ian field wrote:

Obviously B&D supply crap batteries with their tools, and I noticed that
when I phoned B&D to ask about spares their recorded message announced
"De-Walt and Black & Decker tools" so you won't get any better there either!
Indeed I've seen one or two threads on this group by people having trouble
with De-Walt batteries as well!

So there you go Black & Decker - if you weren't such greedy *******s you
would have made some money out of me, but instead you tried to rip me off -
so I fixed it myself, improved your crap product and told everyone what a
load of crap your product is!

Mike Berger wrote:

The same company owns Black & Decker and DeWalt, but it doesn't
mean the product lines are identical. I use my DeWalt 18 v.
driver and trimsaw regularly, and the original battery packs
are still at about 95% capacity after six years.

I use them until they are discharged, and then I recharge them.

Maybe you are less careful with your battery packs, and
that's why you have problems.

I've got a 12V Dewalt drill that I've had for a long time - probably
7-8 years or more. I too am careful with the packs and they have
held up well until recently. Within the last year one pack has
developed fairly serious lack of capacity, and the other is beginning
to show the signs. This is to be expected at this age...

My beef with them is that new packs list at $79.99 (Canada) while
a new 12v drill which comes with two packs is $159.99. This means
that Dewalt/B&D consider the drill disposable, encouraging people
to toss them in the landfull rather than replace the batteries. I'm sure
I will be able to rebuild the packs for less than 1/2 that, but it leaves
a bad taste...

Dave

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