Craftsman 21833 Discontinued?

[natausch]

Gone from the website and the one I had in my "keep an eye on the price" cart went poof after suggesting I take a look at a local store.

Walked into a Sears at lunch, a beat up floor model was there, but not marked on clearance, at least yet.

Still listed in the Craftsman Club Flyer for February-April at the $449 rate. If true this is kind of sad since it was only released last year and yet another encased motor contractor is off the market. Was really hoping to nab one if Bing went back up to 20%.

[dewi1219]

That's odd - I just bought one two weeks ago on sale, but not on clearance. But come to think of it, it was the last one at any store in my area at the time (other than display units).

[natausch]

I wonder if they pulled it because people were getting below $400.

Sears/Cman is still showing the $799 hybrid, but between the R4511, Lowes Hitachi CF10 and now maybe this version going away I guess the idea of enclosed contractor might be going away before we exit the economic slump.

[Knottscott]

I wouldn't make too much of it yet....Sears does wonky things with their website on a regular basis.

[Cubsfan]

I just called the local Sears, and the guy can still order it to the store. He said that if it was discontinued he wouldn't be able to order it, for what it's worth. Given that I just got one a couple weeks ago, I was more worried that it was pulled for a safety issue or something. Given that I got it for $200 below MSRP, I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to pull it off for awhile (or maybe just ran out of stock online).

[pacwind3]

I looked at one last week in my local sears. I would hate to see it go away as I have it earmarked for a possible purchase in the future. I really like the riving knife/splitter guard assembly. It's like the one on my Bosch and I love it.
One thing about the 21833 I wasn't loving was the throat plate. Although it's a traditional shape, it's really thin. So to make replacement plates would have to be made of some thin material and then they would be prone to flexing. Otherwise it seemed really nice.

[Cubsfan]

I agree about the throat plate. Also, a lot of reviews talk about horrible instructions. They must have change them in the newer versions, because I actually found the instructions mostly fine. Could have been a little more verbose, but I figured it out.