New Harbor Freight Tool store coming to west Wichita and it’s about time | Opinion

The “sponsored posts” (BKA advertisements) I get on Facebook can get pretty weird sometimes.

There’s a grocery store chain that likes to keep me informed about sales on fruits and vegetables in Texas. And if I ever need to buy tires in Ohio, I know exactly where to go.

So it was kind of a surprise this week when I got one about a company that I actually buy things from — Harbor Freight Tools.

The post was — perplexing is probably the best way to describe it.

It said: “Harbor Freight is coming soon to Wichita, KS!”

What caught my eye there was that Harbor Freight is already in Wichita, KS — has been for a long time.

I wasn’t the only one puzzled by the ad, as evidenced by some of the comments on it:

Isn’t there already a couple stores in Wichita?

I don’t know if the one south is still there, but it’s been there for years.

One of the things I like to do with this column is clear up confusion. And between tinkering with cars and motor scooters and painting and home improvement projects, tools are an area of particular interest.

So I checked it out and here’s what’s going on: Harbor Freight is preparing to open its third store in Wichita, at 2414 N. Maize Road, in the NewMarket Square shopping area.

The company is taking over about 18,600 square feet in the vacant building that started out as an Office Max and was more recently a Coleman outdoor products outlet store.

Hiring and renovation are underway and the store should be open for business in early to mid-summer, according to Craig Hoffman, Harbor Freight director of communications.

They’ll still have their other two stores, the original location in the old Westway Shopping Center in south Wichita at Pawnee and Seneca, which opened in April of 2000, and an east-side store just north of K-96 and Woodlawn that opened in September 2018.

So what’s with the “coming soon to Wichita” ad?

“We got excited,” Hoffman said.

The area in and around New Market Square already has several tool options, including Lowes, Menards and Walmart. Even the Target store has some.

But Harbor Freight is, well, different.

First off, it’s a pure-play tool store. There’s no lumber or groceries or clothing to confuse things. And it’s nearly always cheaper than the competition.

They do sell some higher-end tools, but most of their merchandise falls into a gray area — not what you’d buy to use every day on a professional job site, but generally good enough for do-it-yourself projects.

Over the years, I’ve had some successes and fails with Harbor Freight.

The one-person brake-bleeding kit I got there worked once and never worked again. Apparently the internal parts of the thing are not brake-fluid-proof, which would seem a bit of an oversight. And I broke two of the drill bits that came in the bolt-extractor kit I bought there, although it eventually did get the bolt out.

On the other hand, the fiberglass-handle Harbor Freight framing hammer I bought for about $4 with a coupon has greatly exceeded expectations. It’s better than my Stanley I-beam hammer, which was expensive when I bought it and is actually something of a collector’s item now. I’m going on a mission trip to New Mexico in a couple of months and the Harbor Freight hammer is the only one I’m taking.

Speaking of coupons, Harbor Freight’s the king of them. They do a lot of free-with-purchase coupons, and as a result, I have four battery-powered LED worklights, three plastic tarps, two digital voltmeters, two mini pick and hook sets, and a magnetic dish for holding nuts and bolts.

Speaking as a longtime west-sider, the biggest problem with Harbor Freight has always been that the cost of gas to get there often exceeds the cost of the tool you want to buy.

So all in all, I expect Harbor Freight will be a welcome addition to the neighborhood.