To anyone thinking about buying a Sears air compressor any time soon: Don't Do IT! Those things are absolute garbage. As many of you know, my husband and I have a small restoration shop. We have two employees..us. Last Dec. our old reliable Matco compressor gave up the ghost after 10 years of faithfull service. The pump wore out and quit. The new new pump was backordered almost 6 weeks, time we could not afford to be without air. To make a long story short, we were low on cash and in an act of desperation we whipped out the old Sears credit card and bought a new compressor. We got a stationary, single stage,7hp with a 60 gallon tank. It was almost identical to our old one. That my friends was the biggest mistake we could have made. Last month the motor went out on it. We were down for a week waiting for the new one. It was free since the compressor is still under warrenty. Today, the pump internally exploded. The damn thing blew off the protective cage, the wheel and the belt with a mighty puff of smoke. The connecting rod blasted the bearing to bits. The worst part is the compressor had only been running 10 minutes after sitting all day without being run. We never abuse the compressor and even have a room just for it to keep it out of the dust and paint overspray. I called Sears and pretty much ripped the service tech a new one. Again, the replacement pump will be free, but that's not the point. We depend on that compressor for our living and now we are can't do our work for God knows how long this time. The Sears guy who was here when the motor went told us he has the same compressor and the pump went on his. I guess that should have been an oman. Sorry to rant, but this is a rotten product you would be well advised to stay away from.
Sorry to hear about your air compressor I had heard since Sears had change the design from the belt driven design, that the quality when to pot! But, I never heard of someone going through compressors like you had to!
I have purchased sears products for over 20 years...but I will not purchase another one of there power tools or even hand tools. I had one of there 1/2" drills the first time I needed to drill some holes in a trailer the drill came apart! complete junk. I also had one of there Air Compressors, I had many parts fail... It is still working at a friends house but its filled with JB weld and has about $75 worth of Earl fittings and about $200 worth of sears parts. Never Again! Also even there there hand tools are turning into JUNK. In the last 2 years I have broken 5 open end wrenches and 9 screw drivers. I purchased Screw driver a set last year and I have replaced every one atleast once size one size 3 times. All were were new purchases my older sears hand tools have been fine. But they will not get any more of my money I even cut up my Sears card so I won't be tempted in an emergency..... SEARS=JUNK
The beltless pumps are turned at 3600 rpm. The pumps are dry inside (no oil) and very noisey. The gauges on many of the units are put togather into the wrong ports. If you have a unit that shows the same pressure on the outlet gauge as the tank gauge, it is assembled wrong. Sears is just a marketing company. If their buyers don't see to it that the quality is reasonable, this is what the buyer gets. My advice is to E-Mail Sears corporate and tell them of your experieces. I did that on the gauge problem and got results but this doesn't fix all their marketing problems. They still need to be hammered about everything that is a known ongoing problem if you still want to be able to use their tools. Otherwise, the other lower priced tool marketing companies may have many of the same problems you don't hear as much about. The quality is not that much different for the same price range. Many of the tools come from the same factories with different names. Otherwise can you say Snap- On and Mac with a large open wallet?
I had one of those noisy compressors too. My garage was broken into and it was stolen thank god. I hated that thing. Bad part about it was they also stole some other stuff and pulled the car cover off my Mav. I had a feeling they were after my mav or parts of it. I immediately put motion lights, and an alarm system and bars over the windows in my garage. Also was creative enough to put a baby monitor next to my bed with the other part on top of my mav. Too much?? maybe. I moved out of that house and now live in the country. Dan ps they did try to come back about a week after the first break-in.. I was so nervous that I had blocked the entry door with an old riding mower that didnt run anymore. On it I stacked a couple tires in order to slow them down as much as possible. I walked out to go to work and the tires were laying in my yard as they had gotten frustrated and tossed them towards my house. Man, I didnt sleep but about an hour at a time for nearly 3 years after that.
Dan, that is some story! I bet you were glad to get out of there! I can't imagine sleeping to soundly meself after something like that!
I've never had any problems with anything Sears, as far as hand and power tools. I have a 20 gallon Campbell-Hausfield compressor and I've abused the hell out of it without a whimper. I only paid a couple hundred at Wal-Mart for it and it has served me faithfully for several years now. As far as air tools go, I bought a Husky professional impact gun at Home Depot with a 500 lb. maximum torque. A friend's brother is a diesel mechanic and kept destroying Snap-On guns. He finally bought the Husky and can't destroy it no matter what he does. It's significantly cheaper than Ingersoll-Rand or the other major brands also. My oldest son is in the Chrysler CAP program and I bought him a Husky gun for his birthday. He'll get good use out of it.
At the time we just could not afford the cost of a new Matco. It's actually a Coleman compressor that Matco was selling at the time. It says Matco on the side though.What I would love to do is get our old Matco compressor back. We sold it to our neighbor and he has not done much to fix it yet. The cost of the pump scares him I think. I had a plan in mind. When ever Sears gets the new pump on this POS we have now, I was thinking of offering to sell it the neighbor in exchange for the old compressor. All he would have to pay us would be the cost of a new pump for the Matco. The Matco will just sit there forever until he gets around to fixing it. The only problem is I don't think he will go along with it. The Matco already has a new motor and putting a pump on it would all but make it like new again. What do you guys think about that idea?
I'd talk to Sears about taking the whole damn thing back and refunding your money. I had a one and a half year old Craftsman mower that kept breaking down and the technician told me that it was a deesign problem and can't be permanenly fixed. They gave me back my money after I was insistant. You just have to be like a pit bull. I know you can do that, Jean!
GRRRRRRR! That is a thought Wes. In the mean time we would still be out of a compressor. I'm still working on Dale about a possible swap for our old one. The idea is at least clinking around in his head now. The neighbors would never use a compressor like we do, so the Sears would suit their purposses just fine. As the old saying goes, "They just don't make 'em like they used to." That's way I would like to get the old one back. We will have to see what happens.
Well, we got the compressor running again. The mailman dropped off the new pump Thursday. The only hang up was that the Sears guy insisted that he had to do the installation and it would be 6 days before he could get around to it. There was no way we were going to just sit around for another 6 days getting nothing done. We put the new pump on ourselves and made sure everything was working right. I will say that this pump is a hell of a lot quieter than the original one. It's a Devillis pump, so I hope it last a little longer than the old one. BTW, the Sears tech told us that many of the air compressors like ours were sold with defective pumps on them. This is not the first time he heard of the pumps self destructing within a year of purchase. Sears knows all about it, but is reluctent to do anything about it until the pump blows apart. They will most likely wait till one blows apart and someone gets hurt. I looked at the old pump and the crank went straight through the bottom of the pan. We are pretty much stuck with this compressor, but I still would not recommend anyone buy a compressor from Sears. Whats that old saying.... Buyer beware!
I will repeat my self I wont buy sears tools any longer. I just broke another open wrench since my last post. I was a replacement that I got about 2 months ago. Sears knows they are selling crap and they dont care, just another reason not to buy any of there products.
