I read on one of the general discussion forums the other day that plumbing fixtures, same brand, same model number, but bought at two different suppiers can vary in quality. Two differant retailers can spec out how they want it built, and the one with the highest price really is the better fixture.
Seemed to be common knowlege among most of the readers here, but it was news to me.
My question is does the same apply to tools?
I recently had a salesperson at a tool specialty store tell me that his bosh cordless drill was $50 more than the same one at lowes because it had better parts in it. I figured he was lying, and went to lowes to get my new drill. Works fine, but could the guy actually have been telling me the truth?
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are the model numbers on both tools the exact same? I have noticed that the big box stores do not carry alot of the makita NiMH tools, and absolutely no Panasonic, so I do tend to wonder that even if the Dewalt. hitachi, amd others are making lower quality tools (in general) to be able to produce tools that produce better margins.
yes, model numbers were the same.
the guys talking about plumbing fixtures said to look for nuances in the model numbers, like something capitalized, italics, an extra space between digits...stuff like that. I may have missed that when I was looking at the drills, but it was basically the same model number at both places.
"the guys talking about plumbing fixtures said to look for nuances in the model numbers, like something capitalized, italics, an extra space between digits...stuff like that. "That is pure, 100% B.S.Just think of it logically. Typical commerical computer displays are all plain text. Things like italics and extra space are not going to be seen or noticed.What happens with the el francy plumbing show room gets the $100 version and HD gets the $300 by mistake.The show room people will not be happy. The supplyer will not be happy that he deliver the $300 version to HD and only collected for the $100 verison.HD won't carry and probably won't know. But a customer buys one of the $300 versions and likes it and goes back and get the "exact same thing" and his receipt show the same number and it is "crap" compared to the first one that he got. So now is he mad and complains and HD is not mad.And how does the supply deal with warrantee?Now with power tools, and specially cordless, you need to pay close attention to the actual part number and not just a "14.4 volt drill".For example I have a 2002 DeWalt catalog and they have 2 different 14.4v drill/drivers in similr comfiguration, but one has more torgue and bigger capacity batteries. But they do have clearly different numbers.Then you need to look at what is included. Is it just the drill, a kit (drill, charger & 1 battery), or it is a special that include a 2nd battery with the kit (though now most times the 2nd battery is standard)? Does it include a carrying case? Is it part of a promo that adds a set of drill bits or a power screw driver?Now all of those will have a similar, but different part number of the box. But the ads will often only show the part number of the basic kit.
I've had this thing happen to me...Went to Lowe's on the advice of the 2004 Taunton Tool Guide and bought the Hitachi 12V impact driver...it had 1.4 Ah batteries and it was absolutely disappointing. Went home to discover model # was not the same as the one in the Tool Guide, so I returned it for a credit, then called Amazon for the Makita 14.4 impact driver, which happened to be 45 bucks under their own list price. Got to my door in two days, drove deck screws like nobody's business, and I'm waiting on my free 14.4 drill/driver to get here. BTW, I've had three green tools, none of which functioned as "pro" grade, and four Makita tools, all of which have performed admirably. I'm not one to buy tools by color alone, but Makita definitely makes good ones.
-Jason