Oooh What Combi Drill?

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chris_k

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Its that time when old faith-full Makita 18v gets put into storage. Her batteries are not charging, her clutch has gone and she whines more than my wife. Ive had her for around 3 years and shes had a battering to be fair.

So nows the time for new.

Ive had a a look and the choice is bewildering. You hear from different trades on site the various pros and cons of different drills,

Im looking to spend around £200 - £250, needs to have hammer function.

What your thoughts / recommendations?

 
I had a Milwaukee 18v combi supplied to me in my last job and i really liked it you could feel the quality when you held it had a nice weight to it and came in a very sturdy carry case.

Only problem was mine had a 1.5ah batts i would spend the extra money and get the 3ah ones for the extra run time.

At the moment im using a blue Bosch 18v and thats been back to them for a replacment planetary gear before it was even 12 months old and now the chuck is playing up too i used to rate the blue Bosch gear but now im  not too sure.

I had a Makita LXT the cheap one screwfix and everywhere sell and they felt very cheap and nasty i got rid of them as soon as i could

 
I'm with you on that one Streets, The blue Bosch I had went wrong after 3 months. It went back to Bosch and it was repaired. Had a new gearbox and chuck. I generally buy Hilti but liked the three year warranty so brought a Bosch. I think I will stick with Hilti when the Bosch finally gives up although hopefully it will last the three years.

 
I got that drill bit with impact driver as lxt202. Bullet proof with metal chuck and gearbox. Well pleased with mine :)
I like mine. Plenty of grunt at 80Nm too. There's a few cheaper Makitas that look similar but half the torque and they feel "lighter". The only thing I don't like with mine is the LED light shines nowhere near the tip of the screwdriver bits that come with it. Might seem pedantic but when you're upside down in a cupboard it's a pain! I got a "replica" extra 3.0Ah battery off eBay for just short of £50 and I can't tell the difference tbh, just as good.

 
I bought makita LXT thinking I was getting MXT with the metal gear box. It's a good drill, but be careful not to overload it (large wood boring bits in joists) which defo does it harm. Milwaukee were doing special offer on very similar spec drill, which the lad bought. Defo better build and feel, and slightly better performance than LXT. Think the MXT would be very similar

 
A side note for this thread.

One of the reasons i decided to get a new one was because for the batteries not holding much of a charge. Ive heard of the tapping them with a welder trick  but feel an exploding battery may hurt a little. I`ve seen people putting them in the freezer then charging them too, so decided to give it a try.

I froze them a week last Friday and took them out on the Sunday and charged them. I must say they `seem` to be holding a lot more charge and lasting for a hell of a lot longer.

Im in the middle of freezing a very old Bosch 24v (green) nicad that would`nt charge at all.

Time will tell if they last, but hey it didn`t cost me anything.

 
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