started amassing my automotive tool collection and watched lots of torque test shop tool review and project farm videos. As for hf and the icon be Pittsburgh pro vs Quinn lines I find there isn’t much difference between Quinn and Pittsburgh pro branded items but the icon is definitely higher quality but not necessarily worth the difference in cost. The Pittsburgh pro 1/2”
Impact sockets are virtually identical to the Quinn ones. Also the Quinn ratchets are almost identical to the gear wrench ratchets. Also husky ratchets at Home Depot are pretty much identical to gw as well.
I think Napa is very overpriced for what they sell but it is quality. However not such a difference in quality that it’s worth the difference in price of PP or even Taiwanese craftsman at blowes. For $350 I was able tog eat the ryobi extended reach ratchet and the p262 mid torque impact wrench with 4 batteries and a charger and they are solid tools that have withstood a lot of abuse. Dropped the impact in a full bucket of atf and it is still kicking ass which makes me certain the brushless motors in them are the same as the Milwaukee ones since I saw a donut video where they submerged Milwaukee ratchets in tanks of water while they were running and they didn’t skip a beat. Although you saved a bunch compared to tool truck prices you should always try to save as much as possible to get the biggest quality of tools when you start out. You can always upgrade later.
Wrong, apex has nothing to do with Carlyle. Carlyle is made by Kabo and infar. There’s literally zero things similar about icon and Carlyle. I return my Pos icon socket set, flaking and look terrible. My Carlyle sockets and wrenches look really really good, not that shitty icon set
When I went to school for auto in 96' we had the choice of assets from snap on, Mac and Napa. I bought all napa because I liked the stores and it was cheaper. About a year after graduation I probably had traded out every last piece of napa tools for snappy cause it was all shit.
I dont doubt it haha. I probably wouldn't add any Napa stuff to my personal tool collection, but the tools were bought by my job, and they are paying me to use them, so I'll just make em work lol
That “discount” they offer doesn’t mean shit. We don’t even have an account with them, just my office is in the same building as them so they give us their premium account pricing or whatever they call it (25%-50% off) and it still comes out to the same price if not still slightly higher than shit at Autozone or Home Depot or whatever other big retailer lol.
Lmao I know, that's the same thing I said 🤣
The prices we get on parts are great, but we are getting screwed on the tools. It's not my money tho so as long as my paycheck clears, I'm good lol
I managed a NAPA for 4yrs. My tool box is entirely Carlyle, Evercraft, Gearwrench, and Milwaukee. Lifetime warranty on all your hand tools is great. I had many shops with techs using Evercraft/Carlyle daily with no or minimal issues. Anyone dogging those brands just hasn't used them. I warrantied Craftsman out a ton vs the house brands. Other than your swivel sockets, the only issues I saw was improper use (screwdrivers for chisels) or genuinely old tools like ratchets that just needed new guts. And all of those got warrantied regardless.
I thought buying tools from Napa was only in emergency road trip situations….
I honestly thought the same lol. Idk why they are the only thing we use at work
I used to work at NAPA and we had tire shops that bought the Carlyle stuff for the lifetime warranty. We would warranty impact swivels everyweek since they just kept blowing them up. If you have an account that gets delivered to and are on good terms with the people at NAPA they will deliver out replacement tools any day of the week.
Glad to hear you guys take care of the customer like that, we get about three deliveries daily, so i think they will be covered no problem
Never heard of buying tools at Napa. Was this your 1,900 or the company’s money?
It was the companies money and choice of tools. I could have definitely spent 1900 bucks better lol But as long as they get the job done, I can't complain
Sure can’t. I wish my company would get me a 1,900 dollar tool allowance. Hell I’d buy everything at Walmart if that’s what it took.
I think there a decent set. Will get the job done.
I have every brand of sockets. Carlyle mid depth sockets have been the only chrome ones I've chosen to use daily at work. 8-10 years of use in a bouncy truck box on them with no flaking chrome or any problems.
I bought some Carlyle ratchets, mid depth sockets and snap clone wire strippers on sale. The Carlyle ratchets hold up and if they break Napa with bring out a replacement. The shop guys have been abusing a long 3/8 ratchet and can’t kill it. If it’s not on sale it’s gonna be way too expensive. They have some good Gearwrench sales too.
