dewalt brushless impact - Looking for feedback

jeep jake

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Aug 12, 2012
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I know these have been out for a while. I was wondering if anyone has had any issues? What your overall impression is. I would get the festool impact, but I want something more compact, and more power.
 
I love mine.  I bought the newest 18v and have put it though some grueling projects.  Amazon has them for $225 which is a ton cheaper than the TI or the TI upgrade and you get 2 new batteries and an extra charger.  No brainer IMHO. 
 
I've had my DCF895L2 for 10 months now. Excellent tool! The batteries last forever, the 3 power/speed settings work great and the light that stays on is a good feature.

Overall, the best cordless tool I've ever bought.

Ed
 
EdL said:
I've had my DCF895L2 for 10 months now. Excellent tool! The batteries last forever, the 3 power/speed settings work great and the light that stays on is a good feature.

Overall, the best cordless tool I've ever bought.

Ed

I have to agree with Ed, same experience here. I hope DeWalt continues this brushless concept throughout the rest of it's line.

Eddy
 
I picked one up at Lowes last week. $225 for the driver, two 1.5ah batteries and charger.

Love it so far, the power settings are great! Ran some 3 inch screws into framing at full power then turned it down to the lowest power to install some drywall patches without breaking through the paper.
 
Bikeboy80 said:
I picked one up at Lowes last week. $225 for the driver, two 1.5ah batteries and charger.

Love it so far, the power settings are great! Ran some 3 inch screws into framing at full power then turned it down to the lowest power to install some drywall patches without breaking through the paper.

Unopened new in the box?  

Thanks for the price info.  I've been looking at it.  I'm going to hold out for the 3.0 battery kit and armed with this price info I'm going to wait till I can catch that kit well below $300.
 
fshanno said:
Bikeboy80 said:
I picked one up at Lowes last week. $225 for the driver, two 1.5ah batteries and charger.

Love it so far, the power settings are great! Ran some 3 inch screws into framing at full power then turned it down to the lowest power to install some drywall patches without breaking through the paper.

Unopened new in the box?  

Thanks for the price info.  I've been looking at it.  I'm going to hold out for the 3.0 battery kit and armed with this price info I'm going to wait till I can catch that kit well below $300.

Yes brand new. It had one of their "new lower price" stickers on it. I had been eyeing up buying just the bare tool but armed with my Amazon app I checked prices and pulled the trigger. I used my Lowes commercial CC and got another 5% off too! [big grin]
 
Hey guys question for you.  Or a few actually.

Right now the brushless market is a bit interesting.  Makita has their LXT239 kit at $319ish depending where you are.

Milwaukee and DeWalt have positioned their brushless tools (full size) to retail at $400+ retail in a kit.  Their INDIVIDUAL tools, again full size 3.0ah+ batteries, are retailing at around $349.

Compared to the Makita, what is your initial impression?  That's a HUGE difference.
Does it give you an impression that the Makita may be sub par?  (how can they be so cheap!?)
 
Milwaukee topped the best 18volt brushless impact in the current Tools of the Trade magazine.  The two Panasonics came in 2nd and third.  Makata came in at the low end.  I have the Milwaukee, great impact for the price.
 
Hi I'm new here but I have some experience with the Milwaukee, the Makita, and the Dewalt.

I own the Milwaukee impact and am happy with it. I like the power of it and it feels well made. It has driven large lags and screws and has survived being submerged in water.

My carpentry class has the Makita impact guns and I'm not impressed. They get the job done but the feel weak and of a little bit poorer quality.

The Dewalt I have tried out and driven some screws with. It was very light and seemed well made.
 
I recently picked up the Milwaukee brushless impact and could not be more pleased.  I used it to drive about 400 3+ inch screws and about 200 2.5" screws and it never thought twice.  The model I picked up has the 3 speed/power settings so it is nice to have a little control.  I moved from Dewalt to Milwaukee when i picked it up, and am really glad I did. 
 
An impact driver uses a hammering action to increase torque, while a hammer drill uses a hammer action to hammer up and down with the bit for drilling through concrete and hard material
 
Hey guys question for you.  Or a few actually.

Right now the brushless market is a bit interesting.  Makita has their LXT239 kit at $319ish depending where you are.

Milwaukee and DeWalt have positioned their brushless tools (full size) to retail at $400+ retail in a kit.  Their INDIVIDUAL tools, again full size 3.0ah+ batteries, are retailing at around $349.

Compared to the Makita, what is your initial impression?  That's a HUGE difference.
Does it give you an impression that the Makita may be sub par?  (how can they be so cheap!?)

I have the Ridgid x4 combo kit. The impact driver is one of my most used tools. In my work i use a lot of structural screws so it gets used very hard. A co-worker has a Makita kit with the standard drill and driver. Working side by side every one of my Ridgid cordless tools outperform its Makita counterpart, by a long shot.

That being said, recently i have been very tempted to switch over to the Makita brushless. Makita offers so many cordless tools its tempting to commit to their line. The biggest draw for me is the brushless sds rotary hammer. Have you seen that Sean? It looks like a great drill for route development.

Anyone see JMB's video comparing Festool and Milwaukee inpact drivers? I dont see a festool driver in my future.
 
I sell both the makita and the dewalt range of power tools here in Sweden and I must say that the current 18v dewalt range is top notch! And I have bought both my father and my brother a set with a brushed impact and drill driver. And the brushless are even meaner!
 
The switch on my Makita 18v drill broke, so I got another Makita

drill and that switch broke.  [scared]

I really like my new 20v Dewalt impact and drill combo.  [big grin]

Buyer beware of Makita's 18v drills.
 
I've got several dozen Makita LXT tools in regular heavy use and another several dozen in moderate use. I have more than a dozen that I use personally. These include more than 5 different models of drills and more than 5 different models of impact drivers. They include a bunch of impacts being used for truck and equipment repair by people that are really hard on tools. Zero failures of that type. There was a few of one drill model that had chuck runout problems and their hybrid driver seemed prone to failure in the mode change mechanism.  I replaced my LXT drill with a T15 last year but the Makita still worked well after 7 years.

Which Makita drill was it that failed? I wonder if they have an issue with one switch on one model like the issue with the chucks on one model. I remember about 15 years ago when all the switches were failing on all the Milwaukee 1/2" drills that we had and the replacements would also fail. Milwaukee fixed the issue and then they were fixed permanently.

I have seen lots of Dewalt failures and am tending to avoid anything that comes from Stanley Black & Decker. However, it does seem like people are mostly happy with their current 18v Lithium tools that they call 20v. When they have a really good tool they seem to either cheapen it or discontinue it.
 
I have the old 18V Dewalt impact and the new 12V Dewalt Impact. 

Normally when seeing if a tool does the job, I look at;  does it feel balanced in your hand, does the battery last and does it have enough power to do the job.  For the 12V, I was very impressed how it feels and the power.  It does about 75% of the work i have and then I use the 18V for the bigger stuff.  I could only imagine how much nicer the 20V is than the old 18V.

I have sipped on the green kool-aid quite a bit and love the festool products but I am still hard to by an impact or drill that is about 3x the cost of the dewalt tools.  Maybe I need to use one but cannot imagine it would feel any better to use than the new Dewalt stuff.
 
You all need to go to the confessional at church tomorrow.

This whole discussion is SACRILEGE!!!  You all are going to the pits of fire unless you CONFESS and REPENT! [big grin]

DeWhat?  Pfffft! [mad] [dead horse]
 
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