Impact drivers

[Dannypipe]

It's annoying, as I hear great things about their products.

I've not been amazingly impressed with the Makita lith ion stuff I have. On the whole it's been a bit crap.

The combi/impact driver started spewing grey smoke on the day I bought it, when drilling a 20mm whole through timber with a flat bit. Not exactly hard work. Also changing modes is very tricky, the slide button is stiff, and in impact mode, driving screws it gets very hot if used for a prolonged time, like screwing down a bathroom ply floor.

Then I bought the drill driver (the beast one, with the metal chuck) and that crunches if you tighten the chuck in gear three. (Makita know about this, and said just change it to gear 1 when doing this - WHAT!?). My old Makita could be tightened in gear 2, so why can't this one?

Then I bought the jigsaw, no real complaints about this, quite a good tool, and I've just bought the 18V SDS.

I have other Makita kit, but 240V their..... skill saw, another jig saw, small angle grinder, and angle drill. So a fair bit of their kit....none of it is as well made as it was 10 years ago. Yeah the batteries last a long time on their cordless stuff but they also fail very often, and are mega bucks.

 

[Killy Bing]

I personally have the 18v milwaukee tools (apprentice with a full kit of m12 and m18 dedicated to the job arnt i!)

the regular 12v impact is great for its size and voltage, just a little bit lower spec than the makita 18v impact in practical turns however the new m12 brushless impact is practicly the same as the makita 18v!
Advantage is you have 2 settings, 1 is slow speed and high torgue which is great for old screw, setting 2 is full power, drive anything with reason then!

If you can afford it got for the 18v kit and get the brushless impact, has the settings again and simply nothing compares.

personal views having used milwaukee, panasonic, bosch, makita and hilti

i would go with milwaukee or hilti
i chose milwaukee for the bigger range of tools

 

[thompsonbrown]

Hi

Was thinking of getting one but im not sure what one to get. Needing it for various things like 4"screws getting out old screws.

I have m12 milwaukee stuff so i would only need the bare tool. same with some 18v makita stuff.

Who uses one and which one/voltage?

ta

my uncle has a cordless snap-on impact driver used it on tanks when he worked abroad

 

[PriestyUK]

Yeah might be abit of a ball ache to go through the motions, but once your setup its a piece of pss. Had mine next day, was talking to the Hilti south rep via email for a few days before, he got me to upgrade abit the bugger but he did sort me out a 20% discount which made the price really fair plus he stuck in a few freebies They are a solid bit of kit and a little bit of wee comes out every time I use them lol joke....... not joking it does lol

 

[Dannypipe]

Funnilly enough a bloke at work was saying that his brother in law just bought a cordless SDS and impact driver from Hilti. He tried it at the weekend, and it was the nuts. Really powerful.

Next time. I don't want to wish away all my Makita kit, as it's cost me a bomb, but I will upgrade it all in the next few years. Or when it gets nicked, which has happened to me twice in the last 10 years. Lost almost every powertool I owned.

 

[Plamber]

Just to say, I ended up getting a Milwaukee m12 Fuel impact driver. came with a combi drill, charger and 2x 4ah batteries.

Only been using it yesterday and today but seems really good. Only gave the combi drill a quick spin because I mainly use my drill driver.

So I recomend the milwaukee impact driver for folk looking for a new one.

 

[heatseek185]

The recommendations on this thread have made my decision a lot easier, so thanks everyone, think I'm going to get myself the Milwaukee M12 FUEL 1/4" Impact driver :2guns:

 

[Trev]

if you have some makita 18v stuff get the makita 18v impact driver, one of the best tools makita make.

I agree, great bit of kit. I used to use one to make false chimney breasts!

 

[stevetheplumber]

hilti are a strange company who still work in the old fashioned way it cant be doing them much good 20 years ago all site work drills were hilti now you seldom see any cant say that ive seen many of there fixings around either
ive still got a 22 but its knackered ive got a little t14 which i keep for when i need a 110 drill
i paid a kings ransome for one of there first battery drills with the option to wear the battery on a shoulder strap batteries went just out of guarantee and they wanted 2 kings ransome to replace and ive never bought another thing from them