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Average Customer Review:
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 lithium battery May 16, 2008
My 18 volt lithium battery just purchased doesent hold a charge for very long, and the 15 min. charger doesn't keep the battery charged when not in use. It has good strengh, but doesen't last very long.
 It's as good as the ratings say! May 13, 2008
This is the most highly rated Lithium Ion drill/driver on the market and it is even better than I imagined it would be. Check the ratings out for yourself. But that is not all - it is a fantastic deal too. The kit comes with two batteries that are charged in 15 minutes. This means you can go pretty much non-stop with your work. This item is light and its compact size makes it easy to use. What is surprising is its torque and its "balls". Worth every penny!
Refurbished Drill May 09, 2008
The drill worked perfectly and has been a satisfactory purchase.
The stickers on the case were close to impossible to get off. The refurbisher should looking into labels that can be removed easily by the end user.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Not working as presented! May 08, 2008
Factory recondition tags on everything, 2 batteries, charger & drill.
1 battery was not in working order, seller replaced promply. No charger
manual, seller sent one with repalcement battery.
Drill worked fine, used it for few prodjects. Time to charge batteries,
DC18RA charger turns on then when battery is put in it goes to a red &
green blinking condition and shuts off. No response yet from seller and
Mikita service has not given a yes or no on charger.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Wobble May 04, 2008
I really liked certain aspects of the drill, but unfortunately was still forced to return it and get something else.
I'll start with the good stuff. First off, the weight and feel was perfect, exactly what I was looking for. I'm a sculptor, so I need something light and compact when I am working all around a piece, sometimes in hard to reach, uncomfortable positions. The LED light is good in that it stays on for a little while after it is pushed. More manufacturers should add this feature. It doesn't center exactly on the bit tip, but the way it's positioned under the chuck, like all the drills I've seen, I don't think it will ever be perfect. The power is fantastic and it's the only compact I've seen with 450lbs of torque. I doubt I will ever need that much, since I'm not drilling or screwing into concrete or anything like that, but it could be useful for some people. The charger is the fastest I've seen at 15 minutes. I timed it and it really does charge in or under 15 minutes.
Now I have to talk about the reason I returned it for something else and few other negatives. I bought it at Home Depot, I like to get a feel for tools I buy and they had a power tools sale going on at the time. So I picked one of these up and tested it at home for about a day. I noticed instantly that there was some vibration I wasn't used to in drill. When I looked at the chuck I noticed it was wobbling a bit. I put a 1 1/4" spade bit in as I was drilling holes at the time. I spun it and looked at the tip of the bit, man this thing was wobbling all over the place. By my calculations it had a 1/8" wobble. That might not sound like much, but try to drill a big hole in plastic or a small hole through metal and see what happens. I decided to try and drill a hole out with the spade bit since I had it on anyway. I used a scrap piece of hard plastic as that was the material I was working with presently. Now I knew the bit was ok as I had drilled out some nice clean holes in some other plastic using my old corded Ryobi drill. After trying it out with various speeds and settings, the results were uneven holes, some larger than they should be and chipped edges. The drill was shaking and vibrating like you wouldn't believe too. So I take it back and get another one. After I get it home I test it out and guess what, same results. I even try to drill a small 1/16" hole through some sheet metal. After it flew across the metal for a minute it finally caught and started going in. Man, this bit was shaking back and forth, the whole drill shaking like crazy. I was afraid the bit was going to break off and fly into my eye. So back to Home Depot I go. This time I show the hardware guy and see what he has to say. Maybe I've just gone crazy and am being overly critical. He pops in a spade bit and even he can see the wobble and knows this isn't right. I tell him this my second one, so we take a new one off the shelf and open it up. He pops the spade bit in that one and guess what, same wobble. We decide to test out the comparable Milwaukee compact lithium drill to see if this is just something all the cordless compact drills share. He pops the spade bit into the Milwaukee pulls the trigger and no wobble, smooth as butter. He says maybe they got a bad pallet and could check to see if there was a new skid of the Makitas in the back. I decided to not take anymore chances and swapped out for the Milwaukee.
My reasoning is this is a Makita, not a Skil. It's supposed to be a quality product from a quality manufacturer, I should not have to go through 3 different ones to get a good one. I suppose this may be the world we live in now that everything is made in China, but I think I took more than enough chances on this drill.
Also Makita, don't be so cheap to not add a bit holder and belt clip, come on now.
This may be an isolated incident and I don't want to badmouth a good tool, but I can only comment on my experience. To all the people that are happy with the Makita, I'm glad. To anyone looking to buy one, I suggest you test it out in the store first to make sure there aren't any problems like I had.
On a side note, I didn't have the drill long enough to experience the battery problems some people have had. I don't know if that problem has been fixed or not. The batteries seemed good for the time I used it.
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