Have your say.....

Rob Keeble

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GTA Ontario Canada
My question today is what do you think of this trend to sell cordless tools without the batteries?

Or in other words the bare tool philosophy?

For me, i am anti and annoyed by it.

The single item that wears out sooner than the tool is the battery.

Now this is becoming a model similar to the printer ink approach but its serving to put me off and back to corded tools.

Yeah i know who cares about my demographic. I guess for trades it works in a marketing sense to force the trade to go all out for one brand.
But that dont mean that brand has best in class or bread for every tool.

What it does mean is say like me you got a good ni cad driver from yellow brand and now want to buy a blue brand grinder, well you pooched unless you find the full price full packaged blue brand grinder.

I like recond tools but now they mostly being sold other than drills as bare tool.

Then if you look for a say drill pack with charger and battery, the shrewd marketeers gave packaged batteries with them that are naturally the lowest capacity of the brand, so you still in for the decent capacity batteries on their own to fuel something like say a bare tool cordless grinder.

I blame home depot for this and the ryobi brand with their one battery philosophy.

So do you want to be forced to buy all one brand in cordless tools?

I dont, again, to me its the principle of freedom and choice without having my pocket gouged. 🤔
 
How many chargers and batteries do you really need, Rob?

After buying the first one or two tool kits - say, a drill and an impact driver - you'll likely have two chargers and four batteries. Then, you add a jigsaw, circular saw, recip saw, hammer drill, 3/8" impact wrench, etc. Now, you'd have seven chargers and fourteen batteries, when the initial four batteries will likely be as many (or more) that you'll ever need.

Buy a kit (or two), then get the rest of the tools as 'bare tool' purchases. I have all the above mentioned tools in Milwaukee 18v Lithium. The four batteries I have provide adequate power for any/all the I've ever used at one time.

I can't think of a good reason to have six different brands of tool, with the resultant six chargers and twelve batteries. - Can you?
 
I had bought a set of porter cable cordless tools a while ago? I'd almost say 10 years, because I think I got them when we moved up here. the 18v nicad batteries finally gave out and I was tempted to get new tools, but the tools still work, the batteries just didn't. Was able to find replacements for only 25$ each, which didn't strike me as being all that bad.

I would be nice if the batteries for tools were a little more universal. Would love to only have one set of batteries and charger to worry about.

It would be interesting to compare the pricing, as it seems they usually have sky high prices on replacement batteries and darn near include them for free when you buy a tool.
 
It would be interesting to compare the pricing, as it seems they usually have sky high prices on replacement batteries and darn near include them for free when you buy a tool.

This is the overall trend that annoys me. Replacement parts should be available for a reasonable price for the life of the tool without the extreme gouging that's going on. I guess the death of the "fix it" culture has cranked up the cost of providing them some but modern warehousing and distribution should have mostly made up for that. On the plus side it does open up some opportunities for third party sellers (when they aren't held out of the market due to patent/regulatory/licensing barriers).

To tie it in with Robs point, it seems that the additional trend is to nickel and dime you on the whole purchase. Ooooh you wanted wheels with the car? Well... we're the only provider of the wheels due to our patent protected "quick release wheel' technology and they'll cost just about as much as the rest of the car.. So yeah I can see the slipperyness to the slope here.
 
At first I was thinking that a tool SHOULD come with everything, BUT, after Jim's post I say no.

There should be the raw tool, the kit with all, the charger, the batteries. With that I have the option to NOT buy batteries and chargers that I don't need.

For me, I have only a battery drill, no other tools, so I never really thought about it all that much.
All my other tools have tails.

For the manufacturer, it is likely more profitable to sell separately.

For the buyer, they SHOULD have the choice to choose WHAT they want to buy.
 
I'm pretty much with Jim on this one. I've centered on two brands and two voltages -- Milwaukee 12v and and Hitachi 14.4v. And when the Hitachi NiCad batteries give up the ghost, I'll probably retire that drill and impact driver and stick with the Milwaukee stuff, which is all Li-Ion. (Might eventually add some higher-voltage Milwaukee tools, but for my current and foreseeable future needs, the 12v is fine.)
 
I bought a pair of new DeWalt 18v drill/drivers about 11 yrs ago. The NiCad batteries lasted about 10 yrs. Replaced with more powerful generic NiMH batteries off eBay, that have done well. And bought 2 used bare tools that work on the same fuel. This is a cheap way to expand the cordless set, that has worked for me. As for the other brand, I have a similar pair of 12v Li Ion Milwaukees as Vaughn, and they are fabulous. My best cordless tools by far. Anyway, back to your question, Rob. I totally like getting bare tools. As Jim said, I don't need or want a mess of chargers and extra batteries.
 
I hear ya all, i knew i was in the minority.

I am absolutely not brand conscious unless the brand deserves its reputation. But in my view there has been too much "trading on that reputation" and too little delivery of value.

Also you are not assured of consistency in the brand towards battery design.

I still feel peeved that i bought a good Panasonic drill with Nimh battery tech at the time nicads were getting a bad rap for memory issues. Those batteries did not last.
The price of replacements were a gouge, so i bought new drill. Those turned out to be too lightweight in power dept, so i purchased better on a unbelievable xmas deal one year.
Now i ended up with Bosch, Dewalt, Milwaukee and they all different size batteries to the bigger bros in higher up power tools.

My Panasonic experience burnt my fingers good and solid now i look at quality and deal and yeah in that mode i am not a candidate for bare tools.

At the end of the day the value in the corded ones is certainly there to be had if one can trade the convenience.

Thanks all for the input , Ken really nice to see you stopping by.

Great to see the participation.
 
Not sure if batteries can be rebuilt if they are lithium. But I do believe that bare tools are a good choice in certain circumstances. I can buy a a tool for a once or twice job that I will probably not use again. Then there are things like impact guns (not the same as impact drivers), where I see myself using more 3/8", so sharing batteries with the 1/2" drive would save me money for the few times I might use the 1/2" model (changing a tire on the side of the road/emergency call, etc).
A long time ago, I would have liked for one brand of tool and batteries. But I learned that some brands were better then others, in things (or had certain features), as well as not everything being the same voltage. (might want a lighter battery for use in a power tool on a ladder, but want a heavier battery for a saw) Universal batteries would certainly be consumer friendly, but not business friendly. I mentioned the impact guns as an example, because of only certain companies make/sell them. (Dewalt is the ones I am most aware of)
 
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