T18 Easy

[jeh]

While possible it certainly seems like a waste of time and effort unless you have a broken drill to harvest the parts from.

 

[semenza]

The interchangeable chucks are like gold. It is worth the price uptick to have them unless you are only drilling / driving in open spaces. Due to the 'notched registration ring' on the regular C/T18 the shaft conversion only get you part way there.

Seth

 

[AlexThePalex]

The interchangeable chucks are like gold. It is worth the price uptick to have

Totally agree. Knowing that they exist, I don't know why you would ever want anything less. It is like tying one leg behind your back to run a race. 

I find Festool's decision for this reverse evolution incomprehensible.

 

[slavi.yordanov]

The interchangeable chucks are like gold. It is worth the price uptick to have

Totally agree. Knowing that they exist, I don't know why you would ever want anything less. It is like tying one leg behind your back to run a race. 

I find Festool's decision for this reverse evolution incomprehensible.

Exactly my point. You don’t need to force anybody to buy the Centrotec stuff. Just include the keyless chuck and sell at $300 with batteries. Eventually some people would buy the centrotec head and bits kit. Or the other chucks if they happen to need them.

The thing is who would buy a bare T18 easy, when you can get two batteries and charger for $100 more? Even if you have 20 batteries, you would still buy the kit, maybe sell the batteries and make some profit.

And the regular T18 kit with batteries starts at $500???

Also T18 Easy has the notched ring where the angle and eccentric chucks lock in. The only difference is the shaft.

The only reason Festool did this is to keep the price of T18/C18 high.

 

[semenza]

The interchangeable chucks are like gold. It is worth the price uptick to have

Totally agree. Knowing that they exist, I don't know why you would ever want anything less. It is like tying one leg behind your back to run a race. 

I find Festool's decision for this reverse evolution incomprehensible.

Exactly my point. You don’t need to force anybody to buy the Centrotec stuff. Just include the keyless chuck and sell at $300 with batteries. Eventually some people would buy the centrotec head and bits kit. Or the other chucks if they happen to need them.

The thing is who would buy a bare T18 easy, when you can get two batteries and charger for $100 more? Even if you have 20 batteries, you would still buy the kit, maybe sell the batteries and make some profit.

And the regular T18 kit with batteries starts at $500???

Also T18 Easy has the notched ring where the angle and eccentric chucks lock in. The only difference is the shaft.

The only reason Festool did this is to keep the price of T18/C18 high.

My mistake I thought someone had commented that it did not have the notched ring.

Seth

 

[squall_line]

My mistake I thought someone had commented that it did not have the notched ring.

Seth

I mistakenly/ignorantly made that comment.

The interchangeable chucks are like gold. It is worth the price uptick to have

Totally agree. Knowing that they exist, I don't know why you would ever want anything less. It is like tying one leg behind your back to run a race. 

I find Festool's decision for this reverse evolution incomprehensible.

There's a term for it in the automotive world, but I can't for the life of me recall what it is off the top of my head.  It's basically price-point engineering/refactoring.  Which, let's face it, Festool isn't exactly going to grab buckets full of market share on the back of a single tool, but perhaps it creates a price point that starts a discussion or a double-take? 

I mean, the CT15 exists...

And there wasn't an impact driver before 2019, so maybe clients have been clamoring for a cheap driver to go along with it?

 

[Coen]

They had an impact around 2012

 

[slavi.yordanov]

I actually wondered if the CT15 actually has bluetooth and they just removed the button for it.

 

[Christopher Fitch]

I, too, do not understand the T18-E.

As slavi.yordanov said, just have a T18 and include only the keyless chuck and you are done. No need for different parts. Throw in a flier listing centrotec stuff and offer sets as an "upgrade."

They went to the trouble (and the cost) of designing and producing additional parts and then actually selling/marketing the sets.

Heck, if you just have the T18 + keyless, you can even sell more keyless chucks - get people hooked on the multi-chuck approach without having them dive in to centrotec yet.

The only two things that might justify this are:
- they have identified a group of people that will never pick centrotec and don't want it but do want a festool drill.
- they want people to get in to their battery system.

Not sure if these are valid, but it's about all I can think of.

 

[MrToolJunkie]

I just got the kit with the T18 and TID and in essence the kit price meant that the drill and the driver were $117 each - so a pretty good deal overall. If I needed just batteries and a charger, the T18E is a no brainer - even if you sell the drill for not much you come up ahead.

 

[slavi.yordanov]

Heck, if you just have the T18 + keyless, you can even sell more keyless chucks - get people hooked on the multi-chuck approach without having them dive in to centrotec yet.

And actually might attract customers from other brands. None of the three major brands (red, green and yellow) have a drill in that class with a removable chuck. I mean Makita sells their newest kit of hammer drill and impact with 4 batteries (2 extra as promotion, and a case of bits I think) for $399.

Now if the chuck is removable and you can get some different heads in the feature, that actually might attract somebody who is not into Festool already.

I have been trying to sell my TID for over a month now, and interest is almost non-existent.

 

[JeremyH.]

