speedoholic

Ive been looking for A new compressor for a wile now. I went to harbor freight and looked at their compressors. They had a 3.5hp 60gal for $399, a 5hp 60 gal for $849, and 5hp 80gal for $1100.

My first thought was they are to expensive for "no name" compressors.
After talking to the salesman, for an extra $50 you can get a 1 year warranty, It covers everything. no matter what happens, within one year you can return it and swap it for another, OR get your money back. For an extra $100 you can get two years.

Even then, I decided not to buy one of the harbor freight compressors.

But I noticed on their website the 3.5hp 60gal compressor is refurb for $197.99. I went to the local Harbor freight, with a print out of the $197.99 refub compressor. He looked it up and had two in stock. I asked him about the extended warranty plan, and he called the main office and the extended warranty can be used on the refurb compressors. SO I bought it. $265 total for a 3.5hp 60gal air compressor. Not bad.
I still thought, when I got it home I would be disappointed and would end up returning it. I was wrong! This is a good little compressor. It will do pretty much anything automotive easy. I'm sure you could paint a car with it, sandblast, sand etc. It was very shocking. It seems very powerful, its quiet, runs smoothly etc.

Although I need a compressor for my shop, I bought this compressor to use at home in my basement. But I'm now thinking very very seriously about buying the other one, and using TWO of them in my shop professionally. Instead of buying one large 80-100 gallon compressor for $1000+

$197.99 + tax is the best deal I have ever seen on a 60 gallon air compressor, And $50 more gets a 1yr no questions free replacement, or refund. I thought I would pass the deal along to others. Although not recommended as professional unit, for at home mechanics this is a good deal.

Oh here is the link: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=55222

donmye

Called my local store they said discontiued item

85 500 horse

I've learned not to buy anything electronic from them. Even with a warranty, what happens when it expires? I have a Craftsman that's 7 years old and it works just like it did I brought it home. I also wouldn't touch any of H.F's hydraulic equipment. They suck.

speedoholic

That was my first thought. Harbor freight tools are pure crap. Ive never had anything they sell last a long time. And that is the reason I stayed far away from their compressors. And I still recommend someone looking for a very good compressor to stay away from HF. But with the price so low, it is worth the gamble to me.
But if you do the research of the house brand air compressors, The pump model number is d22629. And is used on many brands of air compressors, including craftsman, devilbiss, porter cable, & campbell hausfeld.
Like I said before, Its not a professional air compressor, But a nice home unit. even better if you count the price.

Now the 3.5hp motor on the other-hand is starting to worry me a little. When searching the model number of the motor, it shows many many air compressor manufacturer's using them. But the scary part is they range from 2hp-5hp depending on the manufacturer of the air compressor. In other words, how much they want to lie to you. Some say 3.5, 4 and 5hp. When its more then likely just a 2hp motor.

So now that I know the pump is ok, and should last. Ive started to look in to replacement motors just in case the the motor dies after the 1 year warranty.


Also something else I did not notice in the store. The ports on the tank suck. Their is one 1/2" port on the top center, and one on the top side. One is used for the pressure switch, and the other for the air line.
But where they both are, is stupid. The pressure switch has to be mounted on the side, because the motor does not come with enough power wire. And where you have to run the air line it puts it close to the hot motor. And since it is so high, it crimps the air line unless you hang it. Not a big deal, But stupid
Another stupid design. the drain plug is on the very bottom where most compressors are. But, the feet of the compressor is too low for it to set on concrete. You cant get to the drain plug unless you leave it on the pallet.

powerpigz-51

At the print shop where I worked, we bought a 5HP 30 gal compressor from Harbor freight. We went through 3 of them in 1 week, and we gave up and got our money back. Not to say you can't get usable stuff there, I have bought lots of stuff from them. That was just my one experience with one type of compressor that they were selling. I have a excellent spray gun that runs on low pressure and low volume, that I painted my Vette with (not the purple one) that you can only order online. I hope you have good luck with your compressor, saving money is always fun.

speedoholic

sorry to double post, I did not see this comment.

Hmm.. did they say that the refurb compressor is discontiued.... Or the non refurbished one? I noticed that the web site no longer has the full price, non refurbished air compressor. Makes me wonder if they had so many mess up, that they no longer sell them

The thought did cross my mind that, if they have enough repaired compressors to sell on their website and in stores, then the compressor must be a POS that messes up allot. How else could they have so many compressors repair and re-sale.. food for thought.....

Oh well, I have this one for a year now before I have to start warring. .. I have 48hrs to go back and buy the 2 year replacement plan (36 now) I may just do that.

So far so good tho. Ive been playing with the compressor for the last few hrs and Ive drained it three times now, and all three time it has built back up with no prob. It don't even put out much heat when it builds from 0 -130 psi. I'm happy so far.

Advice: Always check the pressure switch before you trust it. I let it get to 135psi before I started to adjust the switch, It took many many turns before it would cut off. the pressure switch is way out of whack when you get it. Luckily for me the blow off valve popped at 140.

