What are some of the problems or complaints that you have experienced with Dewalt.

I have several Dewalt tools and thought I was buying the good stuff.
Not the best but good.
Most industrial jobs I have worked used Millwaukee and I know there industrial grade tools are really tuff but I can't afford that grade just yet.
I have two Dewalt 1/2" hammer drills that have developed problems.
The problem with one is that when you hold the chuck and run the drill to chuck the bit before tightening with the key, it just spins. Not tighten. I have to use the key all the way. Like the first and second part of the chuck have seperated.
The other is almost new and never been abused. It wont go in gear. Like it's stuck between hammer and drill. Just grinds.

I also have trouble with my 18V drill getting stuck on hammer but not in between.

This only happens once in a while and it always fixes itself. Other than this one problem I have had no problem withmy DeWalt stuff.

I can't tell you when the last time was that I used a keyed chuck.

Brian

I too am very unhappy with my Dewalt tools - in my case it's the cordless set. I bought the XRP (supposed to be heavier duty) 18 volt 4 piece kit in January of 05. My drill/hammer has locked up twice in hammer mode (I won't use that mode any more). I had a battery go bad after 4 months (replaced under warranty, but I only got a regular 18 volt, not the supposed "better" XRP model. My recipro saw's motor sheared the skimpy plastic brush holders off (fixed under warranty, but still a pain). What really ticks me off is how Dewalt put the outdated and worthless recipro saw in my set. The dealer told me my saw was discontinued in September of 02, and I bought my set in Jan of 05. The dealer wanted proof of my date of purchase, which I had - he just shook his head. The recipro saw is absolutely worthless, no power at all - I'm sure it was sitting in a warehouse and they got rid of them by putting them into the kits. On the plus side at least the flashlight works.
What I am very happy about is my corded Milwaukee hammer drill. The thing is awesome! Power up the wazoo, and also can be used as a regular drill - which is what I use it for mostly - it flies! It won't compare to a Hilti, but I only do resi work so I can't justify a Hilti.
Two co-workers have Ridgid sets, and I'm pretty impressed with Ridgid, plus the lifetime warranty including the batteries - and any problems have had complete kits replaced through Home Depot.
Thanks for the chance to vent!

Don't know this as 100% fact, but:
Heard from a Dewalt 'factory store' tech that there are a few 'grades' of DeW tools.

One 'grade' is available exclusivley from the big orange box store (HD in the model/serial # area of tag)

I've used B&D (Black&Decker cordless prior to DeW. B&D rarely gave a problem, unless it was abuse or end-of-life. B&D went to DeW brand.

The DeW cordless drills that I/we have are relatively trouble free, again excluding abuse. The 'factory store' closed down recently here on Rt 22 Watchung.

BTW, ALL DeW was purchased either at the 'factory store', or thru WW Grainger. I bought 1 14.4 cordless drill at the orange store, and that died within 30 days. 'Factory store' guy replaced it with a "Rebuilt" which is trouble free after 2 years.

John

I'll echo HotLine1's comments. (lower quality at the Big Box stores).

I had a DeWalt 9.6v cordless drill/driver for many years.
I hung all the rock in a basement I finished for my parent's - no problem.
I laid a new sub-floor for my MIL - no problem.
Used it on countless electrical jobs - no problem.
Problems started last year when I tried using it to hang rock at my own house...just wasn't strong enough...possible because the original batteries have been charged several thousand times Remember, I had this drill for many years (since the early to mid 90's BEFORE a 12v was even on the market). This drill was purchased at a "hardware" store (http://www.awmeyer.com/ AW Meyer, Ridgefield, NJ).

Now I have recently bought a 14.4v from Amazon. It is a hammer/drill/driver variety and I use for everything - sheetrocking, decks, floors..even electrical work . I had this one for 2 - 3 years now and no problems.

So the question I ask of you is:
Where did you buy yours?

**********
HotLine1,
did they really shut that store down on Rt. 22? I used to live in Berkeley Heights and bought some drill bits and stuff from that store.

If you are interested DeWalt service centers can rebuild your tools for $99. I just had a 18v hammer drill that I found along the road rebuilt, even put a new housing on it so it looks brand new too.

I have mentioned these things before in past threads. All cordless tools are inherently light to medium duty, although they have a capacity that would suggest a heavier duty tool.

