Dewalt Customer Service Rave

[Chris Tsutsui]

I never bought anything dewalt in my life, but I bought a dewalt DC618K (18V 2" 18ga brad nailer) unused floor model from Lowes on clearance for around $100. Came with everything including charger and un-used 18V xrp battery. The problem with it is that it was missing the metal piece that pushes the nails in the magazine.

I went to several replacement part websites like ereplacement parts, etc.. The replacement metal piece was not available and after talking to multiple customer service reps, they said that I have to buy the entire magazine assembly. Of course I didn't want to buy a whole new assembly for that defeated the purpose of my clearance purchase...

So I took a look at every dewalt nailer and found one with a similar looking magazine which is air powered model D51238K.

I talked to Dewalt customer service and the rep first told me that I have to buy the whole magazine for the small piece I needed according to their parts diagram. However I was fortunate enough to talk to an engineer who had second thoughts after I told him about the similar air powered nailer.

The engineer pulled up the cad drawings for the two nailers and isolated that particular piece that I needed. He said that they are identical to eachother so I should order the part for the air powered nailer and it will fit. This part was like $1.60.

So the part of course fit perfectly, the nailer is excellent and the XRP 18V runtime is very long. This is my first battery powered nailer and it functions just like my air powered hitachi and PC equivalent 18GA nailers that I use. The battery nailer sounds like it has some sort of motor spinning in it and then you can bump nail for rapid nailing, or single shot. Not sure how it works yet...

So the moral of the story is...

If they don't sell the part you need, they might sell that same part for a different model. Also, when you call Dewalt customer service you can request to speak with somebody that has access to the cad files. I would never expect to call the customer service number and speak with somebody that pulls up cad files to cross reference parts so that's what my rave is about. That and I get to gloat about paying around $110 for a new DC618K nailer.

[Bruce Wrenn]

I have a similar rave of DeWalt (then B&D Service center.) I have two 7" / 9" angle grinders (B&D Professional model.) Back in the eighties, one need a bearing. Went to local service center, but couldn't read model number, so they said break it down and get number off armature. A couple weeks later, I was in Norfork VA,and decided to stop at B&D service center. When I walked in with grinder, tech said I bet you need a bearing. That's what I needed. He went to stock room and came back with bearing, without looking up model number which I thought was amazing until he told me that the ship yard in Newport News had over five thousand of these grinders.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I have had similar service with Dewalt. I ordered the table for my dewalt thickness planer, and the top arrived broken. They immediately sent me a replacement top with no hassles.