Cordless drill

Looking for a mid range cordless drill - prob around 80 pounds.

What would people recommend?

hammer action would probably be nice but i expect i wont get wuality in my price range for that.

I'd been looking at an AEG one

current contenders are Dewalt DC740KA (80 quid on amazon) A.E.G. BS12X-R DRILL DRIVER 12V NICD 2AH (90 on amazon cheaper at b&q) Hitachi DS14DVF3/JE Drill Driver 14.4V & 2 Batteries (120 on amazon - out of my price range really but looks good)

Also wondering about ryobi and wickes tools bought online

formatting link
thread seems to recommend wickes a fair bit but i cant find any equivalent one on wickes at the moment and some of the wickes branded ones seem suspiciously cheap

ps - i see wickes dont deliver to n ireland which could be a problem for me ...unless i get it delivered to a friend in scotland and he forwards it - may not be worth the bother unless its much better deal

-- dkh

Reply to
dkh
Loading thread data ...

Ryobi and AEG are made by the same large Chinese manufacturing house - Techtronics Group (TTI). They have bough up tool rights to some formerly reasonable product brands such as these and at the profesional end, Milwaukee. In the domestic market they own Hoover and Vax rights. All of these products have become or are rapidly becoming a shadow of their former selves.

Among the mid range consumer drills, Ryobi is among the best value in that they do at least have a single battery across the range, although it could be argued that some of their cordless tools are pointless or questionable as cordless devices.

In the cordless drills market for decent DIY and professional use, Makita has the strongest product range, and if you are happy with 14.4v models, you can find them with 2 or 3 batteries in the £90 range on offer.

Hitachi is certainly a respectable range as well, athough don't tend to be reviewed as well as Makita, who have better speed and torque control in their drill products. DeWalt have a rather mixed drills offering. I've tried a few and some are pretty good like the SDS models, but I wasn't all that impressed with the cordless range,

Wickes offerings are a mixed bag. They have a generic low end range, but also sell some products from a company called Kress who does some final assembly in Germany. These are not bad but not up to the quality level of Makita.

I would also be concerned about service with lesser known brands especially if they can't deliver product. The major manufacturers all have national networks of service centres and you can easily by spares to do your own repairs if you like. The entry level suppliers have tended more to the throw away model of offring 2-3 year warranties and little meaningful service support. With drills I think it's a better overall economy to buy a decent one in the first place with proper backup should you need it, which typically you won't.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Screwfix seem to deliver to N Ireland, they have a couple of deals on the

18v Ryobi combi which, as Andy says, are good mide range DIY tools.

One deal includes an angle grinder, the other an impact driver, both deals £99:99.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Andy Hall wrote in news:48812952@qaanaaq:

Cheers Andy for all the info. Was looking in Homebase today at their 10% off day but nothing caught my eye...

Almost all bosch, b&d and Worx

Never heard of worx - are they rubbish ?

D
Reply to
dkh

Green Bosch I guess? Their blue professional tools are good. The green ones are variable. For example, they have some good reciprocating saws. B&D is not the reasonable quality brand that it once was - again some reasonable products, but some poor ones too like their jigsaws and Scorpion saw.

The manufacturer is a Chinese company, Positec. One or two products have been well reviewed in terms of what you get for the price when compared to others at the same price point. In the UK, they are sold through Homebase, Argos and Screwfix. With your budget, you can do a lot better.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Had the opportunity to use for a week one of the Makita ones that was on offer in Screwfix recently. It was good but I still prefer the Wickes/Kress. They're changing their own-brand offerings at the moments, so you could pick up a hundred quid drill for =A330 if you can still find one.

As for final assembly, I'm sure Makita and everyone else do some "final assembly" in whatever country appears on the label.

A friend had a Worx and thought it was very good. I say "was" because it got nicked. If you believe that you get what you pay for, then some of the Worx stuff should be better than Makita.....

Reply to
mike

Giving rise to concern about service

For example, Makita Manufacturing Europe, based in the UK and exporting

80% of its production.

I said at the same price point.

Reply to
Andy Hall

It's got a guarantee. Draper handle the servicing. The parts come form Kress. Kress guarantee parts availability for several years.

The Kress has a five year guarantee. I believe Makita has one. If the Makita goes wrong in years 2 to 5, and you have to pay for your own repair, it becomes rather more expensive than the original price you paid.

You're saying that Makita and Kress both do "final assembly" in Europe? So not a reason to choose one over the other, unless you think that UK final assembly is better than German final assembly.