These are some of the limitations I have found with cordless tools:

• Cordless Hammer-drills being made for occassional small holes in hammer mode, say 1/4" anchors.....*
  (Larger holes, or all day use will self-destruct any cordless model, break out a build for purpose corded tool.)
• Limitations in the very nature of use of batteries - Voltage goes down, amperage goes up - destroying the batteries and over-heating the motors and brush contacts. Some of us old enough to remember the first cordless models that had battery memory got the bad habit for todays non-memory batteries of draining the battery out for a new charge. That destroys the batteries at an early age. With todays batteries, at the first sign of a drop in performance, put that baby on a charger - they'll last much longer!
• They are built with inherently light wieght designs to compansate for the wieght of the battery. Think about it... a corded, and a cordless saws-all wiegh about the same, on the cordless model 30 - 40% of the wieght is a battery. *A hammer drill has a plastic gear case containing a smaller metal slug for the hammer, a corded one would have a metal case, with a much larger metal slug as the hammer.
• On the same note as above, some tools have had a much longer time to get fully developed into stable dependable designs. Impact guns, drills (the first items to goes cordless) have developed into reliable designs. Saws-alls, circular saws, grinders requiring higher RPM, higher amperage motors have not.
• Many, ARE made for the DYI'er. And it does take a little bit of examination to recongnize the difference.... And, often you get what you pay for.
• They want you to get hooked on the "disposables" of what is a system of tool, and "Battery" IMO. All of the batteries are specific to Brand, and most are specific to voltage. Everytime you go up in voltage, that means a new charger, and your other tools can't interchange batteries. Do they last any longer? Not really, IMO.

That said, WE on this forum, have an advantage to all the other trades... We can use our corless tools to hook up some site power for all the heavier duty tools we can muster. Bandsaws, saws-alls, hole hogs, right-angles, hammer-drills, roto-hammers you name it..... Thats the first thing I do!

I have a 5 year old makita impact that I dont use for the fact that I have to set up a seperate chager - it lives in my basement waiting for a garage sale. I got hooked on 14.4 Dewalts early on ('95) with an abused drill I still have and still works, you have to tape the battery in place. But it a great spare for the guy who leaves his stuff at another job. It has been dropped from ladders, scaffolding, replaced brushes, works just fine.
And since then picked up an impact, that I use all day every day for almost 2 years (starting to show its age after sever use), a hammer drill that rarely gets used in that mode of the same age. A 4 year old saws-all that only gets used to hook up services and temp power so I can use my 12 year old Porter cable saws-all, or Milwaukee band saw. And 2 other drills that live in my basement for home use. Both of which are "lost and found items". I "lost" them in other peoples tool boxes until I "found" them weeks later (Different subject) - but in the mean time needed replacements, and bought the ones above. So all told I have 4 drills, one saws-all, and one impact, batteries for all,3 chargers, all in 14.4 dewalt in varying states of abuse, and age, but still useable.

Just got another Impact and hammer drill (At a good price), and thinking of having a garage sale for the older stuff....

[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 04-29-2006).]

Celtic:
YES, Rt 22 store is 'gone'. Used to be B&D, then went to DeW; same crew. It went 'downhill'; had a BIG bunch of HO stuff, & nothing much for contractors.

Crew used to even repair/rebuild my Bosch corded stuff. Now, Bosch is in S.Plfld.

Like E57 said, ya get what ya pay for.

John

Yea, it was a bit disappointing when I was there last...I mean, if all I walk out with is some $5.00 items - somethings wrong with your store...LOL

When I hit the Redwing store further East, I usually go in looking to get boots resoled - but walk out a new pair of boots (you want I should drive in my socks?)or two, socks, and anything else they have "on sale"...leaving them with $200 - $300. Now that's a good store

I have about 20 DeWalt cordless tools, my helpers abuse them horribly, I bought all of them at HD, had to have one cordless sawzall repaired for a broken bearing. So far I'm happy with the tools...

But the Radio sux! I'm on my 4th DeWalt jobsite radio, one radio would change stations all by itself, one the charger quit, the other the radio quit. The charger interferes with the radio reception on all of them!

I like the Bosch radio, it doubles as a spider box for extension cords.

I personally do not like dewalt. I prefer bosh. Never had a problem with their tools. I bought for my own use a ridged cordless set. I like it but it is a little heavy especially the drill. I like milwakee but the batteries are a pain sometimes to get in and out of the tool.

I've never liked DeWalt.
I use Panasonic, Metabo and Bosch tools.
DeWalt is the result of slick marketing, not good quality tools.
Amazing how many people got sucked in.
Hmm a few here eh?.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 04-30-2006).]

I guess I am a sucker as I use a lot of Dewalt.

To me it is a good middle of the road tool. It is also the cordless tool of choice of my employer which means I am wise to use them as well.

For those that are big Milwaukee fans (as I have been) keep in mind that they have been bought out by Ryobi. I see much more plastic in the future of Milwaukee.


You must really hate em if you bought four.

