Dewalt tools from HD & Lowes

[jseklund]

I know some of you read my thread on the Ryobi AP1300 planer going south, but I don't think anyone had any solutions. I went and took some time looking at it and realized that the screws that hold the blade onto the cutter head had backed out during the operation and wedged themselves between the cutter head and the body of the planer- making it impossible to rotate the head. I just got the planer about 6 months ago, and it's under warranty I found, so I just dropped it off at the nearest service center.

The closes Dewalt service center is about 80 minutes from me, and the Ryobi service center sold all makes of tools. I asked if they serviced Dewalt, since I have a lot of Dewalt tools, and they were much closer to me (about 30 minutes). I've only ever had a problem with my Dewalt belt sander, and torture most of my other Dewalt tools. He said no, but we started talking.

What was interesting is that this person told me to never buy Dewalt tools from Home Depot (and presumably lowes too). He said if you look closely, the model #'s are the same, but the "types" will have different numbers. Apparently Dewalt makes the tools differently for HD and Lowes.

I don't know if this is just BS, but I do know that this happens quite a bit- factories will kick out slightly different products for bulk purchases for large retailers. The corners are cut to lower the price, obviously. I started thinking though- the only tool I ever bought from HD or Lowes was my belt sander. This person did not know this at all- but everything else I have comes from Amazon, Western Tool, etc.

I just found it interesting because I hear a lot of people who have bad experiences with Dewalt, and I've tortured my Dewalt tools and they are great IMO. I've been a Dewalt fan for a while, and am happy with everything except the belt sander- the one tool that came from HD.

Has anyone else heard of this? Do you know if Amazon has the same "type" tools as the larger stores? Or do they sell the better "type"? I would assume they would look for similar deals, and they usually have the best prices in comparison to HD and Lowes, so I think it would make sense. I just thought it was interesting and may explain why I've had better experience than others with this brand......

[JeffG78]

Interesting

Hmmm, I've never looked that closely, but I believe that all my DeWalt tools have come from HD. I have used them all heavily and have never had any trouble with any of them. I have heard of other brands doing this type of thing, but never DeWalt before. I will start looking at the numbers to see if they are the same, or not.

[LCHIEN]

i find that hard to believe, because a brand like Dewalt is built on reputation, would not risk that reputation by selling a lower quality, non-distinguishable product through discounters.

You might notice that Delta for example sells its lower end "Shopmaster" line through Lowes but sells the high end X5 and other tools through woodworking specialty stores. But they are definately differentiated.

[LarryG]

What Loring said, basically. My guess, and admittedly it's just a guess, is that it's BS. There might well be minor differences in some of the numbers for tracking purposes; that sort of thing does indeed happen, and it's probably what gave rise to this story, wherever it began. I would be very surprised if there's any actual difference in the tools themselves.

[pirinst]

Been watching the prices of Dewalt 735 Thickness

Planer. All of late 2005 and most of 2006 it was listed as 500something with

either $50 gift certificate, free add on, or on "sale" for $499. Since I was only

going to use a tp a few times, I couldn't justify the cost and bought the

Ryobi TP mentioned in this thread. After reading about seized blade screws

I immediately opened it up, took out each screw and added grease to the flat

surface, so they will come out after usage later on. I did find one drive chain

on top was not correct and fixed myself.

Back to the Dewalt-now they are selling for $550 everywhere I go- Sears,

the Borg, and Lowes. Interesting to me, most of the time prices stay

the same or go down a little bit over time.

[final_t]

Mmm, not exactly BS, but the service center guy may be slightly mixing up his stores. Wal-Mart does have their suppliers do this in order to get a better deal, and we all know that Sears does and have them rebadge as Crasftman/Kenmore.

This should be simple enough to double-check: Visit hd/lowes/wal-mart and start writing down numbers and UPC codes. Then visit another store, or better yet, an authorized reseller (WoodWerks, Woodcraft, Rockler) and write down their numbers and compare.

