Craftsman's Tool Warranty Explained: Is It As Good As It Used To Be?

"Did you know that the first Craftsman hand tool we sold back in 1927 is still under warranty today?" reads the copy explaining the lifetime warranty behind Craftsman hand tools on its official website in 2002, when it was a Sears house brand. "So are all the hand tools we've sold since. That's what is known as having confidence in our quality. As the Craftsman Unlimited Hand Tool Warranty clearly states... If any Craftsman guaranteed forever hand tool fails to provide complete satisfaction, return it for free repair or replacement. Period."

That same Sears.com page brags that Craftsman was deemed the top brand in America for overall quality in an EquiTrend survey. If anything, Sears was being modest because Craftsman actually won that honor two years in a row, 1998 and 1999, beating out the likes of Crayola, Kodak, and the Discovery Channel. It was well-understood that the Craftsman brand name ensured high-quality, American-made hand tools backed by a pain-free lifetime warranty that allowed you to exchange defective tools without a receipt at any Sears location.

A lot has changed in the past two decades-plus, though. In early 2010, much of Craftsman's manufacturing was gradually moved to China, and the quality dipped. Then, in 2017, Sears sold the brand to Stanley Black & Decker, which is behind most of the Craftsman tools you see today, though Sears maintained the rights to the brand for use in its stores. But in light of those changes, who handles the warranties on pre-Stanley era Craftsman hand tools? And how?

Though the Craftsman warranty had some limitations added to it under Sears in 2009 (no rusted tools, three-piece limit per day) and 2014 (the tool must be returned to the store it was purchased), it was still a pretty robust lifetime warranty at the time of the sale to Stanley. Shortly after the sale, Yahoo! Finance requested comment on the matter from Stanley. Though the spokesperson was bullish because his company had some similar warranties, he was somewhat non-committal. "It is too early to speculate on the specifics," Stanley VP of communication Tim Perra said in the company's response. "But we would expect that to continue, and we are always committed to doing the right thing to support the brand and our end-users."

Today, Stanley's Craftsman does offer a "limited lifetime warranty." Still, it's not clear whether or not older Sears Craftsman products can be exchanged via Stanley's resellers: It says that you can "[r]eturn damaged product to a stocking Retail Partner," but what qualifies as "a stocking retail partner" for the older Sears tools? Especially since this is complicated by the current version of the Sears warranty for its version of Craftsman retaining the 2014 rule change about having to go to the point of purchase and there being just 10 Sears stores left in the mainland U.S.

Thankfully, Lowe's told Scripps Media in 2019 that it would honor the warranty on all Craftsman tools and "replace it if we have the product." However, how "the product" is defined is unclear since the Sears versions are technically different models, so Scripps' John Matarese concluded that it was best to call Craftsman customer support.

In other words? Yes, there's still a lifetime warranty, and on the newer, Stanley-backed tools, it's about as painless as it was under Sears. You just take them to any Lowe's store like you would have taken them to Sears back in the day. If it's a 2014-forward Sears tool, then you need to bring it back to the specific store where you bought it. But what if it's a legacy Sears tool under the original, unlimited, no-questions-asked warranty? You can try to go to Lowe's, but you're better off calling Craftsman support first.

It's complicated, but if you have a busted Craftsman hand tool, you can get a free warranty replacement for it somewhere.