mlamb01

Anyone have any issues with any Park Tools that they have purchased recently? This past summer I bought a PCS-10, and the metal button that pops out to hold the legs in place on the main support was not installed properly. After alot of fiddling with it, I was able to get it usable and avoided returning it to the store.

Just a few days ago I bought the TS-8 truing stand, and the gauge support was not drilled properly, preventing the gauge from mounting to it correctly. I called customer support and they are sending me a new part, but I find it kinda odd that I have had problems with 2 of their tools right out of the box - brand new.

Anyone else have similar issues?

thirdgenbird

we had a park crank puller that destroyed a crank the first time it was used. if i recall, we took measurements on it and the total diameter was slightly undersize. this caused the threads to not fully engage and it pulled the threads out of an old rx100 crank. park said the tool was within their tolerance range so we just threw it away in favor of a campagnolo puller.

our park campagnolo lock ring tool is also a little soft. it looks years and years older than our campagnolo made tool that has been used much more (the campagnolo still looks new)

xizangstan

I often thought it a shame that SnapOn Tools doesn't make bicycle tools. Or do they?

reptilezs

trek partnered with snap on with their wrench force line but that line is no more. some tools were rebadged snap on/williams. the wrench force line never really caught on as park is really entrenched in the market.

TLCFORBIKES

Park Tool rules the bicycle tool waves because they created a high bench mark for quality bicycle tools. I have bought Pedro's , Hozan , Craftman , Stanley , Crescent , Ultimate , Wheels Manufacturing and many other brands of tools thru the years. All the shops that I have worked for in the past & my current shop use mostly Park Tools. Have I ever had a bad Park Tool -- yes -- their floor pumps. Park Tool will stand behind their products. They make a tool for almost any job needed for a bike shop or home mechanic. Do all the shopping around that you want. Park Tool will still be the brand to beat.

thirdgenbird

in a thread with 4 first hand experiences with poor quality tools i think your post is a little bit of a stretch. are most part tools good? yes. are they the best or the brand to beat? not at all. (unless you count sales volume)

i have yet to see tools that are at the level of campagnolo.

bkaapcke

I've had trouble with two laser cut headset wrenches from Park. They were cut inaccurately and rounded off the aluminum nuts. Other than that, their tools have been good. bk

thirdgenbird

so now he have a total of 6 bad tools. three of which damaged components.

Jed19

No wonder. My ex-wife bought a Wrench Force floor pump many years ago that has refused to leak or die. The real weird stuff is that the pump was all made of "plastic", but it has refused to leak or die. I have always wondered why that is, until I am now reading that it was probably made for TREK by Snap-On.

TLCFORBIKES

Did I say that Park Tool was the best tool made? I only said that they set a high standard of quality. I own Campagnolo tools as well and they are very good. Campagnolo no longer produces tools for many of the current bike needs. For the cost of Campagnolo tools they should be the best -- but many of their tools are out dated unless you are working on vintage bikes (just so you know -- I work on vintage on bikes). I have been wrenching for 38 years and between my store , my man cave and my tools set aside for mobile repair/race site events -- I own allot of tools.

I have yet to pay more for any tool than I payed for a Campagnolo tool. Not even close.

Jed19

"

Does your Campagnolo "tools" include that ridiculously priced $250 wine opener?

What a joke!

thirdgenbird

i can agree with you almost completely. in our case the crank puller should have never left the factory and park refused to stand behind it. (we had it checked by a machinist, it was wrong)

i would put money that snap-on had nothing to do with your bike pump. snap on doesnt even produce there own tools of this nature


i dont drink wine, but wine drinkers (not cyclists) say that it is a great tool and if you can afford it, worth it.

Jed19

Okay. I just think $250 for a wine opener that is not even stainless steel is kinda ridiculous. I understand it's made of aluminum.

thirdgenbird

#1 the thing is HUGE:
https://www.cyclingnewsasia.com/en/te...915-an-li-shan

the normal sized one is like half the price.

