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Comment by vidanay | Hacker News Reader

This was my experience with DeWalt too back in the late 80's when they first came out. Sadly, they too have fallen.

Indeed. DeWalt used to be great stuff and now it's just overpriced junk. The one thing they still have going for them is their batteries, those are excellent quality. But that's not a good enough reason to buy a tool.

Case in point: I still have a DeWalt drill from 2009's that is still on its original set of batteries. But a hammerdrill I bought for a renovation in 2015 died after moderate use just outside of the warranty and after taking it apart I realized this wasn't an accident but just crappy manufacturing. The mechanism was so delicate it should have never been greenlit and the materials used were sub-standard.

I tried thier ~$100 hammer drill. Failed immediately. Returned and rented $600 version. I learned to stop buying commodity price-competitive tools from Home Depot. But immediate failure of a hammer drill? The Menards MasterForce lasted longer ($50 POS, also returned).

I think the only ones that reach the end of warranty are the ones that are lightly used. Any contractor would go through a dozen of them before the warranty expired, especially if they do a lot of demo work.

I got one from earlier than that on it's second set of batteries.

I've also rebuilt it a few times with new motors and plastic shells from second hand ones, and on my third set of brushes by now.

From your roof?

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