JD'S WHITE 93

There are different quality tools for a reason. For the guy who won't use it much and is NEVER going to run a dual action sander for long periods of time or try to paint a whole car it could be o.k. It might even work well however if it doesn't what a p.i.t.a. I at a minimum buy quality tools, you don't always need the biggest baddest thing there is though. A good set of wrenches for example, the Snap On Flank Drive wrenches are as good as it gets, however most guys don't NEED them. They can get buy with a much lower priced set. A $12.00 set is junk, the $400.00 Snappy set is AWESOME. The $149.99 S.K. set or the $99.00 K.D. set are good. Ingersoll makes a good compressor for home use and you can buy a 60 Gallon Veritcal with 3 RUNNING horsepower for $599.99 You gotta watch the PEAK Horsepower rating nonsense some advertise. This is a good compressor for home. The Harbour Freight one I dunno however I would be afraid of it.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/w..._158284_158284

ApexerER

My wife has been saying for at least 5 yrs that she can't wait for my Craftsman compressor to die so I can buy a quieter one. I thought for sure I would kill it when I ported my SLP runners and my plenium, It ran for at least 4 hours without a rest when I did that. It is noisy but she keeps running. I will buy another one for sure when this one dies. I have no idea how old it is, I got it at a garage sale at least 10 years ago. I would recomend Craftsman

speedoholic

I have an IR 80gal in my shop, Ive had it for 8+ years now and I bought it used. I never had to do anything to it.
In the past few months it has been running longer and longer. And sometimes when the compressor kicks on you can here it struggle for a few secs before it powers to full speed.
Its just getting old.

So far. Ive been giving this compressor hell. Just to see what it can and can not do.
When running a orbit Palm sander, the tank pressure drops fast from 130psi to the 90 psi cut on. But when the compressor kicks on it still builds pressure wile the sander is running.
It will run for 5-7 mins to build from 90 to 130psi, and once the compressor cuts off @130 it only stays off for 2-3 mins before back down to 90 psi pressure switch.
With the sander it runs constant, with only 2-3 mins break every 5-7 mins. I need a pressure switch that cuts on at 110psi not the factory 90psi. The pressure switch it comes with only adjusts for the cut off pressure. It has no adjustments for the power on pressure.


I have no doubt that you could paint a car with this compressor. with HVLP guns.
I don't think you could run a body shop or multiple tools. But one person working on a home project could easy do most automotive work with it.

I honestly have been doing everything I can to "work" the compressor.
It has done everything I needed it to better then I thought it would.
The only things I have used that really worked the compressor hard, and fell short are sandblasting in a cabinet blaster and impact gun.
For sandblasting, it drops and stays in the 90-100 psi range. It will not drop below the 90 psi mark, but wont build pressure until you stop blasting. It works and will do the job, But it runs full time and at only 90psi sandblasting is very slow. Using normal blasting sand & 1/2" air line it took approx an hour to sandblast spray paint off a LT1 intake.
And for the impact wrench. Ive very very hard on my tools. I push every tool I have to the limit. If it fails on me, I don't buy another one like it. I have no prob running 130 psi to an impact wrench. It it blows up, I will buy one that wont. I used a well known mac impact wrench
with this compressor, and it was very weak compared to using it on my shop compressor. My shop compressor shuts off at 155psi. The extra 25 psi, and added CFM of shop compressor shows a huge difference when using a impact gun.

I will continue to push this little compressor to the limit for a few more days. If it don't fail me now, Then it will be unlikely it will for light use that I have planed for it.

Not saying it wont fail. But I don't believe it will. But being harbor freight I could blow up now. Ive never had faith in harbor fright tools. I bought a few things, and got a few things from them as gifts. This is the only thing from harbor freight Ive ever seen that I would use, or recommend to people.

Checking around to find out info on the motor and pump. I found out this is a popular combo for many air compressor manufactures for their home shop size. The Lowe's kobalt, Northern industrial, campbell hausfeld, porter cable, craftsman, home depot huskey, devilbiss, coleman, "black Max?" and most everyone who has a "house brand" compressor uses the same motor/pump combo. . Harbor freight does not make this compressor. And that may be the reason it has not blown up in my face like everything else from harbor freight. And even though it shares the same parts with many name brand compressors, I will bet that when it comes time to ship the parts out to the manufactures, The names like craftsman and devilbiss get the "A" parts and others get the "b" and "c" grade parts.

As it stands right now, I would recommend this compressor to anyone needing a small compressor to work on cars as a hobby. More then I would when I first bought it. But only for the price. It's NOT worth the risk to pay the store price of $399.99
I thought about running two of this type of compressor together at my shop. I have no doubt two of them would do the job I need them for, prob better then my single IR compressor. But with harbor freight's history I can not chance it. I could loose allot of money if they failed me when needed.
I decided that today as I was watching the compressor to see if it fails and half expecting it to. If I had two of them at my shop I would always be worried they would fail. And when buying a new compressor, you should never have to worry about it.

Harbor freight has disappointed to many people to many times to trust this compressor professionally.

speedoholic

Well found out some good info. The U.S. General air compressors are made here in the USA. If you can believe that.. They are made by a company named ABAC/American IMC.
from South Carolina. They also make the bel-Aire compressors. The motors are also made in the USA by "USA Baldor"

And if you search U.S. General on google, The complete first page is nothing but good reviews. ( and HF shopping ad's on top)

Im telling you guys this is a better little compressor then it gets credit for, and cheap as it gets.