Dear Ridgid Tools...
 

...go pound sand. I will never buy your products again. I followed your lifetime warranty process to a tee and you still refuse to replace my dead batteries.

I never should have gone away from Makita tools.

our rigid tools work fine i hope they dont do that. but we also spent 20 bucks on them from a garage sale

oh they worked great. until the batteries crapped and their supposed lifetime warranty failed

what exactly is the guidelines of their warranty anyway? sounds like they've outlined specific and uncommon conditions in there aimed at purposely screwing people out of being eligible. Wish there was some type of law against products that do that.

register online and mail in UPCs, etc. All done. They blame the USPS and told me to get lost despite receipts, copies of all paperwork, online registration, etc.

They were bought by HD and got "margined".

Never liked rigid anything except shop-vacs. I regularly use Dewalt and Milwaukie at work for power tools. One coworker is a Ryobi fan, most of our hammer drills are Hilti, and our jig saws are mainly bosch.

I was just going to say the same thing about the shop vacs. I use mostly air tools in the shop, but do have quite a few 19.2v Craftsman cordless tools - not bad, but I just buy everything on sale at father's day and Xmas...

DeWalt or bust. When I did contracting, I used DeWalt 18v tools, and beat the piss out of them for 5 years every single day. I think we had one battery go bad... def got our moneys worth out of them.

This sounds like a job for.....



http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...negotiator.jpg

ummm .... ok.

This... If you need help with these things, let me know.

I used portercable cordless tools years ago when I first started working. Top quality stuff and I could beat the hell out of them, but the batteries lasted a year.

Switched to Milwaukee 28v stuff. Again awesome tools with plenty of power, had the kit for 7 years and used them hard every day, but **** batteries that crapped out every couple years.

I bought the new rigid 18v kit a year and a half ago. Good stuff for the price but not quite as nice as the other tools I have used. Ive broken the flashlight and the drill chuck already twice. Batteries are good so far though and they have a very hard life with me at work. I wont buy from them again though for the same reason as bonzo. The warrantee is bs.

My co-worker uses new Makita tools and the batteries are junk as well, the sawzall is junk and the basic cordless hammerdrill/driver is cheesy.

Anybody ever try the "welder zap" on dead batteries? My 2 18V DeWalts are pretty dead.

Dewalt all the way. End of story. you get what you pay for.

Good tip to keeping those batteries alive? Store them charged! Seriously, don't put them away dead, shortens the life dramatically... Especially the Li-Ion stuff.

50% is the rule, but there's no way of knowing that with power tool batteries. The number of charging cycles is on a bell curve vs. % charged.

That's true, but it's a safer bet to charge before storage. Batteries lose charge in storage, and if they're stored already discharged, it's usually the end of the road for them.

I love my Bosch 18v stuff. Downside is that their retail exposure is limited. But the tools themselves are awesome. I don't do it for a living, but they've survived two bathrooms, a kitchen, a basement and numerous other tasks. I've got the drill, impact driver, circular saw all 18v cordless, corded palm sander, 12v drill/driver, 12v impact, 12v multi tool all good stuff. The nice feature about the battery packs is they have "fuel gauges" on them, so you know where the "level" is with the push of a button. Maybe others have this feature, I'm not sure. I gave up on DeWalt after a bad experience with a jig saw. I own Milwaukee corded 1/2 drill and a 1/2 inch right angle drill, both excellent drills with good feel.

I recently got a set of 18v Ryobi tools. I love them so far. I got a drill/driver, impact driver, circular saw w/laser, multi-tool, sawz-all, and impact wrench, with charger and 2 lithium ion batteries for 200 bucks shipped, brand new from home depot. They already paid for themselves with the amount I needed, and used them in the past 2 months.

My cordless stuff is Ryobi 18V. Been reliable so far, and the original non-lithium batteries lasted 3-4 years. What I like about ryobi is the lithium 18v batteries plug right into the original tools, which is a serious win. The impact driver is worth it's weight in gold, I use that thing everywhere.

Respectfully disagree. Every dewalt tool Ive used comes up short compared to counter parts. The only dewalt tool I own that Im satisfied with is my 9in angle grinder. My chop saw sucks, my dads 18v impact driver and drill I got him feel cheap and the drill has a crappy chuck, my corded drill isnt anything to write home about, and the 20v stuff we use at work is only marginally better.


I'll be sticking with my Milwaukee stuff. I love my m12 stuff and cant wait to get some brushless stuff and expand into 18v. Not for nothing but theres a reason Milwaukee is generally the most expensive box store brand...






What is this welder zap method you speak of to restoring a battery?

Milwaukee is amazing. I have a few tools from them, one of them is like a 20 year old sawzall that still works pretty amazingly :D

I spent $12 more on a Milwaukee sawzall over a dewalt or makita. All entry level model comparisons. It makes my buddies dewalt look like a piece of ****...

problem is nothing 20 years old matters today. I have a 40 year old B&D circular saw that is great.