Dewalt 18 Volt Compact Cordless Impact Driver

Achilles heel is the keyless chuck spring – These are a good impact driver but the part which always fails (i've had three of these fail in five years and its always this part) is the keyless chuck. There is a small spring which I estimate would cost about 5c for dewalt to mass manufacture but rather than have their australian retailer (black and decker) stock this part in online stores at a reasonable price, i.e. $1 each plus postage, the only way to get it is to import it from the USA for like $30. Which is ridiculous.

This is a very deliberate strategy I would say as it forces tradies to just buy another impact driver rather than wait for a wildly overpriced spring to get mailed out from the USA. Its very wasteful to just chuck out impact drivers because one small spring has failed, but no doubt is great for the profit margins of dewalt / black and decker.

My advice is keep your receipt for warranty as you will be forced to buy another one when the spring fails while you wait for the warranty repair so you can at least then have the repaired once it gets back as a spare. Then when the escond one you purchased fails you've goyt the (repaired) forst one to use while you send the second one off for the exact same warranty repair.

Excellent tool – This impact driver is excellent and reliable.Its powerful enough to rip heads off screws the chuck is good and adapters for 18v Dewalt lithium batteries are readily available for $20 on ebay.

Awesome – This impact is great I use it to work on engines do carpenter work you name it, it makes jobs quick and easy it can be used to break right nuts and bolts or to drive that stubborn wood screw the battery life is pretty good to I just wish spare batteries weren’t so expensive.