We've pretty well given up buying Hozelock products - not so much because of the high cost, but because because the overall manufacturing standard is so poor. Hozelock stop connectors either jam so that they leak, or else the plastic goes brittle after a couple of years of daylight so that you can't un-connect them when you want to. Two expensive 'pistol' sprayer guns have had to be chucked because both their handles snapped off. A battery powered irrigation timer could never be dissuaded from leaking internally. And the list goes on.
The hell of it is that Hozelock seems to be the only brand on sale in many garden centres - it looks like a stitch-up, perish the thought. Would I be surprised if retailers were getting cashbacks for being Hozelock-only? Naah, it couldn't possibly happen.
The no-name green and black connectors are the ones we buy these days. And we buy the rubber O-ring washers from Ebay in packs of thirty. Eight washers in a Hozelock packet for seven quid? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
BJ
