What is your favorite power tool brand?

I have Ridgid. They break, they fix. Only one that has given me constant trouble is the hammer drill. It has seized twice and short circuited a battery once. They fixed the drill and replaced the battery.

 

Just don't buy the hercules drills. They cost just as much as name brand, claim to do 2x the the work, but someone on youtube took one apart and its just a bunch of junk.

 

Yeah.. I heard that before.. Most my stuff Is weekend warrior type, some I use every day. Still no failures.
My friend has a contracting business. He probably has about 90% Ryobi tools. He has had only 1 failure of a drill chuck that won't stay tight after years of abuse. He has been happy with them. Neither of us have had a battery failure. My friends co-worker dropped his DeWalt screw gun off the roof & into the grass of bi-level home, wound up with a cracked handle & a broken gear in the drive. Go figure?

 

Gonna go against the grain and say Hitachi. All of my tools (cordless & corded drills, air nailers, circular saw, etc) are Hitachi and have had them for at least a decade with no issues. I am also a "weekend warrior" type, so maybe not the best person to offer my opinion on professional tools.

 

Now the last time I had a Milwaukee in for warrantee work (only one failure ever, a week past warrantee and Milwaukee replaced the part anyway) I was asking what was the best. This is a repair depot that does warrantee for just about everyone. Guy said Bosch has kick ass tools and the BEST WARRANTEE PERIOD. He had a guy in to replace his Bosch 36v hammer drill. When he questioned why he needed another when he just bought one the month prior. Apparently dropped it off a 9th story balcony. Drill was in one piece but shrapnel inside. Called Bosch because they have a no quibble warrantee. They told him to give the guy a new one off the shelf no charge as a warrantee replacement. Now that truly is a no quibble warrantee. If you work them hour after hour every single day you are no longer buying on price. Warrantee matters for those guys.

 

I am not a Dewalt fan. It is from years of watching them fail in all sorts of ways. The batteries were shit. The chucks on the drills ALWAYS failed. The clutches failed so that even in drill mode they wouldn’t hold. Now the newer product I have zero experience with. I know of no one else who uses them to get a real world tradesman review. They lost so many customers and got such a bad name that it is hard to find anyone who trusts them in my travels.

If you have good experiences with them good for you. Hard to overcome a really bad name in the marketplace. That’s my experience with them and like I said when no one will touch them anymore (any tradesmen in my area) it is hard to get a good name when no one is using one to give a fair review on the new product.

 

Mill-E-Wah-Que for me.

 

I have had dewalt forever. Just recently bought a Milwaukee High impact torque wrench and I cannot wait to use it on upcoming projects on the rig.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077H7JP1D/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I'm personally a makita fan they have earned their keep for me with very few issues. They make up a bulk of my hand power tools with a few other makes for a few corded tools, Bosch sander and Milwaukee circular saw. The most recent additions have been Festool products in the form of a track saw and Sanders. One thing to remember about Dewalt is they make 2 different lines of tools. One for weekend warriors that are sold at big box stores and another jobber line sold at more traditional tool supply stores.

 

This was my collection about a year ago. I've added a few things!

Dewalt are nice, but their cordless hole-hawg is a bulky monstrosity. The m18 fuel hole-hawg is what sold me on Milwaukee.

I recently picked up an m12 fuel 3/8 impact, and I highly recommend it for anyone who wrenches a lot. It's light, small, and will remove lug nuts like nothing.

 

That thing will remove or break anything you put it on! Be careful!

 

Well it looks like I'm in the minority. For cordless power tools I prefer Panasonic Tough IP. They will accept 14.4 or 18 volt li-ion batteries and meet IP56 level of protection against dust and water infiltration. I've been using their products for better than 6 years and they've never let me down.

 

I've used Panasonic in the past and they're very nice. I just couldn't commit to them due to the cost and lack of options. They just didn't offer the variety of tools that Milwaukee does.

 

AvE is a god amongst men.

 

I'm afraid to ask but need to know. What's AvE?

 

Their earthquake impact guns are actually pretty great. But the milwaulkee ones arent that much more