Harbor Freight has issued an important recall notice for their ubiquitous jack stands. A common sight in the garages of home mechanics and ammature wrenchers everywhere, these are some of the most frequently encountered jack stands in the United States.
These jack stands should be checked immediately. On March 20th Harbor Freight Tools filed a recall with the NHTSA stating that their six-ton jack stands could potentially disengage under shifting weight. This would cause the jack stand to release and drop with no warning. On may 3rd they filed a second recall notice extending the recall to their more common three-ton jack stands. According to Harbor Freight, this default is the result of aging tooling of machines used in the manufacturing process of these stands.
According to the recall document this defect could affect more than 450,000 six-ton jack stands produced between 2013 and 2019. The recall on three-ton jack stands is wider still, applying to over 1.2 million jack stands manufactured between 2012 and 2020. The jack stands in question were sold under the “Pittsburgh” brand. According to the recall notice, affected jack stands can easily be identified by the item number 56371 of 61196 on the more numerous three-ton units, and the number 61197 on the six-ton variation.
All Harbor Freight Jack Stands should be checked immediately to see if they fall under the scope of this recall. A Jack Stand failure could lead to injury, death, or severe damage of property. According to the recall notice; owners of affected jack stands should bring them to a local Harbor Freight Tools store to exchange them for a gift card of equal value to the purchase price of the affected stands.
For more information or questions affected owners can email recall@harborfreight.com