I do agree that the charger kill the reception.

However I find that plugging in stand alone chargers to the same outlet as any radio kills the reception.

Bob

Time will tell if the "slick marketing" at the Big Box stores adds:
- Hilti
- Ryobi
- Rigid
- etc
to your list.

As I stated, my DeWalt tools HAVE gone the distance. I'd say 10+ years on a 9.6v is stellar.

It seems the "shelf life" of many of my tools is 10+ years....recently, my Hilti hammer drill (110v)expired as did my Milwaukee Rt. Angle drill (110v).

Here is the website of the parent company of Ryobi, Miwaukee, etc:

http://www.ttigroup.com/general/home.php

I have a 18V DeWalt drill from Depot thats going on 10 years old... gone through 2 sets of batteries, but otherwise it still works great

As far as the hammer drills though, someone I work with has one that refuses to flip into hammer mode.. its likely less than a year old...

These kinds of discussions always entertain me. In my experience, most folks settle on a brand and are loyal to it and that's okay. I hear the same type of talk about trucks, hand tools and motorcycles. Everybody likes what they like. I've had Dewalt, Makita and Porter Cable and now use Milwaukee. They've all had their good points and bad.

Fred, what we want is a lovingly crafted and polished hand-built drill by NASA, with honed 15ct diamond bearings, carved out of a one piece solid hardened and tempered Ni-Cr tool-steel forging, with a padded genuine Inuit-chewed buckskin and pearl handle, silver-wound 2hp soft start motor, a 120v, 250Ah battery that lasts forever and charges itself for free off our body static and incorporating a 1,000,000 candlepower searchlight, accurate to 1/10000 of an inch [all over] and capable of drilling 3" holes through armor-plate, with a push-button chuck capable of holding 5 tons, weighing in at 10 ounces with a genuine sharkskin Gucci case and costing 10 bucks, free delivery. And with a lifetime's warranty, personally signed by the President of the United States.

Not much to ask in this day and age, is it?

Alan

Alan $10.00?

I think that is kind of high, can I get one for $5.00.

Not so sure about loyalty..... I'm just "hooked", in the sense of interchangablity of batteries, and chargers. It's pretty convienient to just take a battery from one tool, and jamb it into another. Personally, I have tried other peoples stuff out, and like Bosch, and Panasonic a little better. Both are slightly more expensive.

However, Panasonic is (for some reason) not available in my area. I can not just go out and get one if I want. Everyone who has one has gotten them on the internet. Makes me wonder about service if I needed it... And if I, (like someone I know) lost a battery and charger, would be left with an interesting piece of plastic for a while.

To make an analogy to cars...
Panasonic would be Lexus?
Bosch a BMW or Porsche (They are affiliated by the way)
Dewalt would be a Ford, or old VW bug, lots of them around, and interchangable parts, for the most part. Junk yard of parts everywhere.
Either way, they all get you from one place to another at about the same speed.

However, Ryobi, is the Hyundai of the tool world IMO.

Alan, "if you make it, they will come...."

[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 04-30-2006).]

Well, here's my cordless story;
I had the Makita 9.6 in the early 80s. State of the art then. Not too powerful and short on battery life but sure beat a brace and bit setup. Picked up a B&D Cyclone 12V at the supply house around 93. It was a marked improvement over the Makita 9.6. B&D got stolen around 96 so I replaced it with (2) Dewalt 14.4V because the 2 GC crews I was working with most of the time all used Dewalt 14.4 and thewre was always plenty of extra batteries and chargers on the jobs and we all marked our batteries and used what was available throughout the day and collected our own at quitting time. Pretty handy setup. I was lucky to work with a great bunch of guys on both of the GC crews. Moved to a long-term project at a new factory and had the Dewalts stolen off of the job the 3rd week there. Quickly replaced stolen drills with Porter Cable 14.4V because they were the only thing I could get my hands on right away and get back on schedule. I was very impressed with the PC drills right away. I was shooting tek screws into steel purlans to hang 3/4 EMT all day and never ran a battery down in one day. That job lasted 22 months and was indoors and climate controlled @ 72 degrees year round. I was sold on PC 14.4V cordless. Then I moved on to another job in the dead of Indiana weather working outside in the cold. I soon found out that PC chargers would not charge a battery pack if the temp was below 40 degrees. I would charge my batteries in the motel room at night but run out of batteries before the day was over. In desparation to get done and go home I bought a Milwaukee 14.4 at a nearby supply house. It would not only charge in 40 deg temp but it charged up faster. I bought 2 more Milwaukee 14.4 drills and sold my PCs to a cabinet guy who I had worked with for years . He said the cold wouldn't be a problem for him because he didn't/wouldn't work in the cold anyway. So that's where I'm at now. I do still use a Dewalt cordless recipro saw because I don't like the feel of the Milwaukee Hatchet. I'm sure it is a good tool, just doesn't fit my normal application which is cutting pipe and strut one handed.

