Bad buying decisions or tool regrets

[Doug B]

Ah that's worrying, I'm pretty well invested into their 18v platform! Any idea what the reason is? All my Makita tools seem pretty decent so far (barring the track saw mentioned in the opening post of course)

I wouldn’t worry too much, I moved from DeWalt to Makita years ago & am very happy with their tools, so much so I changed quite a few a while back so I could use the newer 5ah batteries & Ive not been disappointed. These days there’s very little between the major brands it’s more a case of sticking with the battery platform.

 

[baldkev]

I have a good one for buying regrets.....

Last april i bought a petrol dumper, hydraulic tip, tracked, 500kg capacity. I bought it because I had a sum of money in the job for machine hire and decided to buy one rather than hire. 2 or 3 good sized jobs and it's paid for.
It cost £2100, was reduced from the £2500 price tag . The nearest price competitor was lumag at 3k, but it was the same machine, same handles, frame, undercarriage, just different colour. ( chinese )
Now a jcb new was 10k, used 4.5k and up...
Anyway, the cheap handle broke on the first day, it travelled maybe 40 feet before it died. I got an upgraded replacement, but that meant i also needed a different cable. Oh well, teething issues.

Long story of little things to make it better, but after about 35 to 40 hours of work the damn thing sprung an oil leak. I got new oil seals but it turned out to be a part in the driveshaft housing and i was told you had to buy a new assembly ( which was gearbox, driveshafts etc all complete )
Nope. I took it apart to find it was a white metal bearing sleeve ( chinesium ), designed to be worn instead of wearing the shafts out. This could have been avoided if they'd designed it with actual bearing races.
Anyway, I fixed it up and flogged it. A terrible machine that would fail every 40 hours, not to mention all the other things i found along the way.

 

[ivanfabian]

There is only one tool purchasing regret. It was the charnwood w650 table saw. I use it daily and every time I use it I regret buying it. The fence is rubbish and requires clamping at the back to keep it still. The fence is also slightly curved (went through the hassle of getting it replaced and the replacement was also curved). The mitre tracks are not totally parallel or the same width all the way down. The mitre carriage was impossible to set up sufficiently accurately that I had to remove it and bin it. The mechanism for tilting the blade is also total junk and has disintegrated. Absolute joke of a saw. Having said that I've cut many miles of timber with it over the years. This year may be a year for a replacement. Not sure what I will do with the old one it's too big to use as a door stop .

It's also put me off Charnwood stuff for life. For a British family run business you would expect better than the quality you get from Aldi and Lidl centre isle stuff.