I’m a heavy DIYer. I’m on my second full home gut in the past 7 years. In that time I’ve had my Porter Cable 18V with two drills, reciprocating saw and circular saw. I’m on my last battery and ready to get something new.
The Tim Allen in my want to upgrade to the full brush-less, newest, super power awesome stuff, but my day job economist side says get what works for a DIYer. I really want a drill and impact or two drills so I don’t have switch between pilot drill and driving. I also need to end up with a reciprocating saw of some sort for the occasional cutting stuff out of weird places.
I would guess that Father’s Day will bring out some good deals at Home Depot and some of the online sources.
It might be worth your while to sign-up for emails from some of the folks who do put forth some decent promotions. Some of the online dealers that come to mind are:
Acme Tools
ToolUp
Tool Barn
Ohio Power Tool
International Tool
Tools Plus
Coastal Tool
I would focus on the X5 set (Brushless) and ignore the X4 set; the improvements to the tools overall is worth the modest cost bump, unless you can get the X4 as a huge discount.
I recently started replacing my old Craftsman 19.2V with Milwaukee M12 gear. At work we use Rigid 18V stuff, and just recently picked up a big X5 set. It is all really nice gear, and I have no issues recommending it.
Honestly, if you are just a DIY’r, of any stripe, The Ryobi 18V stuff makes for pretty good deals, and the variety of tools they offer is insane. Several YouTubers I follow use a variety of Ryobi’s cordless stuff and rave about the value. There are times when I really wish I would have went that route, but (as far as I know) the Milwaukee is the only 12V line that has a drill w/a 1/2" chuck and hammer drill capability. I haven’t regretted that purchase at all; the smaller, lighter tools are easier to store, easier to use, and I have never had an issues with lack of power or runtime out of them (for my purposes, YMMV).
Thanks for the advice. I found this set R-9214 on sale for $250 in my store and had the 3/23 contractor $20 off coupon to get it down to $242 after taxes. Not bad. And I’ve got someone buying my old porter cable for $60. That’s not to bad for a solid upgrade. I still have to find a Recipercating saw, but that shouldn’t be too hard.
My brother-in-law has that Ridgid set, it’s very good, he’s picked up quite a few additions too, recip, jobmax(several heads), a couple extra batteries, light, etc. I keep telling him to pickup the Stealth Force (because I wanna play with it). All in all good stuff, I ocationally use his tools on the job site and I have no complaints… I personally prefer my yellow tools but if I only had to use Ridgid I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.