I'm happy with my DeWalt 24 volt tools, and contrary to e57's opinion, mine is that these are as strong as their corded counterparts.

We have the hammer-drill, reciprocating saw, and circulart saw, along with extra batteries and corded power supplies (battery eliminators).

DeWalt has a line of 36 volt tools on the way. More power! Arrgh, arrgh, arrgh!

I've been using a dewalt hammer drill( not cordless) for about 6 years and have been more than happy with it. The only problem I've had is with the chuck recently not locking onto the SDS bit but it was still completely usable and is only in being fixed at the moment because I happened to be passing their service centre.

After using a few brands of cordless I've been looking at what brand would be best to go with from now on. After checking the websites of the various brands I've been most impressed with the industry support from Makita in Australia.

Larry, I do like the idea of the cord for when the battery is out.

Sorry to pick this apart, but 36V is ridiculous!

"DeWalt has a line of 36 volt tools on the way." It's about time. A new system every calander year?

"More power!" What does that mean? Torque, run-time?

"Arrgh, arrgh, arrgh!" A hammer-drill, that wieghs 6.9 lbs? How much of that is battery? 2.4lbs - 35% Battery to tool. RPM 1600, BPM 27,200 Torque (not mentioned? :rolleyes; )

A 24 is 8.7 lbs, battery 3.6 lbs - 41% Battery to tool. RPM 2000, BPM 34,000 Torque 550 in-lbs

A 14.4 is 5.25lbs, battery 1.8 lbs - 34% Battery to tool. RPM 1800, BPM 30.600 Torque 450 in-lbs

About the same, right? No, one wieghs almost 2-3+lbs less and probhably does the same job for the same amount of time. For something most people use to drive SCREWS!? (Occassionaly a small dril bit?) And cost a lot less...


Pretty soon, you'll need a back pack battery, and invertor. At what point do you need to ground yourself as a seperatly derived power source?

Anyone used Hitachi, Bought the 18v one for just over half the price of the dewalt we have at work and have found it to be just as strong with as much torque and battery life. Feels like a quality tool when in your hand! Sometime s tools just feel like rubbish and when they feel that way they usually are.

e57, the best comparison I could suggest is to see how many holes each can make on a charge, and in how much time. For example, using a 1" auger and drilling through a 4x4, I'd be willing to bet that the 24v will drill almost twice as many holes, and in about the same time.

Plus, for the 18v to have almost the same torque, the chuck RPM at max torque would have to be quite a bit lower. This is simple physics. A small 4-cylinder engine can produce gobs of rear-wheel torque if you gear it low enough.

My only problem with DeWalt is the keyless chucks.
The jaws of the chucks tend to grab the points of a hex shaft instead of settling on the flats. [I know. Only when you’re in a hurry and don’s set it up precisely before inserting the tool, but who takes the time to do that?]
Then, in use, the shaft rotates to the flats and comes loose. I’ve dropped hole saws and bits down into cavities this way.

I’ve used and abused the 18V system since it came out about 10 yrs ago with no other complaints.

Larry, I went head to head with one of my guys one day - hate to say it - He got [b]ONE[b] more hole than I did. (1/2" carbide hole cutters in gutters and panels. ~300 holes between us on that job. Forget how many we did that day.) Not that this little excercise ever shut him up about it.

This was with brand new drills.... Well, the 18v was about a week older....

Both me and one of my underlings at the time got new drills about 2 years ago. He started bragging about it one day. "Oh, you can't handle the power huh?" When it was all over, he claimed his bit was dull. Since then, I dont buy the more power idea. All I know is that takes a lot more physical energy to lug a heavier tool around all day.

Edit to add: Anyone ever open any of these us to any degree? I would not be surprised if the motors are the same, with a Zenor Diode in the trigger to level the voltage to the same.......

[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 05-02-2006).]

I own a number of DeWalt tools, and, while they may not be the cats' meow, they serve well enough.

I would feel better, though, if they didn't come from the factory with the following sticker on them:
"Inspected whit pride..."

That's right; there is a mis-spelt word on the inspection sticker!

e57, to me, they're not all that heavy. But then, I'm 6'3" and over 300 lbs. I can drill through solid framing with one hand on the drill with my arm extended straight out.

6'2" 210lbs So can I....
One word though, Sciatica.....
(Severe lower back and leg pain.)

[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 05-03-2006).]

Reno, I died laughing when reading that...