I have told my wife numerous times, "cheaper sure doesn't always mean better". But, for those that can only afford "cheaper", that's the only way they can go. When we were in Vegas last December, my wife wanted to go to the MGM Breakfast Buffet. It definitely wasn't cheap, but was darn good and she was able to have glasses of champagne with breakfast (for an added cost). The day after going to the MGM, we decided to go to Circus Circus Breakfast Buffet, when was much, much cheaper than MGM............but, absolutely terrible! One word description, "YUK".
This, I believe, is a part of the reason we're told that younger people don't care about having nice stuff. Most young people can't afford nice stuff. When I was in my 20s, I had bookcases made of bricks and boards. In fact, my bed once consisted of a pad on the floor. For those who can afford it, auctions and antique sales are still very busy.
Whether or not you get what you pay for depends on what you're buying. For example, we bought a fully loaded Mazda CX5 at a moderate price for an SUV. It has been a trouble-free delight that's fun to drive. My daughter bought a very expensive Land Rover SUV and it was a rattling piece of crap. She then got another one and it has had a multitude of problems, not the least of which were bad rims that slowly leaked air. The answer to all this is do your homework before you buy, using sources you trust.
Just to clarify something. In my book, there’s a big difference between cheap and inexpensive besides the sounds of the two words. Something can be cheap but expensive at the same time. @Ken Anderson’s book cases he wrote of earlier was cheap looking maybe but sturdy yes, and at the same time at today’s prices for bricks and boards it’s derned expensive. Better to get some produce crates, and wire them together for that Real cheap but natural look. On the other hand, heavy duty plastic milk crates stolen from the back of the grocery store are so yesterday and gauche looking but even so, aren’t cheap even though they look cheap and since they’re stolen, you can imagine whatever price tag ya want when your friends come over and see your designer stackable book crates.
I wasn't aware of Harbor Freight's "tiered quality" selections...I'll have to pay more attention. I started shopping there a few months ago when I was gonna get some air wrenches from my compressor and was replacing the 1/4" hose and fittings to get prepared. I've gone in maybe half a dozen times and have bought very little. I get the coupon emails and scan the monthly "Inside Track Club" deals for things I might want. I first make a list in a spreadsheet, and then go read the reviews. After reading what the One Star folks have to say about the stuff, I usually decided to pass. I could always use more ratchet straps for hauling stuff with my tractor and in my truck, but when people say that they fray and snap, I figure that it's not worth the risk. The same goes for a tractor tow chain they sell that is the exact same specs as the one I've had for 12 years, but is less than half of Tractor Supply's price. I'm shopping for another one, but the reviews way that the link welds are weak, some links aren't welded at all, and when the chain snaps the exposed cross-section is full of air bubbles. I'll pass. I've bought some low-risk stuff (extra pair of needle nose pliers to carry in my tractor's kit to pull cotter pins in the field, a $10 shrink-tube heat gun that also strips paint, stuff like that.) But my latest scrub of coupons and "Insider's Club" had my initial list up to a dozen or so items. After reading the reviews and deleting items one-by-one, I bought that $10 heat gun and (on impulse) a pak of shrink tubing. I'd just as soon troll Craigslist. But I rarely buy something on impulse. I'll go a loooonnnng time "without" when I have the luxury of waiting (I just picked up a used 1/4" air ratchet and a 1/2" air impact gun for $5 each after waiting for months). Right now I have a 20% off H.F. coupon good through Sunday, and a Monday Only 25% off H.F. coupon...but I cannot find anything to spend it on. I do want a 48" trail jack that they carry, but the Memorial Day sale coupons I have exclude a whole bunch of stuff, including jacks. I just noticed this when I read the fine print to see if other recently-received coupons could be combined with the holiday sale. If my "local" Harbor Freight had any of those jacks in stock, I would have wasted a 50 mile round trip earlier today not realizing. I almost made a wasted 100 mile round trip to the second-nearest store, but after doing the gas-math, it would have been a stupid thing to do. (Who would think a coupon excludes jacks, for goodness sake?) ps: I just created a thread specific to Harbor Freight here. It's a popular enough place with it's own "challenges," and we have a bunch of DIYers were, so I thought a place for use to share our first-hand experiences might be of benefit.
@John West I hate to take this off-topic... I just got my 2019 CX-5 inspected in April. It passed, but it's gonna need brake pads soon. The guy also said that the rotors are getting thin and need to be replaced. This is my first set of pads!!! I about went ballistic at the dealers. Since when do you replace rotors at the same rate you replace pads??????? I understand that modern thinner rotors cannot be turned, but there is nothing wrong with these other than "wear"...but it's the car's first set of pads, dammit. A quick internet search yields about a 5-to-1 ratio of replacing rotors when you replace pads being a normal thing. I was shocked. It ain't never been that way in my 50+ years of car ownership. My 2005 GMC Canyon with 135,000 miles on it still has the factory rotors. Talk about an expensive standard brake job. What has your experience been with your CX-5? I'm angry that the car I researched on owner's forums is gonna have this high cost of maintenance. I'm afraid to take it to a regular shop because of all the unique stuff to them (you gotta put the car's computer in Maintenance Mode to prevent ruining the electronic parking brake.)
Sorry for not getting back to you on this sooner, John. I have about 20K on the car and haven't come across any brake issues yet.
Thanks, John. This is my first set of pads at about 22k miles and they passed inspection...they're just getting marginal. And apparently so are the rotors.
Thank you for bringing this issue up. It is something I am going to look into. New rotors at 20K plus miles seems wrong.
My dealer is part of a group headquartered out of North Carolina. There are 3 Mazda locations and a few other brands. I've not returned their customary "How was your visit?" call, but I'm gonna raise this issue with them. I'll let you know what they say. Imagine if I still lived in the stop & go traffic of DC. It wouldn't be new rotors every 20k miles, it would be new rotors every 5k-10k. That's not acceptable.
Somebody did a study a few years ago. They took three items that were identical except for color, maybe. They put a lower price on one, a middle price on another, and the more expensive price on the other. They asked people which one they would buy. Most people chose the middle price one. We have been conditioned to believe that a cheaper item is not as good as a middle price one. So the middle price one is the better choice. The ones who chose the most expensive item thought that more expensive items are better quality. Merchants use this to their advantage. They advertise an item at a cheap price then when you are in the store, you wind up paying more for the middle price item. I had that happen to me once. I was looking to buy a new mattress. The store had a mattress in their sale paper. I went to the store and the salesman said that that one was not as good as another higher priced one. I looked them over and couldn't see a lot of difference. I bought the on sale one. I still have it.
Mattress are a whole 'nuther arena of consumer ripoff. Manufacturers and sellers have been the defendants of tons of consumer and states' attorney generals lawsuits. Manufacturers have gotten into trouble for putting different model names on the same mattress for different retailers specifically so that consumers cannot price compare. Sellers fabricate a "regular retail price" when the thing has never been sold before, then take some fictitious markdown. Hechts department stores must have had a lawyer on staff solely to manage this stuff, they got sued so often for it...especially in Maryland. I remember going to a mattress store where they had an issue of Consumer Reports laying out on one model that CR had rated pretty well. But they left the entire magazine on the mattress instead of just tearing out that page, and it seemed that CR had rated others better and cheaper. There was a library literally across the street, so I walked over, got that issue of CR, read it, and went elsewhere to buy the better cheaper mattress. (idiots)
Just as a side-note, knowing that the answers you get are a direct result of the questions you ask, I stopped paying attention to CR years ago after finding their recommendations totally wrong on several items, one of which was a car.