EZ RED: Family Owned Tools

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Here at TIA we have several main objectives. As a community of tool users from many different occupations, hobbies, skill levels, and geographic locations, we’re constantly looking for new products and companies to diversify our content and enhance our member experience. Sometimes those products come from giant Fortune 500 companies, and sometimes they come from the little guys.

As a family owned company with 25 employees, Deposit, NY based EZ Red is one of those small companies. EZ Red’s founder Walter R. “Tommy” Tucker was a natural born Salesman. He started out in collage making felt pennants to sell at football games, and by 1966 he was loading his 65 Chevy with spark plugs, filters, and other automotive consumables, to sell to local service stations. It was later that same year that he invented what would become EZ Red’s first signature product, a simple tester for Ethylene glycol (EG) based Anti-Freeze.

EZ Red intro 1

By 1966 EG had been in use as an automotive coolant for a few years, but early testing devices were difficult to use and read. Walter’s tester or hydrometer, was easy to use and easy to read. The EZ Red name is actually a derivative of “easy read” in reference to the  companies founding product. Needless to say, the hydrometer took off. Consisting of 5 pieces, early manufacturing was done by 5 local residents at their home. They were paid a penny a piece to produce boxes of 100 at a time.

EZ Red was no one hit wonder though. They were also the first to invent the automotive memory saver which is a device that when plugged into your OBD II port, saves your vehicles memory when unhooking your battery.

EZ Red memory saver

While a lot has changed in the nearly 50 years since the companies founding, EZ Red’s vision and attention to customer needs has not. As a leader in both the automotive battery service and LED work light markets, you’ll find EZ Red products on board the Snap-On, Mac, Matco, and Cornwell trucks, and they were actually named Matco’s Supplier of the Year for 2013. Not bad for a company of only 25 employees.

We have some cool EZ Red reviews lined up in the coming weeks, but in the mean time you can check out their line @ EZRed.com

 

4 COMMENTS

  1. I use their extra long spline drive flexible ratcheting wrenches daily. Didnt know background of company until now, thanks.

  2. Love love love EZ Red, I have a set of their long spline drive ratchet wrenches, 3/4″ drive extendable ratchet and I just ordered a combo kit with a long and short combo flex head ratchet…they have a 1/4″ socket drive on one end and a 1/4″ bit holder on the other…the finish on their tools are on a par with the big names out there, as long as they keep expanding their range and keep their quality I’ll keep buying them and now I know more about their back story I will definitely keep supporting them, another great American tool company showcased on a the best tool channel on YouTube!

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