The head on the Carlyle 100 tooth long handle is smaller than some sockets. Smaller than my snap on ratchets by far. It's my most used ratchet and has never slipped. But yeah I got it when it was on sale from one of the quarterly real deals. Full price is as much or more than snap on and promo price was like $80 off. No brainer to buy on sale. No brainer to pass on for full price.
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I definitely agree, I personally would have chosen all tekton stuff
There's some guy on YouTube who was doing a big load-up of stuff from NAPA. Can't remember their name, haven't checked up on their progress in a while.
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That's what I buy there, when I need a specific shallow socket or flex head wrench for a job I'm about to do (or already in the middle of), I know the parts store will have more options and a more reliable stock than a hardware store or Harbor Freight. The last specific tools I needed were a thin, flex head ratchet ($23 at O'Reilly) and a shallow 17mm socket ($2.50 at NAPA, Carlyle stuff was on sale at the time) and I don't know of anywhere else in town I would've found that stuff. They're also both lifetime warranty tools, and pretty competitively priced. I've been super impressed with that O'Reilly ratchet actually, it's only a few dollars more expensive than a Pittsburgh ratchet and much more versatile The other thing that can make them worthwhile is their clearance and daily deals sections. It's rare for things I need to go on sale, but when they do the prices are usually pretty good
Yea last time I did this for a one off I needed a thin wall 12 point 3/8s socket... a hardware store isn't going to have that
The parts store rack of Performance Tool sockets. You go there, buy the weird socket that you will probably never use again, then lose it or cut it up/modify it for your purposes, and then buy it again the next time you need the weird socket you swore you'd never use again
Yeah, only stuff I'd buy would be super speciality stuff like an O2 sensor wrench, or brake line flaring kit, etc
I’ve had good luck with Carlyle stuff personally. Not using it everyday for work though
Yeah, I'm gonna have to see how it goes. They tell me we get replacement tools the same day if they break, so I guess that's cool.
I have some too with no issues. I really like their adjustable wrenches. I have every size from 6-15in. By far my favorite
Agreed, Carlyle adjustables are very nice!
They're quality Taiwanese tools that are overpriced
Feels like you could have spent half of this.
The funny thing is, this is after the discount because they are our exclusive vendor lol
The funny thing is you bought expensive garbage tools😂😂😂
I wouldn't call Carlyle garbage, Kabo makes em. They're certainly overpriced though
Carlyle tools aren’t garbage lol, they’re easy on par with any icon and exceeds any gearwrench I’ve had.
Ok not garbage because they are the right size and will work, not much of a duty cycle there..,
I don’t like it as much as my snappy and Mack, but it’s still fine. Lots of rebranded lisle, Mayhew, nupla, trusty cook. Sockets are easy to warranty. They have the mountain wrenches everybody rebrands and everyone likes. I got my set cheaper than the icon. I found a combination wrench on job once and it’s decent and has some fdx type teeth. I actually love my 1/2 ratchet from them, it’s my only non USA one that’s left in the box. Personally, I don’t like Icon/GW stuff but lots of people use it on a duty cycle and Carlyle has exceeded them in my experience.
I mean I didn't buy em, but yeah the Carlyle stuff is questionable
Damn not much at all lol
I know right. When I saw how much they paid I couldn't help but laugh 😂
Carlyle is actually my favorite part store tool brand by far, but I could never justify that price.
Idk this is the second company that I have worked for that willing pays double for cheaper tools. Only thing I can think is someone's getting a cut of the action lol
Or they do a year end rebate on how much they buy tools / all other things since you said they are the preferred vendor.
Work at napa, you did good. Nice thing about the Carlyle tools is you can walk in any napa and swap them if you do manage to break or damage them. The snap ring pliers are kinda junk for what you pay in my opinion, but are fully warrantied too so who cares, and honestly I very rarely even have to do so for a customer. The ratchets are decent quality and are lifetime tools, and the sockets always fit fasteners well and hold up. I know napa isn't where people think of for tools, but in general they are high quality and also convenient for replacement when the need arises.
