Need help with B-day present, impact wrench/driver???

[M635_Guy]

To the OP - I'd get a Milwaukee Fuel Mid Torque Gen2 in 3/8" if that's what he has for impact sockets. You can put a 3.0 HO battery on it and it's pretty darn small. That combo worked great (with 1/2" sockets) on my Mini, and it should handle virtually anything he's likely to face.

I also have the M12 ratchet, and it's great too - speeds up a lot of jobs.

I have both Dewalt and Milwaukee tools. Milwaukee is an offshore company, based in Hong Kong, while Dewalt is an American based company, with at least some American manufacturing and assembly.

Not sure why Milwaukee always seems to get a pass on this, especially when one of the strong up front wants in a tool purchase is American content.

I don't think they get a "pass" - they make fantastic tools for the money and have an excellent ecosystem of tools. Dewalt has some great stuff too, but their strengths don't really seem to be in automotive. Milwaukee Tools does employ 5500 people here in the US BTW.

 

[finn]

To the OP - I'd get a Milwaukee Fuel Mid Torque Gen2 in 3/8" if that's what he has for impact sockets. You can put a 3.0 HO battery on it and it's pretty darn small. That combo worked great (with 1/2" sockets) on my Mini, and it should handle virtually anything he's likely to face.

I also have the M12 ratchet, and it's great too - speeds up a lot of jobs.


I don't think they get a "pass" - they make fantastic tools for the money and have an excellent ecosystem of tools. Dewalt has some great stuff too, but their strengths don't really seem to be in automotive. Milwaukee Tools does employ 5500 people here in the US BTW.

SBD employs 19000 people in the US.

It’s also a Domestic company, rather than one chartered in Hong Kong.

Like I said, I have both, but one is an American company, and one isn’t.

 

[JradM]

SBD employs 19000 people in the US.

It’s also a Domestic company, rather than one chartered in Hong Kong.

Like I said, I have both, but one is an American company, and one isn’t.

I don't have a dog in the fight, but I'm not sure that's fair. SBD is a WAY bigger company.

 

[finn]

I don't have a dog in the fight, but I'm not sure that's fair. SBD is a WAY bigger company.

Nice try. SBD annual revenue is about $14 billion.

TTI US sales is about $9.8 billion .

That’s about four times the US employment with only about a 40% greater sales.

The win still goes to SBD over their Chinese (TTI) owned competition. One sends their profit overseas and employs a lower percentage of US workers.

Yet they consistently get a fan boy pass when the discussion comes to US content.

 

[M635_Guy]

SBD employs 19000 people in the US.

It’s also a Domestic company, rather than one chartered in Hong Kong.

Like I said, I have both, but one is an American company, and one isn’t.

I'm not arguing the numbers. I'm saying they don't get a pass to the degree you seem to be suggesting, especially around here.

And while I think there are some excellent Dewalt products, I'm not generally a fan of the overall platform (especially for automotive stuff, which is most of what my tools get used for) or SBD as a company. Your "fan boy" jab makes it sound like we should just blindly choose Dewalt over Milwaukee. I'm not willing to do that. I'm going to buy the best product for my application. If it's close, I'm happy to choose a product with domestic roots, but I'm not going to "buy down". That's a path to mediocrity (at best) everywhere.

 

[Wrench97]

I've always had Dewalt 18v 1/2" drills, after 3 or four of them and a lot of battery and a few charger replacements I moved to the red ones last year so far it's been a better and stronger drill.

 

[webscrounger]

I don't suppose you have pics of his most used power tools? From that you could determine what newer battery powered tools to select, along with tool size and power range. A lot to ask but it could help. Like others have stated, Milwaukee, Makita and Dewalt all have selections that would satisfy your needs once that is determined, and their product lines pretty much guarantee new tool compatibility and availability for future growth.