I have to agree... if it was Centrotec with just one chuck at that price, I would have probably impulse bought it by now. The fact that it isn't part of the eco system is why I'm like... ehh I'll wait. It's ironic it's meant to get me into more stuff but it's keeping me away.

 

[Paul_HKI]

It's wildly entertaining to watch the mental gymnastics at play here.

The T18+3e is not marketed at folks who have decided Centrotec is for them. 

If I was in the market for a high quality drill, but had zero need for swappable chucks, I'd have no cost effective option in the Festool product range without the Easy drill variant.

I might buy a TS55, a CT of some sort, but I'd buy some other brand of drill.  Actually, enough of the hypotheticals here.  I did exactly that myself.  I had a TS55, a CT Midi I with BT remote, an MFT and both dominos but not a cents worth of interest in swappable chuck drills.  I spent on a couple of Panasonic EY series drill/drivers instead.

It took a special offer on an 18V Festool drill to convince me to spend on getting into Festool cordless power tools and to be quite honest, even now I'd find it hard to justify ANY additional expense in those purchases simply to have Centrotec.  I waited and waited, then picked up clearance discounted units.  Now that I have Centrotec equipped drills I like them, but it wasn't a feature I valued enough then or even now to pay a premium to have at my disposal.

If the T18+3 Easy existed, I'd have picked up the 18V Festool line years ago.  Just like the CT15, Festool know what the customers want to get started.  Once they do that, they'll either look for other tools in the line that work well, or at worst they'll have spent their money with Festool rather than with a competitor. 

If that's not you, it's not you.  So be it.  They won't care.

 

[Christopher Fitch]

Can't speak for anyone else but you missed my point which is:
they don't need to manufacture the T-18E as it is currently made.

No need for an additional set of tooling/production etc. for the part listed above.

If Festool wanted to provide a version without centrotec, all they needed to do was take a T18+3 and only include:
- T18 drill as is
- Keyless chuck
- two batteries
- charger
- systainer

Done - now you have a T-18E without the need for a separate new unique part (and all the cost and effort involved in producing it). Offer that at a cheaper price - same price as the T18E.

Clearly they identified a group who does not want Centrotec.
And that's fine....

But to service that group, they didn't need to do what they did.

*** Edited to add:
I don't even disagree with the idea of not wanting centrotec. In fact many years ago when i got my C12, I ran through some of the same arguments you did and decided to try it anyway. I still use mostly standard bits - I only have about 6 centrotec items (not even festool ones - just the Snappy versions of a few items).

 

[Imemiter]

I can confirm that the only difference between the T18E and regular T18 it this part.
[...]

I got my TID from a guy on CL who just last week sent me an email offering a T18. I was completely uninterested because it was an Easy, but suddenly I find myself digging through my deleted emails trying to get in touch with this guy!  [laughing]

 

[FestitaMakool]

I tend to agree with you Paul HKI and Cristopher Fitch.

I think the whole idea is for Festool to be recognised as a competitive brand name among “standard” non Centrotec featured drills. A T18 Easy is still a T18, a drill recognised as a very smooth drill overall. I think of only Panasonic to get even with Festool on this experience of a drill.

I would guess it was easiest to just offer it with a keyless chuck, but I also see the possible manufacturing cost for both the shaft and indeed the snap-off chuck. The Easy comes with a standard off-the-shelf chuck, and Festool can buy this very cheap I presume. On the contrary the snap of chuck is FT only produced.

Funny enough, Metabo offers the same, near identical drills, but some with the same system as Centrotec, these are more expensive too.

 

[AlexThePalex]

but not a cents worth of interest in swappable chuck drills.

You know, you are allowed to leave the chuck on, and not swap it out for anything else.

Developing and marketing a T18 Easy is actually costlier than just selling the current T18 with the jacobs chuck only.

There must be more behind it.

 

[Christopher Fitch]

Since Festool has been making and selling their current Fastfix Keyless chuck for some time, they have already invested in making those and should, in theory, have no new cost in producing them.

A rough idea of price difference (if any) would be to take the existing FF Keyless Chuck price plus the $20 part that slavi.yordanov listed and compare it to the cost of the single part he shows in his picture above. Probably does not tell the whole story but we could get an idea. The separate parts actually should cost a bit more due to stock costs, tracking, packaging etc but not some large amount.

Re: Alex comment about there might be some other reason is definitely something to consider.

 

[FestitaMakool]

but not a cents worth of interest in swappable chuck drills.

You know, you are allowed to leave the chuck on, and not swap it out for anything else.

Developing and marketing a T18 Easy is actually costlier than just selling the current T18 with the jacobs chuck only.

There must be more behind it.

Suppose.. have you seen them here in Europe Alex? Through normal distribution channels and national distributors it seems to be non existent.

 

[Frank-Jan]

They did a similar thing before with the protool 18V compact, but they also switched the systainer to smaller sys1 vs the sys2 with attic lid, and lower Ah batteries.
https://www.festoolownersgroup.com/festool-tool-reviews/protool-pdc-18-4-compact/

It's a bit like with the kapex 88, I wouldn't buy one, but there are people that will.