I tried a Nupower special offer from CPC and although it is supposed to be
24V it is absolutely gutless and the battery lasts about three minutes. It was cheap, though.Is it worth getting something like the B&Q PP Pro at £30, or should I go for a quality make.
I was hoping not to spend more then about £50 or so.
-- Chris Melluish
What do you want to do with it, Chris?
Really to get a quality cordless drill, you need to be thinking of something in excess of £100. It is better to go for a lower voltage quality make rather than a higher voltage cheap one. You have just seen a case of what happens. Cheap batteries are used and they are just not up to the job.
At the £50 price point, a corded drill is going to be more effective - so one strategy is to go for a corded drill for the heavier work and a smaller cordless for when you need it.
Screwfix do a 12v Ryobi with two batteries. Only down side is 3 hours charge time. They also do a 18V for £60 if you can stretch again only 3 hr charge.
Wickes are worth a look as they are having a sale. £72 gets you a pro quality 2 battery 15.5 v drill/hammer 2 hr charge. I see Wickes now sell the Kress drill (rebadged Wickes) with the angle chuck attachment for £95.
Wickes also have a DIY range (in black). Some decent models amongst them.
depends on what you are drilling as I have a cheap 18v job from B&Q and its ok for most jobs but forget concrete just to slow
I got the PProo - it was crap, I took it back, 7 hour recharge, no overcharge protection, drilled about 2 holes before needing a recharge.
I then went for the DeWalt 18v Hammer Drill driver, with dual barreries. I got it on import from the US, at arround 160 quid all in. I leave one battery in the charger, one on the drill. I bolted down my roof with it, which uses 170mmx10mm coach screws.
I am very very pleased with it - I only wish it would brew up as well.
Rick
Can anyone translate Zog?
You'd better discuss that with Matt. I was talking about quality.....
Matt you were not on about quality, you were on about brand labels. I am on about quality.
Matt just look at the Kress detachable angle chuck drill in Wickes, a quality item indeed.. You can have 5 of those for a Festool.
I don't know about Matt, but if you look back at what I said, product names weren't mentioned at all until you talked about Wickes.
You're certainly on something.
... and this has what relevance exactly?
The Wickes 15.6v drill is one of these one battery fits all setup. Interchangeable batteries amongst about 6 different tools. So, you can build up the set as time goes on.
Quality Matt, quality, that is what I am about.
The Wickes/Kress is a "class" act. Made in Switzerland, two 2.0 Ah Japanese batteries and an angle chuck attachment which swivels and locks to any position and lift a collar and the chucks just slip off...drills, driver heads and bits can be fitted directly into the drill with no chucks fitted... for less than £100 at the mo'. Look at a DeWalt angle drill and it is £166 alone. The Kress/Wickes feels good too. This is two drills in a high quality product. No contest. About time this drill was sold here.
See Matt, you should have asked me first.
Until they switch suppliers....
made in a variety of places. I've checked.
I'm sure it will be as soon as there is a taker. Please explain though, if this is really such a good product range that they appear to have restricted their route to market in the UK to a private label deal with Wickes. It doesn't hang together unless somebody is commercially very naive.
You'd better ask Matt about that.
The the OP. Wickes do a DIY 15.6v drill for £40 that may fitt his bill. 2 yr guarantee.
I have checked and this drill is made In Switzerland by Kress.
Also a drill bit or driver bit can be inserted right into the angle attachment without using a lengthy chuck, with the ability to get in tighter than a DeWalt or Makita angle drill. A quality dual purpose product. Look at the Kress URL I gave and enlarge the piccs of it, the breakdown shows it all with the driver bits in.
Wickes are not selling it properly that is clear, as most will just think it is a normal drill/driver and not a versatile angle drill as well. If they did this would take off, even at £130, its normal selling price. If it fails it is because the seller doesn't appreciate its qualities and doesn't sell it on them. The punter clearly has to know what it can do.
Go to any large Wickes and they are display.
Wickes shift some power tools. They are a national chain, who are now owned by TP, so rebadged Kresses may be seen in their stores, probably at inflated prices
Kress probably can only make so many products. Kress are a medium sized quality maker who do quite a bit of R&D. They have to, to survive in this market. They patented the quick change chuck system on this drill. This is a drill I have always admired having seen them in Germany.
