On Wed, 3 Mar 2004 12:30:36 -0000, "IMM" wrote:




But is it worth spending £40 on a repair on 5 years old tool costing
£6-70?
I would rather buy a new one, and the quality, performance, etc will
probably be better then.

Probably not. Generally, Makita spares for the typical consumables
are not that expensive and repair oneself is easy enough. I think
that £20-30 worth of spares for a £150 tool is worthwhile. In
practice, though, with Makita stuff the longevity and robustness is
such that repair is not a big issue anyway.

It is a big issue when used for what it is intended; heavy every day
professional use. When for DIY they should last, but the price then become
unacceptable for light use.


This all depends on your view of things.

Some people view DIY mainly as a means of saving money. If that is
the main criterion which overrides ease of use and reliability of
tools, quality of result and cost of ownership and usage is very
light, then it may make sense to buy a cheap tool if it can produce
work to a standard acceptable to the user.

I take a rather different view which is that I do DIY jobs because I
like doing them and because I can, in many cases do a better job than
a professional. Cost is a factor, but not the most important one.
I look at total cost of ownership over the lifetime of the tool, but
more importantly the quality of work I can achieve with it vs. the
cost.

I also look at whether it can save time in doing a job or make it more
pleasurable. If there is a job that I am not enthused about doing,
but that is made acceptable and I can get a good result that I
couldn't otherwise by buying a particular tool, I will buy it if I can
cover a reasonable amount of the cost as a saving vs. a professional
doing the job.

Likewise if it is a timesaving situation. That then depends on how
one costs one's time. Some people trade time for cost in the
direction of cost being more important. WIthin reason, I tend to work
the other way. If I have to waste a couple of hours returning a
tool that isn't up to the job or has failed, then to me, that is
wasting far more effort and money than buying a decent one in the
first place.

Especially in the field of motorised tools like drills and routers, a
good quality motor with proper control, power and decent bearings and
mechanics makes a huge difference in terms of use and quality of work
to one that is produced to a low price point.

I have found that more often than not, if I buy cheap tools, they are
either not robust, poor in use, don't do accurate work or fail.
In the past I've done that and for me the waste of time and
frustration simply isn't worth it.

I'm now at the point where almost all of my hand and power tools are
mid to high end products of good brands. It pays off. If I have a
problem, which is extremely rare, then I can justifiably go back to
the supplier and have it fixed as well as receiving compensation for
the effort involved. To me, that's a far more useful proposition -
total cost of ownership being more important than purchase price.

In the last few years, I have had only one issue with what should be a
decent branded tool. That was a DeWalt biscuit jointer - a mid
priced product - which had a design defect. It was returned to the
supplier - Axminster Power Tools, who collected it from me, refunded
the purchase price and gave me an additional credit as well. I
bought a Lamello one instead and that is superb.


As I say, I can understand that some people like to take a mainly cost
view of purchases. That's fine by me, but there are broader issues
and differing perspectives.

..
..andy

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