#2 the price is in line with other "boutique" openers:
https://www.google.com/products/catal...4FA#ps-sellers

https://www.beveragefactory.com/wine/...0___5405.shtml

https://www.beveragefactory.com/wine/...e_opener.shtml



i dont think the target market is the occasional wine drinker. i personally would never buy one.

Jed19

^They could at least try and make it of stainless steel or Ti.

thirdgenbird

more research shows it has an aluminum body with stainless steel parts.

apparently its patent telescoping self centering design prevents disturbing the bottle potentially saving very expensive aged wine. maybe it's not the cost of the opener that it ridiculous but the price of the wine it was intended for.


here is another aluminum "tool"

chris king tamper

FBinNY 

It isn't the material that determines quality, it's the function. What makes the Campy corkscrew worthwhile for drinkers of aged wines is that the auger is of a large diameter, vs. the helical wire of typical corkscrews. That, the aligning system, and the good leverage make it the opener of choice for old wines where cork shredding is likely to be a problem.

Anyone who's ripped a hole through a cork, or broken one off halfway in while opening a fine Bordeaux can appreciate the Campy screw. Whether it's worth $250 is up to those who are considering buying one, though one restaurant I frequent still often pours me wine on the house over 20 years after I gifted them the corkscrew.

TLCFORBIKES

I have the Campagnolo Big Lusso Corkscrew (Bronze color). It has stayed in the wooden box that it came in except for maybe 2-3 times in the past 8 years. Probably the last Campagnolo tool I ever bought. Luckly being a dealer I didn't pay even close to $250 - but it wasn't cheap. It works great and so does some corkscrews that cost 1/10th of the cost of the Lusso Big Corkscrew. I do not have a machine shop with all the really nice manly tools but I do have a nice selection of bicycle related tools and toys. I drooled over Campagnolo "anything" since the early 70's - bought some parts and components and still drool over Campagnolo. But now I know there are other components and tools that are good and in a few cases better than Campagnolo.

Jeff Wills

Yeah- it's overkill for anything like "Two Buck Chuck" from Trader Joe's . For supremely rare vintage wines with iffy corks... then it's worth it. Every tool has a purpose.

FWIW: my old employer had a stack of Campagnolo tool kits as tall as me. (And I'm the one they called "Big Jeff"... "Little Jeff" was 6-foot-1.)

rogerstg

My Park bottom bracket hook spanner it too big to properly engage the three pins into the lock ring. Most of the other stuff works OK but the quality seems closer to Harbor Freight than to Craftsman or Kobalt tools.

wrk101

One thing I like about Park is that they stand behind their tools and will send replacement parts. Example, I have an old version of the PRS2 workstand, must be AT LEAST 15 years old, maybe older, I bought it used off C/L. It was missing a small part, so I sent Park an email asking how to buy the part. They sent me the part free, no charge.

On the other hand, I picked up a five year old Minoura 6000 workstand that the prior owner had messed up the mast. It has a small nylon bushing inside the mast. I contacted Minoura directly, they told me the parts were no longer available, even though you can still buy this stand brand new on line. And their product diagram was a joke. It showed the mast assembly as one part, when in reality, it has about 15 to 20 parts inside of it. The reason I was looking for a good diagram is the former owner had taken the mast apart to "fix" it, and then could not figure out how to put it back together.

Park 1, Minoura zero.

Sixty Fiver

If you buy Park Tools you will usually get a decent product and decent support but in many cases, there are better tools for the job out there.

Seems like their quality has dropped from where it used to be and I am seeing more and more complaints... I have never liked their cone wrenches or their chain whips.

And they seem to make a tool for every little thing.

thirdgenbird

park did not stand behind their crank puller. they probably did not want to take fault for rendering a crank arm useless.

reptilezs

can you provide example of tools(bicycle specific) that are better than the park version? not trying to start a debate just curious

TLCFORBIKES

Tacx makes great BB instillation/removal tools ($25). Sunlite Ergo FW remover (w/handle) is a good cheap tool ($10 - $15) to remove /install cassette lockring. As stated earlier -- there are several examples of tools that are considered better than Park Tool. A lot of companies are trying to cut back on budgets which may effect product quality. Park Tool may be not the same quality as in the old days and the same can be said about many things.