I've been a fan of panasonic cordless drills for years. The first one I owned was a 12v; it was subjected to a lot of use and served very well, great balance, good battery life, torque, chuck, everything. I think I used that drill for at least 5 years before the batteries started losing it. So I bought a new 12v panasonic, 12v because my old charger was acting funny and I could keep both drills and all four batteries going with the new charger.
But now, after maybe 2-3 years of very light use, the new batteries are useless. I'm really amazed. I have the habit of draining the batteries all the way down so that they don't built up "memory". That didn't help anything. Also the drill makes some pretty whiney sounds now. The thing has hardly been used compared to my old timer panasonic.
This is a real bummer - panasonic cordless drills have been about my favorite tool to work with for all these years. I can't seem myself buying another one since the batteries have become so flimsy.
Has anyone else noticed the same thing?
The other crazy thing is that I've also been a panasonic telephone fan for even longer, at least 20 years. But they are terrible now. I've bought and returned at least four cordless models and one $100 corded model in the last two years and have returned them all. The voice quality at transmission is terrible - people say "what's wrong with your phone?" when I call them. I'm nursing along my old panasonics...but what a shame. All the focus is on "features" - but they forgot the main feature of a telephone has to do with hearing and talking to the person on the other end of the line.