Don't buy cheap tools - Rant

[MG1977]

With Bosch it's a little weird.

Thy have the straight forward green 'DIY shed' crap but then within the 'blue' range there seem to be some difference in quality. One of the guys at Power tools plus in Bristol explained it to me once, but I can't remember exactly. Basically it was something like with the more expensive tools there's a full metal chassis or something.

And sometimes it can only be one digit or letter difference in the code...so you compare one at screwfix with another at a specialist shop and think it's just a better deal at £50 cheaper...in fact it's just a cheaper model. May even be same initial performance specs, but a few weeks/months/years down the line and if you really use the tool in anger then you'll know if you have the quality.

I have an excellent 18v drill/diver and impact driver from Bosch. But it cost me around £300...it's another daily used set.

I don't rate my jigsaw though...I bought the cheaper trade one and feel it's underpowered and cuts out too easily.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My Bosch jigsaw is 18yrs old and besides anything else has probably cut 15 - 20 tons of firewood. Other than general cleaning and oiling all I do is beat the sole flat with a hammer once in a while. My router and my angle grinder are older. Perfect.
I think their quality is cyclical - these were all good, but a manager of a hire shop I knew told me a couple of years later that they'd gone over to Makita because Bosch were unreliable. A few years later they were good again, then back downhill. I don't need to buy any more tools, so I don't know how they measure up now.

 

[Mark A]

Regarding the SDS... I bought a Wickes Professional several years ago and it's really good in my opinion. Made by Kress, comes with a 5 year warranty and was on sale at the time so only set me back about £80. May be worth a look before you go down the yellow or turquoise routes?

Here's a link:

http://www.wickes.co.uk/620W-2kg-SDS-Ha ... l/p/195538
Mark

Made by Draper actually :wink: The companies are tied together somehow...

Out of curiosity I searched online about Draper manufacturing on behalf of Kress, but couldn't find anything official which suggested that is the case. However, I did come across a forum post which stated that Draper is Kress' distributor in the UK, which makes sense since the cheaper Wickes tool ranges are rebranded Draper's.

I'm sure my SDS is made by Kress; but even if the drill isn't, it's still very good nevertheless :mrgreen:

 

[DrPhill]

Regarding the SDS... I bought a Wickes Professional several years ago and it's really good in my opinion. Made by Kress, comes with a 5 year warranty and was on sale at the time so only set me back about £80. May be worth a look before you go down the yellow or turquoise routes?

Here's a link:

http://www.wickes.co.uk/620W-2kg-SDS-Ha ... l/p/195538
Mark

Mine is over ten years old now...... I do not use it all the time (hobbyist rather than professional) but it gets abused rather than used.

My only complaint is that the chuck (?) seems to be leaking some black gunk and I have no idea how to service it. Oh and the amusing switches: one for drill/nodrill and one for hammer/no hammer means that I can select the no drill/no hammer combination. Very special.

 

[fred55]

Now decided - going cheap! but now armed with the knowledge that it will fall apart after 4hr and it going to take 4hr to reduce the wall so if it does I can take it back for a refund. Comments about rent a good machine, there something in my nature that wont let me rent £50 for first day then £20 per day. Decision Titan TTB278SDS £50 + vat - yes yes its not a Makita or Dewalt and I take back previous comments; But those types would be wasted on me as they would sit in a cupboard and only be used every 6 months. So to clarify : buy cheap tools and hammer them to death (drills, hand tools circular saws etc) then chuck them - buy quality for workshop and accuracy (startrite, Dewalts maks - saw tables, router, pillar drills) - that's it lesson over. Off for cheap breakfast at Witherspoons.

 

[morfa]

Hiring can be quite expensive. eg I've just got a 5kg SDS drill from Screwfix for £70. It was cheaper to hire that to knock down my outside loo than hiring a better drill from the hire shop (and it'll come in handy for drilling holes in the stone walls that I have). If it dies I just take it back to Screwfix and get another one. I read a good bit about buying power tools in the Chris Schwartz book, basically his take on it is battery powered tools will always fail on the battery and you'll be at a point where it's cheaper to buy a new tool instead of new batteries. Also with power tools, there's three main price points. Cheap DIY, Frugal tradesman and all the bells and whistles. If you can afford it you want frugal tradesman. I mean sure you can spend £400 on a Festool drill, or like I did you can spend £150 on a decent DeWalt 18v combi. Should last a decent long while.