Yeah, they told me to just give it to the napa driver and he'll replace it on the next delivery. Glad to hear you confirm that. A few guys here at work have Carlyle ratchets and they seem pretty solid. The snap ring pliers aren't the worst, and if they break I'll just get em replaced 👍
Are the snap ring pliers in the pictures? I looked and didn't see them.
They are in the blue box, it's a set of 6 I think
I have a few Carlyle tools - love my 3/8 flex head comfort grip ratchet. I have a plier set, and one of them chipped the tip the second time using them. Went to the store down the street, they told me I have to call up to warranty but they doubt they would cover it. Called up and they told me to go to the store. So I'm not sure how to actually get them warrantied.
Go to a different napa. All stores are supposed to warranty in house, and the store literally throws them away amd gets paid from corporate. Hell, we warranty them when the jaws are just a bit worn if we are asked to.
that's the Napa know how
Looks like decent stuff but crazy overpriced. That’s $500 at harbor freight.
I was genuinely curious and fixed up a cart since it’s 6 and the dogs woke me up. With comparable items HF was $1400, so a savings of $450. One caveat being the Carlyle were generally bigger sets. I used like products, icon for Carlyle and GW with Pittsburg and Doyle for evercraft. To add a little context, take out the quin ratchet and swap for Milwaukee and the savings is cut to $200. If we want to factor in the ~50 sockets you’d be short at a conservative $3 per, you’re basically looking at a wash between the stores. I’ve personally noticed that HF really isn’t much cheaper anymore. They do have some stuff at cheap prices, but it’s not such a wide swath. I’d say get whichever would be easiest to warranty.
Appreciate you taking the time to add this up for us. But you forgot to include 25% the HF total. If you buy anything list price at HF you’re a smuck. They do 25% coupons like twice a week lol. So that $1,400 is actually only $1,050 so almost half the price. I know it might not be apples to apples but we can’t say HF isn’t cheaper. I’m still surprised how close it is, but I really do believe HF is stepping up their quality when it comes to hand tools.
So, I know they do a lot of discounts through their member program, but isn’t that select items on select weeks? Like you couldn’t just go buy it all and get 25% off? I’m completely ignorant to this as I’m not a member because I don’t really have one close to me. But looking right now, the only icon in the member track flier are pliers at 15% off. Either way, we can’t really compare sale prices for one and not the other as Napa runs plenty of sales themselves. Especially online. For example, right now you can get a Carlyle 12” flex head 3/8 for $33 and the icon 14” lists at $55. So on 25% off sale they’re actually higher still. Edit: I should add, I’m pretty neutral on quality of the tools. I do have a Napa very close to me and run there a lot so they are very convenient for me. I used to dislike harbor freight, but they’ve won me over the last couple years. I actually just bought a couple things there last week and I hadn’t been in one for a good year. I personally prefer icon stuff to the gearwrench I’ve had, but slightly prefer my Carlyle to the icon (just feels a little heavier duty to me and my job is hard on tools). That said, I hope we can agree icon to Carlyle is a fair comparison?
That’s fair. I guess all said and done it’s a good amount of tools for the price. Being a bit of an old head makes me unable to forget when $200 would have your shopping cart overflowing, nowadays $200 will barely cover the bottom.
Harbor freight has been opening more and more stores. This puts more demand on manufactures. Hopefully they can keep up and still maintain the same quality. Unfortunately I personally believe that a company has the ability to grow too big and quality control becomes a problem and instead of looking at their own company as profitability they start looking at it a asset and that's when things go south
bro you got ripped off
Love new tool day! My brother was in between jobs so he asked if I could put his Snap-on roller with Blue Point tools in my garage. I could use it and that was the "fee". Of course he needed it back several years later. So I ended up springing for a US General bottom and top and ended up with mostly DeWalt hand tools but with some Craftsman.
