I figured I'd weigh in on the conversation as I'm off work today and have had enough time to go through the pages of this thread.
I fit a lot of £20-30k kitchens and most of my tools are Festool and the ones that aren't will probably be replaced with their equivalent as and when I can afford to. This is not necessarily because I believe Festool to be so vastly superior to other brands but because everything sits together so well and the accuracy is something that matters to both me and my customers and I do find them to be spot on.
I use my cxs for just about everything because it's powerful enough for what I need it for and when I'm driving tiny little screws into stuff it's probably the truest running and most accurate drill I've ever owned (and I've owned a few!).
Similarly I use my Kapex for plinths/kick panels, cornice and light pelmet because It's powerful enough to do it and I can cut anything with virtually no tear out and know that it's going to fit together with a nearly invisible joint. The lasers are spot on (or at least they were until, in some moment of madness I decided to lubricate the blade using WD40 while the blade was running and made them all blurry!...I'll sort it out at some point).
I've recently purchased the of2200 for counter tops because , although I believe I could use the of1400, I figure that probably won't be good or healthy for a smaller motor and I'd rather not put that kind of strain on my incredibly expensive tools.
Back when I fitted shops, I used any old tool I could get as long as it could withstand abuse. I don't know how many tools I got through - especially drills. I was on the Makita impact drivers all day long snapping bits and screws tearing things up with an old DeWalt chop saw. They all did what I needed them to do and probably did withstand more abuse than my Festools ever would but the work wasn't pretty...it didn't need to be.
Now when I'm working, there's hardly any noise but for BBC radio 4 talking to me while I carefully manoeuvre units into place and line everything up. Now and again, usually towards the end of the job, the Kapex and the TS55 come out and instead of customers wincing and wondering if I know what the hell I'm doing, they are impressed by how little dust there is and want to know everything about my tools. It just makes the whole experience a lot nicer for everyone.
I assure you that all that was just preamble really. There's been so much ranting in this thread that I figure maybe it'd make a change to cool off a bit and read some of what I'm about as I haven't posted on here much.
This whole thread seems to have gone down a road that borders on incitement to riot. I think it very dangerous for so many to hop on a band wagon of scaremongering when only a very small percentage of people appear to have had issues with their Kapex.
The facts as I see them are that of all the people posting here, only 7 have had any failures of their saw. 2 of those were within their warranty period and to date don't appear to have failed again(?).
One failed after 8 years and was "used for everything" within that time.
The rest could well be justified in being frustrated as they appear to have failed just outside of the warranty period.
But even here, we don't know the facts completely. We don't know how these saws were treated and one person at least had already cracked the housing through an unfortunate error. Could other faults have arisen through error of another sort?
I would say here that clearly there are "tales" from friends of friends or other companies people have heard from or dealers but this is all basically heresay and as no one involved directly in those cases is here to put forward their case, I would dismiss them again due to lack of facts.
Most of the posts here that have been made from people who ACTUALLY OWN a Kapex have been very positive. The person who started the post and in spite of being given a bit of a runaround has gone and bought another one!
Those that are here who don't own one and have been scared away by a few horror stories, firstly - You have no real justification in "demanding and answer from a Festool representative" as you are not the ones with a faulty tool. And Secondly, don't be so quick to judge a machine you don't own. The majority of us seem to be very happy as it does what we need it to do and we aren't prepared to make a compromise when it comes to the benefits of this particular saw over some others. Whether that be weight, accuracy, kudos or whatever.
And those who are reading who don't comment but who remain sceptical, I'd say you need to assess your needs. If you can live with a saw that costs half as much but weighs twice as much, go for it! Why wouldn't you?! Providing it's well set up and has a sharp blade in it, you'd be a fool to think that a Kapex would be so significantly better than anything else in one particular area. For me, and many others I imagine, it's more about it being slightly better in the areas that matter more to us.
So don't pay too much attention to the nay-sayers or harbingers of doom but similarly don't get bowled along by the brand. Just make sure that whatever you decide, that your decision is ONLY based on facts.
We have no numbers on Kapex's sold vs Kapex's broken and then no further information on ones fixed within and outside of warranty period and even less information about specifics of each individual case of those that have encountered problems.
I think that we see it as being all too easy to want to rally the troops and get bowled along by a feeling of hatred and disgust against something. With the World in the turmoil as it is, maybe we're all feeling like we want everything to run smoothly with no hiccups or isolated incidents but sadly that's just not the way it is.
I would just choose to trust that my saw will be fine for years to come. Will I be gutted if it blows up outside its warranty period, of course. But would I also be gutted if something fell on my hand in work and broke my knuckle? Definitely. And given the trades that most people here are in, I'd say that a work related accident is far more statistically likely...in fact, it's the reason I'm off work today and why I was off yesterday so it's already cost me hundreds of ££!
But I'll go back to work once I'm fixed, the same as I'd buy another Kapex if it blew up. You take your chances and you hope for the best.
Keep smiling [smile] [smile] [big grin]