Short of this, grain of salt and all that.

[Bruce Cohen]

For what its worth, I worked for HD for 2 years and all name brand merchandise sold is exactly the same as you can buy anywhere.

What HD (and Lowe's) do sell, are branded name products that are either made for them or by companies owned by HD.

Take for instance their Glacier Bay and Pegasus faucet sets. No actual companies exist by that name, the products are made by various different factories (in China, where else) and are then branded with that name.

This holds true for many "house" branded products. But HD does not sell an inferior version a name brand product.

This mindset is just another "(sub)urban myth"

Bruce

[sweensdv]

As far as different Types within a certain model number, I believe that in most cases they usually refer to upgrades that are made to that particular model. One example that comes to mind is the Porter Cable 557 Biscuit Joiner. The 557 was initially introduced as the 557 Type 1. After some problems were discovered with that model they made design changes and although it still was a Model 557 the Type was now a 2. As time went by they found another glitch with the Type 2, fixed it, and now the current model 557 is a Type 3. All three types are a Porter Cable 557 but all three are slightly different.

Do the big box stores get first shot at buying the remaining inventory of certain models that are about to be upgraded? Maybe that's the answer to the different Types question but then again maybe its not.

[jseklund]

Thanks for the replies.

I kind of took it with a grain of salt obviously- like LChien was the first to point out and everyone else said- would they risk ruining their reputation? I know that companies sometimes manufacture things differently like this, but I would think they would either brand it differently or make it distinguishable in some way.

Final_T- Wal-mart and sears I can understand. But again, in the case of sears, the products usually get rebranded. Same with HD like Bruce Said. Ridgid is sold mainly at HD and Metabo makes a lot of their products. Ryobi makes the Ryobi tools for HD and the Sears tools under the craftsman name (This is a forum about the BT3100, huh?). In the case of Wal-Mart, they sell home-owner tools, so the case is probably a little different. A B&D drill probably has more plastic in it anyway, and if they change the packaging, etc- it may bring the price down enough to meet a price point without further compromising the tool's quality.

Actually, I would have bet that would have been the major difference if there were any- small things like packaging. I just have not noticed any difference, and like Sweensdv said- I would think the types refered to revisions or something along those lines.

I took it with a grain of salt, but was just curious. Strange things happen, and since the only real HD dewalt purchase I ever made was a belt sander that went south quickly- it seemed interesting. I never told the guy at the service center about the belt sander, it was just something I thought about after.

Pirinst- Thanks for the advice. I had been seeing that after it broke. I should have looked before I used it I guess. It never came up in my research when I was looking to purchase. I actually have the opposite probem though it seems. The screws backed out while planing, as if they weren't torqued enough, and got jammed into the metal body- still in the cutter head, so the cutter head won't spin.

[lago]

I don't know about tools but I was told this by a Maytag dealer. We first looked at Sears and did some price checks w/model #. Went to the Maytag dealer and made the comment that the model # didn't match but the washer looked exactly like the one at Sears. He said that it was made by Maytag but if you looked underneath, it had plastic pulleys and some other differences not noticable from outside. Never have had a chance to check this out also.
Ken

[cgallery]

Differing model #'s prevents customers provides manufacturers with an easy way to determine customer origin ("Oh, that is a 343-H, the H means he bought it at Home Depot"). And, it provides stores with an out on price matching ("Oh, ours is a dash -H, not exactly the same as the one at Lowes"). The latter doesn't happen very often, but I have seen it employed when advertised specials were too good to be true.

For example, Lowes accidentally advertised a drill for $29, below cost, and quickly runs out. People take the ad to HD and demand a price match. HD avoid selling below cost by slight differences in model #.

Actually, these days, retailers will usually sell below cost to keep customers happy. Or they'll very often hide inventory or claim it is presold so they don't have to tell customers that they won't match a price.