# Dewalt



## mdnitedrftr (Aug 21, 2013)

I'm not too happy with Dewalt right now. 

Today, my 6 month old drill stopped working. This isn't the first time I've had a premature drill failure either....this is number 3....number  3!

This one lasted 6 months.

The previous one lasted LESS than 3 months. HD took it back and gave me a new one. 

The first one lasted a little over a year, sent it in for service, got it back (6 weeks later), worked for another couple of months then quit again.

All 3 failed the same way. No signs anything was wrong, then they just stop working. 

I emailed and called their customer service multiple times, which honestly, is next to worthless. They just tell me to send it in so I can wait another month and a half. 

Its a shame, I have no problem with their other tools, just the drill. I think its time to look for a new power tool company.


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## drspec (Sep 29, 2012)

mdnitedrftr said:


> I'm not too happy with Dewalt right now.
> 
> Today, my 6 month old drill stopped working. This isn't the first time I've had a premature drill failure either....this is number 3....number  3!
> 
> ...


which drill and what type of work are you doing with it?

I have one that was in a flood submerged with the battery in it and it still functions like brand new. The only thing wrong with it is the LED light on it doesnt work and it whines a little but its never let me down.


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

I haven't touched a Dewalt tool in 10+ years, Milwaukee is literally light years ahead of them with cordless tools.


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## cad99 (Feb 19, 2012)

The only dewalt things I will buy any more is pilot point drill bits,there 1/4 right angle attachment, and when the Bosch box dies that sweet new radio. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## mdnitedrftr (Aug 21, 2013)

drspec said:


> which drill and what type of work are you doing with it?
> 
> I have one that was in a flood submerged with the battery in it and it still functions like brand new. The only thing wrong with it is the LED light on it doesnt work and it whines a little but its never let me down.


2 DCD996, and 1 DCD995

I'm not abusing them, just doing standard wood drilling and light masonry stuff.

The old 18V drill that we bought almost 15 years ago, albeit it doesn't have reverse, still runs great. 

Either I have terrible luck, or the quality has tanked.


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## mdnitedrftr (Aug 21, 2013)

MTW said:


> I haven't touched a Dewalt tool in 10+ years, Milwaukee is literally light years ahead of them with cordless tools.


I like the Milwaukee stuff (I LOVE my hand tools), but I have some much Dewalt stuff already, it's a PITA to start carrying 2 sets of batteries, 2 sets of chargers, etc., and I like the tools I have now. Its just this 1 stupid drill.


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## emtnut (Mar 1, 2015)

MTW said:


> I haven't touched a Dewalt tool in 10+ years, Milwaukee is literally light years ahead of them with cordless tools.


I'd say that Milwaukee has a better lineup of tools for what most of us use ... but Dewalt is just as good a Milwaukee ... tool for tool.

Not sure with Milwaukee, but Dewalt has low end and high end ... they're all yellow, so hard to tell them apart.... except the low end you can get at HD and up here, Canadian Tire stores ... The high end stuff is at SH's and is pricier.
The low end Dewalt stuff is black and decker crap


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## emtnut (Mar 1, 2015)

mdnitedrftr said:


> The old 18V drill that we bought almost 15 years ago, albeit it doesn't have reverse, still runs great.
> 
> Either I have terrible luck, or the quality has tanked.


Funny you say that ... The 18V impact and hammer drill I have are bullet proof.

I bought a new charger for them about 4 yrs ago, and it crapped out last year .. I wasn't too impressed 

I'll be making the switch to Milwaukee soon enough, but mainly because of the hacksall and the LED lighting options.


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## drspec (Sep 29, 2012)

mdnitedrftr said:


> 2 DCD996, and 1 DCD995
> 
> I'm not abusing them, just doing standard wood drilling and light masonry stuff.
> 
> ...



IM pretty sure thats the same model I have. The hammer drill function imo is worthless and could be what causes most of the failures in my opinion. For masonry I use an sds.


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## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

DeWalt is for wood butchers.


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## joebanana (Dec 21, 2010)

DeWalts 18v. NiCad batteries SUCK. I'd swear they're using seconds on the cells.


