Very nice and detailed write up Travis! We’ve had a little Napa store around the corner from where I live and always forget that it’s there it’s in a wierd corner that I never drive by but my gramps loves goin there he loves the quality of there parts compared to autozone. I’m gonna have to stop by there and check out there Carlyle line cus U can’t have to many ratchets. Thanks conductor!
Damn you, Travis, I see more money flying out of my wallet soon! Nice review. I always wondered where the Carlyle name came from (but was too lazy to look for myself).
Thanks Kurt. There’s surprisingly little brand information available online about Carlyle. This is actually the first article I’m aware of that touches on it at all. If there is anything else, it must be somewhere obscure.
I have at least 2 more Carlyle reviews in the works, but I have to admit I’m impressed thus far.
Dang!! What a write up Travis. If I could I would go run out buy every hand tool in the planet. Specially the ones you review. So much detail & pictures to back it up. I’m a hand tool junkie & I have more than I use, but I love to see tools. Thanks for the great review. Laters TIA
Yeah, yeah, yeah. NAPA is my first-call for auto parts when I’m buying locally (“need them today or tomorrow” items.) The local store hours suit my weekend wrenching proclivities, and I can read their catalog monitor screens at least as well as the newer countermen.
Having said that, I’ve bought some NAPA sockets, and for the most part, I’ve liked them. When they wear out or break, I’ll take them in for warranty replacement, and I’ll give them my damaged Made-In-USA sockets, and they’re going to give me…import crap.
This is much like Lowes, which started out the Kobalt line with tools made by Williams (a Snap-On company from their industrial division), then downgraded to USA Danaher tools, and has now dropped the USA sourcing and gone to Asia. How would you feel, buying USA Kobalt, and getting Made-In-China junk as the warranty replacement?
As far as NAPA goes, I’m old enough to remember when their big ad campaign for the tool buyer was to provide warranty replacements for Craftsman tools–because NAPA and Sears were using the same tool sub-contractor. A NAPA ratchet repair kit dropped right into a Craftsman ratchet, the heads were identical Handle shape was different.
So what is NAPA going to do in five or ten years when the Carlyle brand loses it’s luster? How many Carlyle tool owners are going to have orphaned tools with no direct replacements when NAPA introduces the Next Big Thing, in a long procession of Next Big Things, in their tool line?
How much respect can you have for a company when their ratchet handle design is a rip-off of The Major Player?
Pretty clear that even though these tools are “house branded” by contract factories and most of them made in Asia due to cost constraints, NAPA is pricing them unrealistically high. Reminds me of NAPA “Ultra Premium” brake rotors–made in China like all the other brands. What’s “Ultra Premium” about that?
Very nice and detailed write up Travis! We’ve had a little Napa store around the corner from where I live and always forget that it’s there it’s in a wierd corner that I never drive by but my gramps loves goin there he loves the quality of there parts compared to autozone. I’m gonna have to stop by there and check out there Carlyle line cus U can’t have to many ratchets. Thanks conductor!
They look pretty good. Not cheap by any means either price or quality. Nice review.
Damn you, Travis, I see more money flying out of my wallet soon! Nice review. I always wondered where the Carlyle name came from (but was too lazy to look for myself).
Thanks Kurt. There’s surprisingly little brand information available online about Carlyle. This is actually the first article I’m aware of that touches on it at all. If there is anything else, it must be somewhere obscure.
I have at least 2 more Carlyle reviews in the works, but I have to admit I’m impressed thus far.
Dang!! What a write up Travis. If I could I would go run out buy every hand tool in the planet. Specially the ones you review. So much detail & pictures to back it up. I’m a hand tool junkie & I have more than I use, but I love to see tools. Thanks for the great review. Laters TIA
You always do a good job writing up these hand tools. Thanks. That ratchet action, pawl, and shift mechanism are eerily similar to an Apex Gearwrench.
Thanks John! Do the Gearwrench rats use a shim to hold the selector lever in like this one?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. NAPA is my first-call for auto parts when I’m buying locally (“need them today or tomorrow” items.) The local store hours suit my weekend wrenching proclivities, and I can read their catalog monitor screens at least as well as the newer countermen.
Having said that, I’ve bought some NAPA sockets, and for the most part, I’ve liked them. When they wear out or break, I’ll take them in for warranty replacement, and I’ll give them my damaged Made-In-USA sockets, and they’re going to give me…import crap.
This is much like Lowes, which started out the Kobalt line with tools made by Williams (a Snap-On company from their industrial division), then downgraded to USA Danaher tools, and has now dropped the USA sourcing and gone to Asia. How would you feel, buying USA Kobalt, and getting Made-In-China junk as the warranty replacement?
As far as NAPA goes, I’m old enough to remember when their big ad campaign for the tool buyer was to provide warranty replacements for Craftsman tools–because NAPA and Sears were using the same tool sub-contractor. A NAPA ratchet repair kit dropped right into a Craftsman ratchet, the heads were identical Handle shape was different.
So what is NAPA going to do in five or ten years when the Carlyle brand loses it’s luster? How many Carlyle tool owners are going to have orphaned tools with no direct replacements when NAPA introduces the Next Big Thing, in a long procession of Next Big Things, in their tool line?
How much respect can you have for a company when their ratchet handle design is a rip-off of The Major Player?
Pretty clear that even though these tools are “house branded” by contract factories and most of them made in Asia due to cost constraints, NAPA is pricing them unrealistically high. Reminds me of NAPA “Ultra Premium” brake rotors–made in China like all the other brands. What’s “Ultra Premium” about that?
No thanks. I’ll pass.
I have Snap-on double box end wrenches (that I bought some 40 years ago) that I cannot get replaced, because they no longer make or sell them.