Just wondering what the experience has been with these in the US.

I bought a near end of the line NiCad/NiMh(?) GSR18V3 18V drill driver (a UK model: http://tiny.cc/l7ipcw) in late 2009, and despite it's only having seen light duty since early last year it's just failed.

It started making a whirring noise and lost drive to the chuck half way into an 8mm dia x40 hole in birch ply using a brad point bit.

It's still looks new, and has most certainly not been abused - it's predecessor was an old 14V green consumer model bought back in the late 1990s which apart from failing batteries (to be expected) is still working fine. Against that a 10.8V Li ion drill bought around the same time failed in a very similar way about six months ago - with equally few miles on the clock.

I'd always regarded blue Bosch as top industrial quality stuff, but i guess I'm wondering if I've missed something.

ian