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## frenchelectrican (Mar 15, 2007)

The DeWalt battries is not the best what I do expected but I am slowly switched over to Milwaukee tools due it is more durable for me to use.

The last one just went fritzed on me just couple hours ago....  so I am stuck until I get in the port but used the corded drill for my back up. ( ya ya I know but I am on the ferry boat so it will be a long ride for me )


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## trentonmakes (Mar 21, 2017)

All power tools seem to have a product thats really good on some things and, eh ok on the rest. Older dewalt drills seem to have tons of torque, not sure of the new stuff.
Milwaukee seems to have the largest variety and seem pretty reliable.
Personally i have makita and am too invested too make a switch. Really havent had any issues with the makitas other than lack of availibility at big box stores compared too milwaukee line up.






Seen As A Tiny Blip From Space


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

trentonmakes said:


> All power tools seem to have a product thats really good on some things and, eh ok on the rest. Older dewalt drills seem to have tons of torque, not sure of the new stuff.
> Milwaukee seems to have the largest variety and seem pretty reliable.
> Personally i have makita and am too invested too make a switch. Really havent had any issues with the makitas other than lack of availibility at big box stores compared too milwaukee line up.
> 
> ...



Same boat. Deeply invested in Makita brand to the extent that the inside my van glows blue. But I want it to be red.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

I've said all this before and I will repeat it.

I've worked for 3 companies since the 90s that had and maintained toolcribs to dole out tools.

If you asked the guys running them you'd find they had more problems with DeWalt than Milwaukee or Makita.

While working on Grainger contracts throughout NJ, I found pretty much the same thing. They sold many brands of cordless tools and had return barrels for each brand rep to decide the fate on. Ole Yellow was always the biggest pile.

Not that I had really given what tools were there much thought but I would have to say it was drills but I took that more that they were what was purchased most often.

I have Bosch, DeWalt, Dremel, Makita, Milwaukee, Ryobi, and a few other cordless brands in my arsenal for years now. 

Most all the Milwaukee has held up very well (4v batteries suck) the other brands all still work but some parts may not still be 100%.

Now doing small jobs I basically just use the M12 tools with one exception, the 18v Makita impact is my favorite of the 18v impacts I have. Great size and weight to power ratio. 

The DeWalt stuff I have used most just around the house and not really out on jobs other than the sheetmetal shears, rototool, and 1/2" impact gun. 

Overall I am all for Milwaukee. If things go the way they currently are for me I will make the switch over to their M18 Fuel lineup soon, selling off the other brand I have.


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## LARMGUY (Aug 22, 2010)

Twelve years ago I switched to Milwaukee because I couldn't buy an 18 volt 1/2 inch T handle hammer drill _unless_ I bought the complete power tool package. You could not buy it separately even from Dewalt. I know because I tried. Milwaukee had the drill I wanted and for about $9 less and it was 24 volt. 
:thumbsup:

It also came with an impact screw driver and case, a charging station and two batteries. Since then, the drill's switch quit working last year. I took it to the local repair shop. After a week they told me the repair would be about $75 and the drill wasn't performing like it used to from the factory. 

They also said I could get a new replacement drill, with a new impact driver, with Milwaukee tool bag, charger, and two batteries for $150.
:thumbsup: :clap::clap::clap:


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## HAL9000 (Feb 28, 2016)

I used to have makita, then some dewalt, now I have switched everything over to Milwaukee and I couldnt be happier


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## Lightsmith (Oct 8, 2010)

99cents said:


> DeWalt is for wood butchers.


Are you referring to electricians? Best to be more specific. 

The brushless tools are new designs and likely rushed into production as no company wants to sell a non brushless tool against a competitor's tool that is brushless. 

I periodically do a lengthy testing of current drills and the ones that provide the most power and have the best chucks that won't loosen when cutting into stucco or using the hammer action are the DeWalt drills. 

DeWalt provides one of the very few 3-speed drills and the middle setting is around 1000 RPM which is perfect when cutting very large holes in subflooring. I have cut 6-1/4 inch holes in 1-1/8 inch plywood subflooring with these drills. Of course we use tungsten carbide tipped hole cutters from Hole Pro and not bi-metal crap but nonetheless I find this impressive. Anytime I can use the cordless instead of a stud drill while on a ladder I am one very happy camper.