However life definitely is too short for cheap beer.

 

[RossJarvis]

I've got a Bosch 2-28 DFV SDS (and swaps to standard quick release chuck). Which seems very good and robust, though, as people say some of their stuff is rubbish. I have a GHO 26-82 planer which is cack. The belt burnt out within an hour, the footy thing that is supposed to protect the blade doesn't and it jams up in seconds if you haven't got extraction on. It would be okay if it planed reasonably but it can't even do that. I think the single blade idea is rubbish and very expensive if you buy their wood-razorblades. Generally speaking all my Makitas are brilliant if a bit simple.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I read somewhere that if buying battery tools that you should buy the tool that is just big enough to be adequate for the work that you do. The reason being is that it is prohibitively expensive to replace batteries alone and the tool probably won't fail before one or both batteries do : the battery fails when the weakest one of its cells dies, so the fewer cells you have the less chance there is of your having a weak cell. There is good reason for having a good 12v rather than a cheap 18v. Most of us have larger mains tools anyway, so that argument seems sound to me.

 

[woodfarmer]

Both of my new bosch tools were from the blue range, at my age not too fussed for price. so there were far from budget models.

Anyone looking for a good chainsaw, you might want to look at Ikra, I thought they had beeen absorbed into some conglomerate, but they are still an independant German company making and selling various tools direct to customers. I am very happy withteh new chainsaw, built like the old one.

 

[graduate_owner]

I posted a question a short while ago regarding Bosch tools. Quite a few members were of the opinion that they are no longer of the same quality that they were. I have a few Bosch tools (green range belt sander and reciprocating saw, also multi tool). I have not used a great deal of the multi tool so can't comment on that, but the older stuff has worked fine. BUT, I wouldn't buy any more of their stuff since my £350 LiIon lawnmower failed after only light use. I expect the battery has been charged about 20 times in all - expensive mistake. And the Bosch fridge freezer failed after only 3 years too. Overall - very unimpressed, so I'm not surprised to read these comments. May as well buy Aldi with a 3 year guarantee as buy Bosch at about 5 times the price for the same quality.

K

 

[DiscoStu]

I've bought a mixture of tools over the years. I wouldn't buy cheap tools now as not only is the build quality poor they don't tend to feel well balanced in use. I've now started buying Ryobi and I am massively impressed. I've been buying their 18v system. I've got around 10 tools but only 4 batteries which sit in a conditioning charger so they are maintained and ready to go. The impact driver is fantastic and cost about £89 inc battery. Even the impact wrench has about 280nm which is about 100 more than most and is half the price of a Dewalt. I've been really impressed with their kit. I think a lot of trades people in the US use Ryobi (more than over here although I do see trades using it). Having one battery system seems to work really well. That said I've also just bought a "green" Bosch random orbital sander after reading reviews on that. So hopefully it will be good.

 

[JimB]

Back in the late 1950’s at the age of 9 I remember being given a hammer and chisels and told to make a doorway in a concrete wall. No power tools no electric no I am only 9 years old, it was just get on with it or milk the cows. What is the matter with people these days.

Of course back then 9 year old kids were cheaper than power tools.

 

[graduate_owner]

Have you noticed that most tool makes with the word PRO in the name are usually anything but pro tools - usually junk?

K

 

[Stu_2]

Majority of my stuff is Bosch (Blue), Festool and Makita. Now steering clear of Bosch altogether.

Bought a Challenge Extreme multi tool from Argos a year ago, and have to say it's truly excellent. Bought some CEL blades which are good value. Machine was under £40, and has a 3 year warranty. This is probably a rare find, though.

 

[matthewwh]

One of my neighbours uses the Wickes hammer drills, he's a tradesman so it gets a lot of use. He's now on his third, two years each, but because he manages to kill them off before the warranty expires, he only ever had to pay for the first one.