Cordless Drill Recommendations?

I'm a big Milwaukee fanboy. I've had no issues with home/hobby use of a bunch of 12 & 18 V units.

Anybody know if any of the manufacturers warranty their batteries longer than a year?

PHeller wrote: Anybody know if any of the manufacturers warranty their batteries longer than a year?

Ridgid, through Home Depot, has a lifetime warranty on their batteries. Hearsay that registering for this is difficult.

That seems to me as the crux of current cordless tool system, is that you can get an awesome tool but if you use it enough (or not enough) you risk going through many batteries that cost as much as the tool itself. Then you've got the issue of changing battery technology, meaning that after awhile you can't get batteries for the system that is now 5 years old.

It'd be sweet if they towards the end of a system life cycle they made battery converters that allowed you to go corded.

I've talked to a Dewalt vendor rep before about offering a program to rebuild cordless batteries and he laughed at me.

Informative Thread.

Zombie thread guys.

foxtrapper said:

PHeller wrote: Anybody know if any of the manufacturers warranty their batteries longer than a year?

Ridgid, through Home Depot, has a lifetime warranty on their batteries. Hearsay that registering for this is difficult.

This is true.  I did it and it took 2-3 attempts.  I hear it isn’t so tough now.  

bosch 18v, and these batts seem to hold/last thru charge more than my prevous Mkita 9/12v combo (which at the time was a great gun 13+ years ago)

Lets make it a useful zombie.

Bought a set of 24v Kobalt tools a few months ago, super happy with them. 3/8 impact, drill, sawzall, and flashlight.

I love my DeWalt 20v tools. I've also used thier 12v tools and liked them, but you'd want the 20v.

Recently had a similar thread on GRM, needing advice on a cordless drill.  I went M18  (Milwaukee) and so far they've been great.  Had the drill and impact driver about a month so far.  The 2.0 batteries I got with it work for a pretty good life before needing recharging; the FUEL ones with the 4.0 batteries seem to be the choice of the tradesmen around here.  I did go brushless- it was only about $20 more for the set that way.  

Amazed to see all the DeWalt love here.  I binned all my DeWalt 18V XRP stuff this summer (some NiCad, some Li-Ion) and switched to 100% Milwaukee Fuel 18V.  The Fuel's are really the best cordless tools I have ever used hands down.  Only challenge I have is this stuff is addicting, so far I have 6x batteries (4x 5.0s and 2x 2.0s), two lights, two impacts (3/8" and 1/2" high torque) the radio with charger and bluetooth, a hammer drill, sawzall, rotozip, 1/4" impact, and a circular saw.  

The high torque impact is 1400 ft/lbs and comparable in size to my IR 2135 Titanium.  Will see if she has the longevity.  

I found it strange this thread zombied.    Two weeks ago, I was helping inspect the former Singer plant in Pickens, SC, where they used to make Sears electrical tools.  Now owned by TTI, which owns Rigid, Ryobi, Sears and Milwaukee.   These guys were saying everything is going cordless.  This plant is where they did all the warranty work, but that has moved one county over, so this property is for sale.   Nice little TCE plume in the GW.    

Zombified again, another canoe deleted. 

Still loving my M18 stuff, and started buying the smaller M12 tools, which are also great.  In particular the Hackzall, which really does hack through all.  I even shoved a 12" demo blade in it and cut a car's roof off.  

The M18 drill on high speed will make a hole in sheetmetal faster than my Plasma cutter.  

The M12 ratchet is really good, too.  Agreed these things are addictive.