Currently have a couple of 18v makita drills, angle grinder. Have noticed that makita seem less brushless options than dewalt, less power (flexvolt 18-54 vs makita all in 18 or 40v, and higher cost.
Is dewalt worth switching to for long term? Or stick makita and accept not every skin is brishless at 18v and they cost more?
Seems the dewalt sets have better 'offers' at the big green box than makita.
Both are good tools. You'll see no benefit from switching. If you're already in the Makita ecosystem, stick with it.
40v (or 54v) doesn't really offer any significant advantage for the majority of uses. Sick with 18v and 36v so that you don't need different batteries and chargers.
There's also little noticeable difference between brushed and brushless tools.
Also, Makita offers 5 year warranty on most tools is you register them. DeWalt looks like it's 3 years. Longer warranty is always a good thing.
I have a full array of Dewalt and they work really well, haven't skipped a beat for years. The batteries switch well and all the tools have been reliable. Haven't used Makita, so cannot compare, the old man has a set of Milwaukee which are obviously really great, but the Dewalt has held it's own against them.
There's no need to restrict yourself to a single ecosystem. Each colour will always have specific tools that are better than others.
I personally use a mix of ozito (cheap), Makita 18v (huge range) and hikoki (batteries are dual 18/36v, often better value compared to Makita and can get on Amazon US/jp for reasonable prices)
Thanks all for the responses. I'm still torn! Lol. New tools = shiny shiny!! But I'm a homeowner/diy use so the non brushless grinder drill impact driver and the garden blower, plus corded mix of whatever I needed has done ok so far. 2 x 5.0ah batteries are getting a little long in the tooth hence the thought of switching, but to be fair the 18v impact has never struggled with a diy job and they do work the same now as they did 10 years ago when i bought them, battery notwithstanding, so maybe makita are worth sticking with. I noticed makita don't do an orbital 18v sander as brushless, only a weird 40v setup, shame, the dewalt one is brushless but i prefer the makita. I assume brushless just means more efficient, not more power?
For general DIY 54V is absolutely not needed. The 6.0AH Flexvolt batteries are notably chonkier than Makita's standard 18V 5.0AH batteries - which is an ergonomic concern. I have dozens of hours of use on the 125mm DBO180Z sander from Makita and it hasn't skipped a beat. The only thing I would replace it with is a corded 150mm big boy from Mirka/3M.
Youd have to be doing some really serious DIY to think that you need more than makita. Ive been using ryobi since getting stuck in the ecosystem about 10y ago. Im sure ive worked them harder than the majorty of users and they are fine.
I have used makita at work and while it is 'better', ive managed to amass a bunch of tool for probably well under half the cost of makita equivalents.
You probably dont need to upgrade.
We have around 15 dewalt skins and not one has broken. 2 of the drills were bought in 2014 along with 2 batteries. Everything is still working perfectly. I don't know why people shit on dewalt on internet forums.
On the other hand I bought a Bosch GOP 250 CE and it broke with minimal use and they screwed me on the warranty. Highly recommend avoiding everything Bosch I'll personally never buy anything bosch again. Perhaps a dishwasher but they've left a sour taste in my mouth. The multi tool was the "professional grade heavy duty" line also, barely lasted 1 room. Have done 2-3 full renovations with the dewalt gear. Also owned a Bosch belt sander that broke and the plastic part was half the cost of the entire tool, and an old corded drill which is gutless. Have around 10 corded makita tools some Japanese models from the 80's and others that are 20 years old. All still running fine.
Unfortunately the guys at totaltools mentioned dewalt have been rubbish the past few years. Not sure why but I heard it mentioned somewhere else also. But they were talking up milkwaukee which has always been a red flag to me. With dewalt/milwaukee/makita you get a lot of bogans shitting on the other brands as though it's following a sports team. All 3 brand are very similar and top notch as far as I'm aware. Then you have festool/metabo a slight tier above. The AEG stuff I've bought has been total rubbish too.
Also be careful buying from Bunnings. The best cordless makita tools are MIJ and not stocked at bunnings, and are not much more expensive than the Chinese drills bunnings sell for like $400.
Thanks. The only MIJ makita i can see is the impact driver 173.
My current setup is 2 brushless, 145 impact and 481 driver, 452 grinder brushed, and 184 blower. They so far haven't missed a beat so I guess I'll stick with makita and hope to find a deal in genuine batteries and skins.
Anyone know where to find the MIJ 18v skins and which ones are MIJ? The MIC ones I have seem to have been good from the big green shed. They cost $600 10 years ago and still work after a house reno and a few woodworking hobbies!
IMO it’s all much of a muchness with tools these days. Maybe years back when there was genuine innovation in the space there was a major difference in brands, but frankly they’re all pretty much the same. There are maybe some slight differences in battery, slight differences in torque, and that sort of thing but at the end of the day the biggest factor is the tools available that you will use. Makita for example don’t have a battery framing nailer, although they are bringing one in, whereas DeWalt do. For the most part though, they are pretty comparable. If you’ve already got Makita and they have the tools that you think you will use I’d stick with them, otherwise you’re just paying for batteries as a per replacement basis, which seems like a waste of money. Just my advice.
Do you plan to use 54V tools? For some tools that need a bit of extra grunt, Makita has 18Vx2 setups (i.e. tracksaw, mower) which are more than capable for all but the most demanding situations. As for Makita skins that aren't brushless - which ones? And does it really matter?
I also don't think you need to "switch". If you have a few batteries for each system, you can easily run both. Then you can pick the best tool for the job.