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## mitch65 (Mar 26, 2015)

I don't know if there is much difference in tool quality these days but we have had 2 Milwaukee drills a 3 year old 18 V Fuel that an apprentice dropped 20' onto pavement and a 2 year old 12V fuel drill that just stopped working. The 18 V was repaired for the cost of shipping, the 12V was replaced with new for the cost of shipping. That kind of service makes up for any perceived weakness of the brand in my eyes.


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## Chris1971 (Dec 27, 2010)

mdnitedrftr said:


> I'm not too happy with Dewalt right now.
> 
> Today, my 6 month old drill stopped working. This isn't the first time I've had a premature drill failure either....this is number 3....number  3!
> 
> ...


Haven't had the issues you've described with the dewalt drill. Only issue I've had is dropping one down a finished wall.


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

I take all my warranty issues to my fastener supply house's tools repair and they deal with whichever brand. Haven't had an issues since.


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## Tactical Sparky (Sep 6, 2015)

I have used Dewalt for years and recently switched over to all brushless 20v tools. I have only had one problem over the years and it was with the 996 and it was quickly replaced by Dewalt. 

I know a lot of us electricians love jumping on the red band wagon but I have had too many chuck issues with Milwaukee to follow suit.


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## Hand Wired (Jun 23, 2017)

I work in construction ( and interviewed with the IBEW today ). The contractor I work with uses all DeWalt tools, and the biggest complaint I have with them is that the batteries are trash. I don't know how many times I've had to let somebody borrow my Ryobi because their DeWalt crapped out on them.


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## drsparky (Nov 13, 2008)

I have a DeWalt reminder on my arm. I was cutting a hole in a top plate of a steel stud wall. I lifted the drill and the hot hole saw fell out of the POS chuck, it fell on my forearm and I got branded. Its been almost 20 year and is finally mostly faded away.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

I'm yet to have a chuck problem with any drill I have just used myself.

Company drills of a few brands I've used the chucks had various issues.

I don't drop my drills on the bit as I have seen many guys do.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

Gone overboard a lil?


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## TheApprentice_ (Apr 11, 2015)

I was a DeWalt guy and no one could change my mind. Then I had a problem where i couldn't get a 1/4" Impact driver to last but 6 months. So I made the switch to Milwaukee and man i'll never look back.


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## LARMGUY (Aug 22, 2010)




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## mdnitedrftr (Aug 21, 2013)

Welp, my factory repaired drill which I just got back a couple months ago stopped working today. I can't say I'm surprised....its garbage, complete ****ing garbage!

Same goddamn thing. No signs of anything wrong, then boom, nothing. 

I hope Dewalt goes bankrupt.


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## Cow (Jan 16, 2008)

I've had Dewalt 18v for 13 years, they don't get used as much as they used too, but they still get used almost every day. 

I've had less issues with my Dewalt's over the years than the guys who drink the Milwaukee koolaid and send theirs in on a regular basis to get them repaired.

Different strokes I guess.


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## telsa (May 22, 2015)

Not ONE of the tool manufacturers makes their own batteries.

Those puppies are protected by patent walls -- patents held by largely Japanese firms.

Every Ni-Cad battery driven power tool you've ever touched had Japanese batteries inside.

While invented in the West, the Japanese ran all prior Ni-Cad manufacturers into the ditch -- forty some odd years ago -- and that event was the beginning of the Makita drill brand as we know and love.

Li-ion is a whole new game. The Japanese are STILL dominant players -- hence the EV coming first and easy out of Japan.

Today, the main producer of Li-ion power packs ( for lap tops, etc. ) has proved to be Red China.

Bolivia has astounding Lithium deposits, so Beijing has been doing hand stands to sweep them up -- not with total success. It's been a stampede -- a Lithium rush.

Every serious player has jumped into the game.

There is not enough Lithium on this planet to manufacture enough cells to power the EV fantasy world of 2040. It's actually a pretty rare element... as these things go. Aluminum it's not.


