Cordless drills - Makita vs. Milwaukee vs. Dewalt

I love makita. If I had to pick those I would say makita, Milwaukee, and de walt. In that order respectively

 

I've worked at home depot and played around with a Kobalt, Ridgid, and Makita.. Out of the 3 I liked the Makita and Ridgid the best. The Ridgid has a better warranty than the Kobalt, for the record.

 

I have a Makita 14v ni-mh set that I've been very happy with. It's a few years old now and came out right when li-ion was hitting the market and still very expensive, so I doubt it is even available anymore. I've dropped them from the tops of ladders a couple times. No probelms. Great set, and would not hesitate to buy a newer one from them.

Even my old Makita 9v ni-cd that I beat the crap out of for 20 years still works. I pulled it out the other day charged the batteries, and it works. Now I can't get rid of it...dammit.

 

Keep reading great reviews on Panasonic, too.

Rigid seems to have gone downhill along with the Dewalt brand.

I drain my 19.2 regularly while camping with my flashlight (only came with one battery), but it is now not quite holding a charge; also, the chuck has gotten way to weak to hold a round bit.

Honestly didn't really think I needed one, but I'll check it out if I can find a reasonable combo.

Not quite consensus, but close. I think I'll have to price shop a bit when I hit the box stores this weekend. I really appreciate all of the replies fellows. Thanks!

 

I presume it is still worth the $ to upgrade to lithium-ion, though.

 

We use DeWalt at work, primarily because the boss has a Home Depot card, and when we buy our own, we buy DeWalt for battery/charger compatibility.

We've had very good luck with them. We had one where the clutch stripped out (but the guy using it was an idiot and didn't care about anything that he didn't have to pay for... he didn't make his 6 month probation and probably cost the department $10,000 in tools including an electric pipe threader)

For my corded tools, if it's for work, it's Milwaukee. If it's for home, it's Milwaukee if I can afford it and if it's something I expect to use a lot. If I'm just looking for something affordable that will give a reasonable service life, I'll move down to Craftsman.

 

I actually borrowed this set from my neighbor a few weeks back replacing a section of fence that kept draining my Craftsman...and loved it! Great torque for such a small package.

 

I've had this makita combo kit for almost a year, no complaints whatsoever. also have a 12V milwaukee drill.

makita is generally less expensive than milwaukee. I'd go with makita, one that has the 3.0Ah batteries.

 

Kobalt is Lowe's

 

I have been using these all day long at work for 2 years with no problems. I love the 15 min. charging time. I have had bad luck with Dewalt drills failing and batteries not even lasting 1 year. Milwaukee is my second choice but they are $$$

 

i have this exact set too. it's been great to me for 5 years now.

i had a dewalt set in highschool and i burned out the drill in a year, i was in a tech-theater class (building sets for plays and misc things for the school)

 

Am I an idiot, or did Dewalt have a great reputation at one point?

 

I"ve used every make of drill out there..dewalts suck..Milwaukee are ok..makita's are good. but the best i've ever used and will always use are the bosch drills. dropped the suckers off 15+ foot ladders and they pick right up and work like a charm. use them for work everyday..have at least 6 of them on the trucks..

 

had a bosch combo kit for 3 years before I got the makita kit. solid drills and sawzall. only complaint is the battery contacts eventually didn't make a good connection and the grip would get hot.

 

Havent had any problems with the connections at all..but i will give you that the grips gets a little warm after a while...but reliability..man you cant beat it..

 

I decided to try out ryobi 18v lithium one series. Works excellent for my needs. Came with 2 batteries, quick charger,case, drill, circular saw, flashlight, sawzall, Impact wrench.
$250.

My first cordless drill so i cant offer comparison but the batteries last quite a long time. Another plus is the batteries are universal. I bought an led lantern and radio for 10 bucks each.

I heard great things about milwaukee and bosch. Dewalt going down since bought out by black n decker...

 

If you are buying new, I think li-ion is the only choice now, isn't it? That's all I can find online.

 

In the past 5 years I have killed (2) DeWalt cordless hammer drills and (2) of their 12" compound miter saws....and so many batteries It's not even funny. I even had them labeled so I wouldn't keep using the same ones.

De-Walt is nothing like they used to be back in the day when they made proffesional tools and machinery. Now everything they sell at the box store is dumbed down IMO.

Gone are the days of machinery like this beauty



That said we only use Makita and Hilti hand tools at work, but thats high priced models that get used industrially.

For home use I jumped on the Ridgid bandwagon and bought their table saw and random orbit sander. I killed the random orbit but it was under warranty and got replaced no questions asked so no complaints from me - I wasn't using it for it's intended purpose anyway.

 

Sounds like a great price. I will give Ryobi a few more years of "testing" before consideration, but have not heard anything negative per se.

At least online, I am seeing 18V NiCad (unless I am mistaken).

Hilti is a weeee bit out of my price range. And it is a shame to see that Dewalt has degraded in quality so much. Seems it used to be The Shit.

 

I have a Makita that was my dads. Works well, probably more than 15 years old. Still have original battery