On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 17:34:03 +0100, Broadback
wrote:

I guess it depends on what you call cheap. I bought a bungalow four
years ago and spent over two years refurbishing it. I had a "cheap"
drill. About a year ago I decided to spend a little more and purchased
a Bosch SDS drill. How I wish I had done so when I started, I would
have saved money on drill bits and taken a fraction of the time to drill
holes in concrete lintels and "Staffordshire" brick!

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Well put it this way, I was borrowing a cheap Skil impact drill. When
it was returned to its owner I bought a Bosch 700RES from B&Q. Nice
drill, light, comfortable, but the chuck was wonky and tended to slip
on the bit when worked hard. So it went back.

I replaced it with an 850W Performance Power impact drill for half the
cost. No kit box, slightly heavier, but the keyless chuck was far
better than the Bosch. All tasks to date have been no hardship for
it.

Ultimately, if it blows up grinding through the umpteenth concrete
block in our garage I've lost £30 or so. No big deal.

I guess the question is, was I wrong to replace the Bosch with a
cheapo model or would there have been real benefits to me simply
swapping it for another (working) Bosch?