Well Matt as I said, you should have asked me.
What has this got to do with the quality of the product? They may have restricted their route to market in the UK for a number of reasons. Lack of marketing budget, Wickes being the only taker and demanding an exclusive deal, the link with TP which makes the combined Wickes/Travis Perkins potential huge, limited production capacity, whatever.
You appear to judge quality only on label & price. Are the Swiss known as low quality producers like we assume the Chinese must be?
Dave
Kress make 700,000 tools a year. Small by the millions produced by the big names, which is many millions.
I didn't say that it did have anything to do with the *quality* of the product; only that if it is so good (i.e. attractive to somebody buying) then why have they restricted themselves?
There is an obvious inconsistency. In every other country, bar the UK, they are selling their products with their own label through subsidiaries and distributors. The UK isn't listed.
It's very odd to do a private label deal that excludes selling one's own product under one's own label.
People make strange business decisions sometimes.
Hardly. I go to a great deal of trouble when looking at and choosing tools. See thread on visit to Axminster exhibition as one example.
Some manufacturers make consistently good tools of a given type - e.g. Makita on drills, Metabo on sanders and so on.
Others have one-hit wonders in a sea of mediochrity, and yet others have the occasional miss in a generally good stable of products.
I use origin as only one factor - it's not always reliable in any direction. It's rather stupid to suggest that because something is Swiss that it's bound to be good, or Chinese and bound to be bad. What is important, is the product itself, its design and quality, accuracy, ergonomics, proper service and spares.
Matt, it was on on their German site and the name Wickes came up I see the USA is not listed yet Kress rebadge Porter Cable tools over there.
They may be locked in to a long contract wit Wickes, and it is in their interest to keep it that way. They did sell under Kress until BMJ Power, their agent, went bust. They were in all major towns and cities.
Matt, you do.
You don't you buy the most expensive with a designer label.
One poster here had to send a Makita back.
Matt, you don't.
Why do you keep slagging Chinese products?
In message ,
[big big snip - sorry to all]In the time it takes you two boys to argue about it, most other people would have done it, wore it out, bought another, painted it, oiled it, greased it, mixed it and finished it.
Meanwhile you two are still standing at the checkout arguing about whether to pay by switch or delta.
Woo bloody hoo. Someone
They do sell under the Kress badge as well in Wickes stores.
It's too late in the day for me to write a whole essay but without denying that the DeWalts and Makitas of this world do make good products a lot of the pricing is about marketing - price discrimination and knowing your target buyers - not about the quality. That's why I don't write off Ryobi stuff because the parent company want to stick it in some marketing bracket. Many tools contain the same quality of components because it just isnt economical to create varying levels of them.
Pricing point is certainly a factor, as is production volume and all of the associated costs of proper quality control, sparing, service and so on.
However, one has only to pick up, feel and operate a range of products from different manufacturers to figure out that there are considerable quality and usability differences.
For example, last week I picked up and looked over products by "unknown Chinese", Ryobi, Makita and Festool. There were substantial and obvious differences in build quality, how the mechanisms worked, balance and control. These correlated completely to price points and I could have done the same comparison blind folded.
There may well be economies of scale of certain components from a given manufacturer or manufacturing house.
I don't write off Ryobi either. In comparison with the entry level products, much of what they have is better. However, in picking up one of their drills last week, running it, feeling how the clutch and gearbox operated and so on (somebody demonstrating one jammed the clutch), it is clear that Makita, Bosch (blue), Hitachi etc. are in a different league.
This isn't to say that Ryobi stuff is worthless, just that the limitations and general feel would not be acceptable to me, so I wouldn't buy any of their products that I have seen so far.
I certainly don't try to kid myself that this is a product range from a Japanese manufacturer with some implied level of quality control, design and backup. Equally, I don't kid myself that Makita isn't making tools in PRC. I decide on what I can look at and touch, the design, the feel and the spares and service backup if I were to have any issues.
Others may have different purchasing criteria and requirements.
Do we assume the Chinese produce all low quality stuff? Some of it might be very good, surely?
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