Need recommendations on a cordless drill

Time has come for a new drill. I dont need anything super high end. I have been looking at stuff in the 18V+ line and of course budget in mind. Best bang for the buck? Recommendations? Thanks.

I actually thoroughly enjoy my Milwaukee M12 drill/driver. It's their newest lithium-ion cordless line and I find the 12 volts is plenty for what I need it for. It's more compact, feels great in the hand and is still more powerful than my 19.2V Craftsman NiCd. I think I tried all of the 12V drills and I liked this one the best. I also have their multi-tool that takes the same battery. The reason I decided on the 12V line is because I'm pretty much done with cordless saws. They just don't pack the punch you need compared to corded and the battery drains FAST. But if I really need them then I'd probably go DeWalt 36V for those specific tools. Think of it like owning flashlights that take various battery sizes

Definitely check out CPOoutlets.com (also ebay) and toolup.com. Their prices are consistently among the best, but of course, always shop around for deals.

You'll probably get recommendations for just about every brand out there, and they are all good. I have really liked my Porter Cable drills - relatively light but well-made and powerful.

I would recommend a ridgid lithium drill.

-steel gearbox and gears

-great price at homedepot when on sale (drill + 2 batteries + charger + toolbag) $99

-but the main reason? LIFETIME warranty on EVERYTHING . Yes , batteries too. The batteries use Emoli IMR cells, if you were curious.

I have them at home, work and have successfully recommended them to friends and family.

Ford Perfect, thats the type of info I like to hear. Steel gears, IMR's, and lifetime warranty is pretty hard to beat. I was scanning ebay and had seen some of the Ridgid's on there but didnt know much about them.

I started off with Craftsman, went to Ridgid, then Dewalt and now I am using Makita.

Bang for the buck is the Lithium Craftsman, the only problem is, it's disposable. Half life for me and the gear boxes was 7 months.

Ridgid was awesome the only problem was the weight, they are HEAVY. Also the warranty is great as long as you have a service center close by, if not your SOL. Warranty on the battery is great if they would actually replace it on the spot. My service center always had to send them off for repair and I would wait in between 2 to 6 weeks for a rebuilt battery.

Dewalt was a hand me down that is overall good but again heavy. Mehhhh is my take on dewalt.

Have been using the Makita XRP line for 2 years now and absolutely LOVE them. Light and powerful. Brushless motors, metal gears, Panasonic batteries. Can not say enough about how light they are! Absolutely recommend.

+1 on Milwaukee.

On the other hand, being the budget afficionado that I am, I'd also like to find a Chinese dealer who sells cheap chinese cordless drills in the $20 price range. I know somebody who uses one as a "beater" tool that he doesn't mind taking places or mistreating. And around here, anything nice inevitably gets stolen, so I'm looking for a cheapo model.

I will tell you personally it is hard to beat a Makita. I have a Makita drill that I bought back around 1995 with 2 batteries and I think they still hold a charge and the drill still sings.

I have a set of Porter Cable 18v tools and i really like them. I bought them at the Black & Decker outlet. $75 for drill, circular saw, reciprocating saw, work light, fast charger, 2 battery packs and satchel bag to hold everything. Impossible to pass that up!

What? Nobody wants to recommend Festool? That doesn't fit in with the budget motif? haha

I think certain manufacturers excel with specific tools. I love most Bosch corded tools but I wasn't as impressed with their cordless offerings. My Bosch hammer drill is a beast. However, the most significant factor in performance for a cordless tool is the battery and that's not exactly a specialty of Bosch. Mechanically they're still great because Bosch is rooted in that strict German manufacturing criteria (yes, they still manufacture product in China that exports exclusively to countries not named Germany).

I know my M12 drill has an all metal gearbox and a very quality ratcheting chuck (again, all metal). I went back and forth between Makita and Milwaukee but the tool availability and price in this voltage size won me over.

I just went and checked on my Makita cordless drill. I'm charging the battery now. But it still works. Those batteries are right at 16yrs old. Now what does that tell you? The drill still works perfectly. I bought this drill for like $60 with 2 batteries and case in 1994 or 1995 I believe. This was right during the time when the keyless chuck models were starting to come out and they were closing out these. My father-in-law bought one and I had to have one. This is one of the old chuck key models.

The temptation is too strong to rip out the lmr cells and run them in flashlights ..

Makita gets my vote .

It's just around the corner if you can wait two weeks. +1 on Makita, Bosch and Dewalt, haven't used the others, so can't comment. Pretty much everything will be on sale, check out the Black Friday websites that popup about now. Nice to have new tools, enjoy.

I have had an 18v Milwaukee NiCd for about 10 years or so now and have replaced the batteries once. So Milwaukee gets my vote.

watch slickdeals.net and be a little patient. look at old threads for dewalt and craftsman deals to get an idea how ridiculously cheap you can get high quality power tools if you're willing to set up an alert and wait to pounce

Mine is a Ryobi kit, but I have nothing good or bad to say about Ryobi because it's the only cordless drill/driver I've ever had. What I do want to say though is get lithium, not nicd. The Ryobi kit came with two nicd batteries, and both were dying after less than 2 yrs of moderate-to-heavy use. I then bought one lithium battery for the same tools, and that one battery has lasted about 5 years of moderate use, and shows no sign of losing capacity, very unlike the two nicd batteries.

The 2nd thing I want to mention is, if the batteries might eventually stop being made, then you're going to have a bagful of tools with no power source. I recently bought a reciprocating saw, and I chose one that uses the same Ryobi battery, but afterwards I thought I should probably have bought a corded one, cause it'll last forever. For me the recip saw is different from the drill/driver because I use the drill/driver a lot and I want it to be cordless, but for the recip saw it could be corded since I'll only use it a few times a year.

All the tradesmen in the hospital use Makita cordless tools. Which they buy with their own money (Don't know if this is the case everywhere, but tradesmen here always buy their own tools.) and they are all in heavy daily use.

i got the same one for my father a couple years ago. he's hard on his tools and it's held up well. he loves it

Just went thru this very search three weeks ago. Visited all the home improvement places, local hardware, Amazon, read the threads on a few sites.

Here's my take - unless you are a contractor there's no need for an 18V monster drill that weights 2 pounds. Most of what I saw was huge and much too big for the average homeowner who needs something for everyday projects.

So I'll recommend this 12V Lith that can be had for around $35 with coupons. http://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-38-pro-lithium-ion-cordless-drilldriver-68126.html

Have one and have used it a dozen times for screws and drilling. Very happy with it for the money. Considering this is a budget forum, hope not to get flamed by the HF recommendation. It does not tail stand, which is a bummer. Extra battery is $16 with coupons.

Makes sense to me - even if the nearest Harbor Freight is on another continent ;)

Why spend more than you have to? If you are using a tool all day, every day then it is probably worth spending more on it. If you aren't, it almost certainly isn't necessary to buy expensive tools designed to be used hard all the time.