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## mdnitedrftr (Aug 21, 2013)

Not even a full week after my last one stopped working, I lost another one. This was previously serviced too. I was/still am livid. 

I called up Dewalt and was on the phone with 3 different people for over 30 minutes. They want me to bring it to a different service center across the state. Told them I would not wait another 8+ weeks for these. They told me turnaround time would be about a week and a half and they would ship it directly to me. 

This is their last chance with me. After that I'm done with their tools.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

I have said many times on here that the tool crib in shops I have worked in had piles of dead DeWalt tools, well seem to have just come across this:


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## Lightsmith (Oct 8, 2010)

I was talking to a fellow recently who was on his third Ryobi drill in as many months. Turned out he was using it on the high speed setting with hole saws to cut into wood. Small wonder he kept burning out the clutch. The product manager for Makita told me at a trade show that the reason they stopped making 3-speed gear boxes was that customers would burn up the drills by using the wrong gear setting for what they were doing. 

Cordless drills need something other than a bi-metal or self-feed bit when boring into wood. These designs go back more than 100 years and there are far superior cutting tools that make for faster cutting and enable the use of a lower power drill that is easier on the body and less like to break the user's wrists or take out some of their teeth.

A contractor who needed to make 3000 8-inch holes in TJI for military base used a 3/8" 4amp Makita right angle drill with a Hole Pro adjustable hole cutter for the entire job. When the drill would start to stall it was easy for the operator to recover and straighten out the hole cutter. With a stud drill the operator would have been injured long before the project was completed.

I test drills from Makta, Panasonic, Milwaukee, DeWalt, and Bosch, and they only ones that do it all are the DeWalt with their 3-speed gear box with a true low, medium, and high speed setting. When boring a 6" hole (using a TCT hole cutter) through 1" subflooring the DeWalt 18v at 1000 rpm's cuts through with no problems. With the other drills I need to be at the low speed setting and I lose the flywheel effect and it is much harder to cut through the OSB or plywood as a result. 

With Milwaukee and Makita the chucks do not stay tight and when boring into stucco the chucks loosen up and the hole cutter falls out. Not fun when you are up on a ladder. Bosch and Panasonic have better chucks but are limited to 2-speed gear boxes. 

In terms of real power measured by how large a hole I can bore through lumber the Milwaukee and the Makita provide a lot less power than the DeWalt 18v and now with the 20v DeWalt the power gap is even greater. 

Our shop is now a mix of DeWalt for cordless and Makita for corded tools and I have been giving away the Milwaukee drills. Part of the motivation is that there are a lot more DeWalt tool options for using the same batteries and chargers as we use for the drills, including oscillating tools, cut-off tools, reciprocating saws, nailers, and even a small shop vac.


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## Switched (Dec 23, 2012)

My preference is Bosch, they have been the best to me over the years. Their product line is pretty limited though, so I switched to Milwaukee a few years back.

I have had issues with their drills, they just don't seem to last more than about 2 years, and I use an SDS for 99% of any type of masonry drilling.

We tried Makita, but after going through 3 drills in about 2 months, we quickly left them behind. Their impacts were awesome though.

I enjoy the Milwaukee stuff because they seem to have a better pulse on the trades, better innovation, great repair service when I need it, and just about everyone carries their products.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

Switched said:


> My preference is Bosch, they have been the best to me over the years. Their product line is pretty limited though, so I switched to Milwaukee a few years back.
> 
> I have had issues with their drills, they just don't seem to last more than about 2 years, and I use an SDS for 99% of any type of masonry drilling.
> 
> ...


My newest Milwaukee corded drill is from the 1980s and still running strong after being well used and abused.


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

MechanicalDVR said:


> I have said many times on here that the tool crib in shops I have worked in had piles of dead DeWalt tools, well seem to have just come across this:


Based on the yellow paint on the truck, that's probably a factory rep picking up all the dead tools off the job site.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

MTW said:


> Based on the yellow paint on the truck, that's probably a factory rep picking up all the dead tools off the job site.


When I was servicing the Grainger stores in NJ they had pallet boxes for returns and they all had more DeWalt in them waiting for the rep to take them or agree to toss them.


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