batteries vs. new drill: Makita?

[Larry Browning]

I have the same drill. I had to drive 60 miles round trip twice to get new free bateries. That milage cost was greater than buying new batteries at the store.

It's a con game. I do like the drill, but in my estimation, the batteries are junk.

Hmmm. Either you know where to get batteries REAL cheap or you get a really bad gas mileage!

If you are talking about the Ridgid "lifetime" battery deal, I have to agree 100% on the con game comment. HD makes it next to impossible to get them to honor that deal. If you read the fine print on that, there are all sorts of hoops to jump through. The biggest deal is that to them, "lifetime" means the the drill's lifetime, not mine. Lifetime warranty used to be the lifetime of the original owner. Remember the old Midas Muffler commercials where the old man drives up to the Midas shop in a Model-T and they honor his lifetime warranty?

They refused to replace my batteries, because the "lifetime" of the drill had passed.

[lowell holmes]

The batteries are $40 each. I used the government allowance to calculate the milage cost on my old F150.

[scott vroom]

Michael, I bought the Makita drill/impact driver kit at Home Depot about 3 years ago. It does get heavy use but I ain't buying any suggestion that at $200 for the kit I should consider it a throw away tool. The chuck is crap, the runout is ridiculous and getting worse. I'm looking for a new drill. Your money, your choice.

Scott Vroom -- if you happen to see this... when/where did you get that Makita with the chuck runout? Did it come from Amazon? That is one of the things I have seen in Amazon comments... one guy went so far as to suggest the 'CW' in the model number of his drill stood for chuck wobble. (He was pissed off but made me laugh.)

[Greg R Bradley]

Scott,
These comments had me wondering about the chucks so I checked them all. Out of the 9 Makita drills I could lay my hands on, one DID have chuck runout. It is a BDF451, the very heavy duty hammer drill. It has noticeable run out with a 12" drill bit chucked up. All the others look good.

[Larry Browning]

The batteries are $40 each. I used the government allowance to calculate the milage cost on my old F150.

Ok, I had a 18V and they were about $90 each if I remember correctly.(highly unlikely)

[Carl Babel]

Michael, if you do decide on getting a new drill, you might want to consider getting a drill with brush-less motor. Makita, Dewalt, Milwaukee, and more all have 18/20 volt brushless drills available.
You will get longer run time, longer tool life, and longer battery life (fewer recharges).

[Michael MacDonald]

I think it is the lxph05 that is brushless... and the 01 model is 4-pole... if I know what I am saying. what is the drawback of brushless? must be something.

the three posts in a row--coloccia, vroom and holms... is what is causing my head to spin. You would think that a manuf company would have controls in place that such a small % of product would suck, that it would be rare to see the SMC or amazon comments pounding on one problem or another... among the options--great product, chuck wobble and lemon batteries... it seems like I perhaps have a 60%, 20%, 20% chance, respectively. These are unscientific numbers, but just a guess given the volume of the complaints I have seen wherever I look.

Makita--if you are reading this: "GET IT TOGETHER! Don't blow this sale!"

At any rate, weekend is here. Going to HD to explore and maybe take my chances.

[Dan Rude]

There really isn't any drawback to brushless, think no brushes to wear out or replace. With no brushes no friction. I'm looking at the new Fuel M18 volt Milwaukee impact because it has 3 settings. I currently own both the M18 Impact and Drill set with Compact batteries and a M18 Hammer Drill with the Heavy Duty Batteries. Like them all and also the M12 versions. I just used the whole group at our local Habitate Build Eco Village today. We are were a little limited on electric power. Everyone who used them commented on how they did. Milwaukee is suppose to be coming out with a new Fuel line in the M12, they are also boosting their batteries to 2 Amp Hour and 4 Amp Hour in both M12 and M18.
As for Ridgid, my HD told me to take them to a authorized repair center. They replaced both batteries on my 12 volt, even had an issue with uninstalling them, they took it back and fixed that and have been using it ever since.
Dan

[Ben Martin]

Be warned that the Makita Li-ion batteries aren't rebuildable. They have a micro-chip inside, you must buy a whole new battery.

I like my Makita, but probably won't buy another for this reason...

[michael osadchuk]

Michael,

Getting rebuilt nicad batteries for your existing DeWalt set would be the most value effective option, assuming that the only real "want" you are missing with the DW is a light. (I see $3-5 flat LED "keyring" lights that you could tape to the drills - smiley).

I have the Makita compact black and white 18 v./1.5amp lithium drill/driver set and am quite happy with it (replaces a 20 year old heavy/large 9.6 v. nicad Makita with weak/dead batteries).

If you go lithium inform yourself on lithium battery advantages/disadvantages/maintenance thru a website "batteryuniversity" (eg. lithium at this point appears to have a shelf life so it's not worth stocking up on batteries that won't be in use).

good luck

michael

[Carl Beckett]

Another consideration, if it is true, is the 'green' factor for lithium

I heard that lithium is a finite world resource. A concern if automobiles switch to it, that there will just not be enough to meet demand. So recycling is critical to preserving this fixed resource.

( I'm not suggesting this will impact the short term available of hand tool batteries )

All batteries should be recycled, so perhaps not a consideration.

[Pat Barry]

Jeez Larry, please explain how your drills 'lifetime' was up. Is that because the battery died? If in fact the drill was done / kaput / finit then you did not need a new battery, did you?

[Larry Browning]

Jeez Larry, please explain how your drills 'lifetime' was up. Is that because the battery died? If in fact the drill was done / kaput / finit then you did not need a new battery, did you?

Pretty simple, really. Apparently Ridgid's definition of lifetime is the drill's lifetime, not mine. They do not feel that a drill's lifetime is no more than about 5 years or so.(I don't remember the exact number of years) So, they will not replace a battery for a drill whose lifetime has expired. There was nothing wrong with the drill, except that the battery would not hold a charge. I took it back to HD with my receipt and was told that the lifetime of the drill had expired and they would not replace the battery. Also, even though these were nicad batteries, rebuilding them was not an option either.

[Michael MacDonald]

Larry's experience with the Rigid lifetime seems just plain wrong... How could a retailer do that? A 5-year warrantee is one thing, a lifetime warrantee is another thing. Different. Not the same.

Larry - did they show you any "fine print" to establish this? That kind of bunk really would tick me off.

[Michael MacDonald]

well, here is the decision. I went to HD on Saturday. With too many manufacturers, models and decision factors to weigh and not enough brainpower to sift it all, I decided rely on my animal senses. I picked up a few models, stared at the display for a while and started to walk away with not a little annoyance, when a friendly HD associate asked me if I needed help. I mentioned the Makita model ($299) I was looking to check out and of course they didn't have it in the store. However, they did have a Makita LXT239 combo--impact driver and drill/driver in a case. I couldn't find it anywhere less than $329 on the Internet (did you know they have free wi-fi in HD?), but the associate gave me a $299 price. So that turned out OK.

So I took it home to check out wobble. Both tools seem pretty sweet... much lighter than my old DW929. Not sure the best way to check for runout in the chuck, but I don't think there is any... the chuck exterior has a little--the plastic casing doesn't seem perfectly cylindrical, but the center of a bradpoint bit is dead solid. any other way to check other than staring at it? Can't tell about the battery yet.

No bit holder--that is probably the most inconvenient lack of feature. So I am pretty pleased with it...