Dewalt or Makita

Dewalt for me by a mile. You can build up a really cheap set to include just about everything, second hand, using 1 battery type which is cheap to replace.

I've not had any fail on me and I do rather abuse my tools.
 
Matika, I have had a LXT drill for years and faultless. If your going to buy a lot then give Bell Tools in Bristol a ring, I think biggest stockist in the S west. The shop is like an alladins cave inside a Tardis, they hold incredible ammount of stock and range and regularly run VAT free promotions.

Very competitive on prices

D
 
Makita, followed by Milwaukee

I went the Milwaukee route as I got a discount via a family member and as has been said before the top brands are all pretty close in quality and performance. Makita are most common on site so quite handy if you forget a charger etc and so someone else is bound to have one you can use, Milwaukee not as common so less chance of someone picking yours up by mistake.
 
Makita over Dewalt any day have both at work ,Dewalt are carp in comparison.But at home and outside work Bosch last years ,can run the batteries flat and they come back up.As people post everyone uses Makita so u can forget stuff and get out of trouble on site good look with your new venture
 
If your buying new look at hitachi 3 year warranty now on all stuff apart from batteries , i used panasonic stuff for years but have changed to hitachi after using a friends li-ion gear
 
All my kit is 110v running from my welder/generator, %80 Makita % 19 Bosh with one De-Walt with is a holding up very well for the stick it gets.

I had a AEG grinder running 300mm dia cutting blades for when I repaired truck chassis. Not for the faint hearted or skinny arms lol

Tim.243


Ti
 
Never needed spares for my Milwaukee stuff either

Wouldn't touch makita or dewalt as they don't last 5 mins with the abuse I give them
You can get a decent range in the Milwaukee M18 fuel stuff and with the 5ah battery's good battery life during use as well
 
+1 for the Makita I use there drivers drills, skill saws and 115 disc cutter you need lots of battery's lol on heavy holes over 19mm i used bosh 36 and 24 up to 50mm, then its bosh 240/110
I got a few drivers in Dewalt, but I find them not as good , imo but they are good for bench primer pocket and case prep lol.
 
I've just gone down this route to access the kit for our service engineers. 1 thing to be wary of. Not all things are equal. There are different grades of chuck, battery and switch. Which is why some outlets can offer very good prices of what looks like the same kit. They buy in bulk using lower quality parts, allegedly. However if it comes with a good warranty then does it matter?

for what it's worth I'm going down the makita route. I have good good back up and good warranty. The only down side is I have demoed the makita stacking box. As far as I am concerned it is awful. A good concept that is fiddly to use. Will not be persuing that. Really needs a redesign. The wurth stacking system is much better. But that is off the subject.

it also depends on how much use you are going to give them. My neighbour swears by Ryobi, but he is only using it as a domestic customer with low usage. Read the Ryobi warranty. If the product is used for more than domestic work then the warranty is void. We are by no means high usage, probably medium usage. But the kit need to work and work well when you need to drill through steel.
i looked at Bosch, Hitatchi and Makita. I excluded Milwaukee because it was way too expensive and the volume I'm talking about would be far too much to pay. I haven't heard anything bad about them though.
3 a/hr battery's are being superseded by the 4, 5 and even 6 a/hr batteries so there are some deals to be had with the smaller battery. Also worth ensuring that the newer more powerful batteries will work in place of the smaller battery. Just a precaution but there have been noted some issues with one or two manufacturers, just can't remember who at this stage.
 
Dewalt used to be faurly good before being bought by Black and Decker but no longer.
Between the two go for Makita.
I personally use Bosch professional range and give mine some stick most days, the reason I use these is the availability of sparees- get the number off the parts diagram - order part and fix it yourself.
 
Mods - please can we close this thread? It seems I 've bought the worng brand & I really don't want to keep hearing about it. :doh:
 
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When I had my Locksmith company all my cordless tools were Dewalt, the lads never had a problem with them at all, these were used hard every day, we used to let them run totally flat then recharge no half charging. Agree with Bosch for corded tools, strong as anything and still got a lot of them years after selling up, I still have some of the Dewalt cordless tools that are at least 10/12 years old. To be fair I think there is very little difference between the top brands these days.

Scoby 270
 
Most of my stuff (and i have a LOT) is Dewalt or Hillti but I am giving up on both

I have had yet another Dewalt chordless chuck rust up and seaze for no good reason (not left in the rain) and when you try and get the cuck off the outer casing fails and it just spins. So time for the bin :(

Have to say despite a fair amount of use I am still disappointed over the longevity of some of our dewalt stuff. The older items are great but the new stuff is just not lasting.

Hillti was the roles Royce of tools but the have lost the plot. My two old TE52s were still going strong after 10years of dayley hacking off work, but they stopped doing the spares so I went TE56 and they stoped doing the spares after about 5 years so now I have modern units and they have all failed within three years :(

So just baught a Millwauke and will probably replace the other two Hilltis in the same.

.
 
15 years ago I use to import Dewalt cordless from the USA. The tools were built to a better spec that the offerings in U.K. Then Black and Decker stepped in and even the America purchased tools went drastically down hill. I remember purchasing a couple of 14.4v combo drills and burning both out within 10 days.

Agree with Bosch corded, have had a GCM 10 SD sliding mitre saw for just over a year, its in a league of its own.

Ed
 
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