Jaybolishes said:
Totally missed that one Al. Even spending only $7000 LIKE I DID, festool should bend over backwards to fix my Chinese made tools. They are after a select group of fans who only use their tools occasionally in my opinion. Because the tools that get worked hard always develop an issue. The festool gloss has faded for me and I can see the tools for what they are. 10 years ago their tools were bullet proof and then they started making their parts in China. I still love the tools I have that still work, butif and when they break I’ll be darned to shell out another nickel. Unlike what Al thinks, I absolutely don’t have a lot of money. I have a 3 year Old son and one on the way. I take extreme care in where I invest my money and there comes a point to when you weigh function and cost. Festool just doesn’t meet this requirement for me anymore. I almost feel foolish for ever buying them. Thing is the tools are expensive, and many people feel locked in because of the huge investment going waste. I know my wife sure thinks it was a dumb idea from the beginning
. I really don’t like making posts like this, but if I can help anyone from making the mistakes I have, I don’t mind the shade it may bring. Really have enjoyed the contributors on here.
I feel your pain. I've been a (reasonably) loyal customer, over quite a long timespan. Some 33 years in fact, with the majority of my purchases being pre-millenial Festos. My investment has been fairly extensive in that time too: around about a whole year's net income in "today dollar" equivalents in fact! Yet I find myself with a steadily diminishing stockpile of tools remaining.
Whilst some have been excellent, there's been some frightful dogs too. Most have been used for fairly heavy duty DIY work. I've personally found them mostly unsuited to my former professional duties. Yet even the best of them seem to have become fairly comprehensively made redundant by competitors' equivalents. Just yesterday I let my Mk II Rotex go. Never thought I would, as it was at the time a greviously expensive but remarkably versatile workhorse. Yet with the new model having a poorly engineered, potentially troublesome bayonet pad system that can't properly accommodate the latest mesh abrasives, I've chosen (as have many others) the DEROS alternatives. At this stage only in 8.0 & 5.0mm versions so far, but I suspect the 2.5 will follow as funds allow.
Likewise my 2 Duplex sanders were not just miserably slow & incompetent as an "alternative to hand sanding" as they were originally hyped to be, but also surprisingly hungry for profiled pads with almost criminally short-lived profiled pad obsolescence too! Bad news when one is required to store a full complement of profiles for a range of moulding profiles. Slow, with a ridiculously expensive appetite for pads (which are long-term assets in other Festo/ols) which in effect become short/er term consumables. Yet all could still be forgiven if they performed their task - stripping old paint from Colonial & Victorian mouldings - effectively. But they don't. In fact they're hopeless! A DEOS & home-made (profiled) hand blocks are just ....... better.
OK. The fact that they don't fulfil my requirements is a problem. My problem, in fact. The fact, however, that they don't fulfil the company's (originally stated & advertised) design brief is appalling. Caveat emptor I suppose, but for the "fitness for purpose" and "sale by description" clauses of the all-but universal Sale of Goods Acts in most international consumer legislation.
In some ways, I might be deemed that short-lived low-voltage Kapexes fail the "merchantable quality" clause/s of the same or equivalent Act/s too. Mine (240v) was never so afflicted. I just hated the (vertical) handle that would become dangerously slippery with summertime's sweaty hands. Plus the guard that would internittently fail to return to the safety "park" position. A nicely made lightweight saw with a few rather dangerous, if not fatal flaws that rendered it on occasion unusable. Great dust extraction, but otherwise not actually significantly better than my Radial Arm, Bosch Glide & Metabo battery SCMS. The latter, as a "bare bones" (i.e. naked, sans batteries, charger etc) actually cost a mere 20% of the price of the Kapex!
Festo never really ever built crap. Neither did Festool either. With the possible exception of their cordless "range" (the word tools is not an appropriate description here in my opinion). Twice bitten, never again. Not even for free! I still think that, for all their inherent flaws, compromises & faults, they still make some pretty good tools. But many professional competitors just seem to do so much better these days. It's not so much the design flaws, either, but the anomalies & compromises inherent in Festool's newer production releases.
The RO 90 could've, indeed should've, been a much better tool than it is. Yet as a Delta its nowhere near the standard of the old Deltex, nor a Swiss GDA or even PDA. As a random orbit it's a poor alternative to a SXE400. As a Rotary nowhere near as controllable, fast or effective as its bigger siblings either. Fatally compromised in fact. The Jigsaws are not just poorly performing, but not as accurate as competitors' tools from the 80s. Definitely not a patch on a world-class P1CC either.
The tracksaws are OK; the tracks (especially the joiners) are terrible. I moved on through necessity some time ago. The CTL mini-vacs (plastic Systainer toolbox-style) are terrible. Mine couldn't even fill its tiny bag properly without cycling through "shutdown" mode despite running at an irritatingly noisy & tiring non-adjustable perpetual full throttle! Not even with the addition of an outrageously priced $150-odd longlife bag. The smaller routers are just weird! Can't get used to them at all.
Yet nothing's really, really BAD. It's just no longer good value any more. Not in comparison to the Mirkas, the Mafells, the Metabos, & even - dare I say it - the DeWalts (routers). Even some aged 20 & 30 year old Elu, Atlas Copco & AEG designs.
Tooltechnic's R&D fellowship needs sacking. They've basically sat on their collective hands for the past 2 decades it seems. It's not actually (in my opinion anyway) that Festool's tools have been getting any worse, but that the competitors are just so much better these days. The basic ergonomics of Tooltechnic's post-millennial designs have been essentially ignored! Atlas Copco & Bahco are exemplars of what can be done with older AEG & Sandvik power & hand tool design from the 90s, many examples of which still stand up well in comparison to the latest supposed state of the art.
Yes, I know that many competitors are (in some cases much) more expensive than Festool. As always, quality costs more, but it often (usually in this case) represents much better value too.
So I'm down to a mere 4 Festos now: an SR5E (made by Wap), a CT22 (Festool by Kraenzle), a BS105E (made by Holz-Her) & my one & only remaining Festo sander RS1 CQ orbital. Significantly, all post-millennial Festool designs are now gone! Not because any of them (apart from those frightful cordlesses) are crap, but mainly because the others' are just so much better. The CT is still great: 10 Amperes allowable connected auxiliary load, longlife bags & filters, removable wet filters & swarf bucket. interchangeable Ametek, Alfatec or Domel motors, Kemo electronics & quality plastics without any stupid, frail hose garages makes for a quality extractor that I can imagine my grandchildren will be using many years from now.