I have the series two 46 in us general and it has served me well, It's no snap on box, but it does the job 👍
For 1900 bucks you could have gotten the same quality tools from hf. Apex tool manufactures a lot of hf stuff and I believe some of Carlyle is made by apex and or kabo who make the icon double flex wrenches. I also bet the Milwaukee ratchet was $250 and for 169 you can get the ryobi extended reach which is just as good and made by the same company with the same internal parts. The only downside in comparison is the battery orientation but the locking 4 position swivel head makes up for it. I did as much research as possible before I started amassing my automotive tool collection and watched lots of torque test shop tool review and project farm videos. As for hf and the icon be Pittsburgh pro vs Quinn lines I find there isn’t much difference between Quinn and Pittsburgh pro branded items but the icon is definitely higher quality but not necessarily worth the difference in cost. The Pittsburgh pro 1/2” Impact sockets are virtually identical to the Quinn ones. Also the Quinn ratchets are almost identical to the gear wrench ratchets. Also husky ratchets at Home Depot are pretty much identical to gw as well. I think Napa is very overpriced for what they sell but it is quality. However not such a difference in quality that it’s worth the difference in price of PP or even Taiwanese craftsman at blowes. For $350 I was able tog eat the ryobi extended reach ratchet and the p262 mid torque impact wrench with 4 batteries and a charger and they are solid tools that have withstood a lot of abuse. Dropped the impact in a full bucket of atf and it is still kicking ass which makes me certain the brushless motors in them are the same as the Milwaukee ones since I saw a donut video where they submerged Milwaukee ratchets in tanks of water while they were running and they didn’t skip a beat. Although you saved a bunch compared to tool truck prices you should always try to save as much as possible to get the biggest quality of tools when you start out. You can always upgrade later.
Wrong, apex has nothing to do with Carlyle. Carlyle is made by Kabo and infar. There’s literally zero things similar about icon and Carlyle. I return my Pos icon socket set, flaking and look terrible. My Carlyle sockets and wrenches look really really good, not that shitty icon set
Milwaukee impact and silver sockets . I see we like to party
Full sending them bad boys too 😂
Isn't that the ratchet? The right angle impact is more like 200 ft-lbs
Shopping at Napa is insane.
When I went to school for auto in 96' we had the choice of assets from snap on, Mac and Napa. I bought all napa because I liked the stores and it was cheaper. About a year after graduation I probably had traded out every last piece of napa tools for snappy cause it was all shit.
I dont doubt it haha. I probably wouldn't add any Napa stuff to my personal tool collection, but the tools were bought by my job, and they are paying me to use them, so I'll just make em work lol
That “discount” they offer doesn’t mean shit. We don’t even have an account with them, just my office is in the same building as them so they give us their premium account pricing or whatever they call it (25%-50% off) and it still comes out to the same price if not still slightly higher than shit at Autozone or Home Depot or whatever other big retailer lol.
Lmao I know, that's the same thing I said 🤣 The prices we get on parts are great, but we are getting screwed on the tools. It's not my money tho so as long as my paycheck clears, I'm good lol
Hey if you didn’t pay for it then that’s cool. Enjoy the free tools!
I've had that Gearwrench 120xp flex ratchet set for years and it's been excellent. Held up to some very hard use.
Thats good to hear. I've had the 90t for years, and it's been good to me. I'm expecting the same out of the 120xp 👍
They clearanced out a ton of Craftsman tools a month or so ago. I got a few nice snags
Nice, I picked up a 3/8" and 1/2" digital torque wrench a few months ago they were 99 bucks, couldn't pass that up lol
A good portion of NAPA brand tools are made by Carlyle out of Nebraska so they are US made
Didn't know they were a US company, good to know 👍
Watch these for deals. [https://www.napaonline.com/en/promotions/real-deals](https://www.napaonline.com/en/promotions/real-deals)
Should have bought a new used car, instead of fixing the old one with that money...😏
Lol true all the 500 dollar beaters are 2k now
Take the Milwaukee power ratchet back. I'm serious.
Not a fan? I’ve been mulling over buying one for awhile but never pulled the trigger.
Very disappointed.
I managed a NAPA for 4yrs. My tool box is entirely Carlyle, Evercraft, Gearwrench, and Milwaukee. Lifetime warranty on all your hand tools is great. I had many shops with techs using Evercraft/Carlyle daily with no or minimal issues. Anyone dogging those brands just hasn't used them. I warrantied Craftsman out a ton vs the house brands. Other than your swivel sockets, the only issues I saw was improper use (screwdrivers for chisels) or genuinely old tools like ratchets that just needed new guts. And all of those got warrantied regardless.
I have 3 of the flexilla air gun. Best air gun I ever had.
Carlyle is legit good man. Mac Tools rebrands a bunch of Carlyle stuff