I didn't say you didn't.

Do you think the Worx and Makita circ saws at similar prices at Screwfix are of similar quality?

Reply to
mike

Guarantee != service

All it means is replacement for a one, two or three years

That's concerning. They are a volume distribution organisation.

Something typically done when market share is low.

That argument is erroneous. Makita has a very long track record in the manufacture of cordless tools on a global basis and makes a highly reliable product. The point of service availability is also for years beyond 5.

No, I said that that MME does manufacturing and exporting.

Makita products are in the professional category. Kress are not.

Reply to
Andy Hall

I'd dispute that. I have a Wickes/Kress & a Makita 14.4v conbi drill. If anything the Wickes is a better machine. Hammer function & torque are signifivicantly better.

Makita wins on speed control + I also have a 12v Makita drill driver which shares the same charger. Wickes machine is considerably heavier though.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Mmm.... ergonomics are pretty important too.

Makita are probably second in the market after Festool on ergonomics and controllability. In a cordless tool, I think that those properties are far more important than their BF&I capacity. We have SDS for that.

I guess that you get qute a lot of cases where you need to fix something to the wall with a small or medium plug and where a cordless dril with hammer action is a reasonable solution

Reply to
Andy Hall

Its the 2 Makita's I carry on the van, the Wickes is now the workshop machine. Ergnomics yes, also shared charger.

80% of the fixing I do inside is with a 6mm plug & No8 screw & Makita Combi. SDS really only comes out for lintels.

Most of the fixing outside I use Multi Montes (I carry 4 sizes) - always use SDS.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

There's a reasonable expectation that Wickes will honour the guarantee and you have legal rights should they not. Of course with Makita, one year after you've bought it, you'd have to argue your legal rights if you wanted it repairing free.

No, they'll repair or replace for five years.

If a quality manufacturer and/or a reliable retailer want to offer an extended guarantee, for whatever reason, that can only be good for the purchaser.

If I buy a Kress with 5yr guarantee at =A3100 and it fails in year 5, I get it repaired at no cost. If I buy a Makita with 1yr guarantee at =A3100 and it fails in year 5, I have to pay to get it repaired. It's cost more.

So do Kress.

Kress service guarantee is 5 years, parts availabilty 10 years.

So is there any material, demonstrable difference in the way Kress and Makita manufacture and label their tools or are you just trying to create FUD?

Why do you persist in repeating this disinformation?

Reply to
mike

To a degree. This is not a high end range.

Perfectly stratightforward.

Kress is something of an anomaly in the market. They have an average to reasonable product but have not targeted the top end of the market occupied by the likes of Festool and Fein.

Equally, they don't have the resources of major quality brands or even of the Chinese volume producers such as TTI.

Their marketing strategy is relatively weak. They appear to have given exclusivity to Wickes or have decided not to pursue the UK market; although they appear to be doing a little more in other countries.

This does not make sense as a business strategy for growth, yet they don't occupy a quality or any other niche market position

Basically it still operates as a family business and don't really have anything attractive to a buyer - mediochre, me-too products and virtually no market share, so they have gone for private label business at one level above cheap junk. TTI is covering that pretty well..

I don't see them as a long or perhaps even medium term player. To me there's even less reason to buy their products than entry level ones because for very little more money, I can buy a quality branded product with proper service and without the attendant risks.

Wrong because your argument is hypothetical. It is highly unlikely that the Makita product will fail in that time and there is enough track record on that. The Kress range is unknown

Assuming they are stil in business.

There is a world of difference. Makita is a world leading player in the market with a consistent product line over many years and service backup. It's very unclear what the business strategy of Kress is and they are highly vulnerable in the market. Manufacturing and service are almost irrelevant if a company is no longer present in the market. Can you find an annual financial report for Kress Electrik published?

It isn't disinformation.

A professional quality product has professional use build quality, proper service and spares arrangements and a clear strategy for developing and maintaining the company's business position and ongoing viability.. All of these need to be in place for a product range to be considered to be professional.

I can tick all of those boxes for companies such as Makita, Bosch, DeWalt and even the smaller players such as Fein and Festool. I can't tick two of them for Kress (because they don't have the published data) and they are the most concerning if one considers ongoing service and spares important.

At least with TTI, I know what their financial position is and it is clearly adequate. The concern there is about service policy and spares availability.

Reply to
Andy Hall

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.