Any information on whether Craftsman is planning to phase out its V60 line? There are some crazy clearance deals on mowers and trimmers at my local Lowes. I’d chalk it up to end of season discounts, but it’s really not end of season, and they’re not discounting any of the Greenworks, Kobalt, or other cordless equipment other than Craftsman.
Just don’t want to buy into a dying battery platform.
Id be surprised if it was being killed off.
Those models might already be discontinued - I could see that maybe. But I have to think they would keep the V60 line up - as counterpart to the Dewalt Flexvolt 60V products.
Yeah – It would be a very early throwing in of the towel.
After doing some more research, I learned the mower has a brushed motor and the 5 Ah 60 volt battery takes around 3 hours to charge. They claim 60 minute runtimes, but with a brushed motor I have to assume that’s on grass that’s bone dry and less than a quarter inch above the blade. Still not a bad deal for $170, but asking $399 or more for it when they sell the Kobalt brushless mower for that price wasn’t a good move. My guess now is they’re going to release a brushless model next year.
I’ve seen Lowe’s reduce the JawHorses by quite a bit (as low as half-price), seemingly to rotate stock. I also noted yhat they put the DeWalt 20v Max. OPE on clearance shortly before they started selling 40v Mac, with the 20v going to Home Depot.
Decided against getting it after I read a review on another blog. While I feel the other blog is typically a little over the top with their test methodology and takeaways, it was hard to ignore the impact that the Craftsman’s brushed motor had on performance compared to everything else out there. The hunt for the perfect cordless mower continues.
if my experience with the Echo 58V cordless hedge trimmer hadn’t been so bad. I would be getting the Echo 58V mower.
RIght now if I had to buy one tomorrow I would most likely either get the Dewalt or a Husqvarna 36V pro line. (maybe the Stihl if the price was right)
I’ve had fabulous luck with my Echo 58V string trimmer and attachments. And of the 2 times I’ve used it I really like the Echo 58V chainsaw.
I haven’t heard anything yet. I would imagine it’s a seasonal change to make room for Craftsman snowblowers and other more Fall and Winter-focused OPE.
Craftsman V60 just launched maybe a year ago. They wouldn’t phase the product line out so quickly. Although I wouldn’t be as certain about individual products, there’s the potential to keep brushed motor tools at lower pricing even if more powerful or brushless tools were released.
As I mentioned in the post on this, the steep cuts and the timing are concerning to me. If it was October, I’d understand wanting to clear space for snowblowers. But they made these cuts in early August, still peak mowing season in my opinion. My local store is down to their last mower already. Additionally, there were a few snowblowers on the adjacent shelving. While I was there, 2 people were looking to buy mowers. Nobody was looking to buy a snowblower – again, because nobody buys a snowblower in August.
Could be clearing out inventory for a new brushless model or some other upgraded thing, as they did with their Kobalt 80V stuff last year – the new stuff thankfully uses the same batteries. Guess we’ll see.
I think SBD will come up with new 60V DeWALT Flexvolt tools, probably 15Ah battery or higher, which I doubt they will introduce two higher capacity batteries at the same time so I think first 15Ah and then after a year 18Ah, something like that, the history of all brands has not shown that they have introduced two batteries at the same time, unless it is the beginning of the line. So for a while they keep Craftsman unavailable, this would push some in Craftsman 60V platform to move to DeWALT 60V platform. This is a good policy to sell more tools, as you will sell your older/other brand tools to others for lower price or give them as gift to a friend or a family member. Another reason is they will move to newer version and brushless tools.
THIS NOT the last of the Craftsman V60 line, lets stop with the unfounded rumors.
SBD (Stanley Black and Decker) is doing the opposite by promoting their Craftsman Lawn Garden V60 product line and reducing their Dewalt Lawn & Garden line. Compare websites for Lawn/Garden products for Dewalt Vs. SBD Craftsman. Over the past few weeks Dewalt lawn & garden items have been disappearing from their site (and rummored internally).
Several press releases have also indicated that the aquisition of Craftsman name is to move SBD more agressivly into that market space. They will likely run the line hard 2-3 years and evaluate market performance and infiltration in the 3-4.
(Sincerely) Please correct me anywhere i am wrong.
I completely agree with you about SBD trying to promote the Craftsman Lawn Garden tools, but you should remember STB is not only one brand, if they were just one brand what you said was going to be correct, but imagine you have two different brands and both are going to produce the same tools, how are you going to sell then? If I were SBD I would promote one at a specific time and then other one at another time, like on and off, but on of one would be the off of the other one, and after one year I would switch it to the other one, I promise you this tactic would sell more for SBD at the end of the day.
Just like to defend myself by clearly stating that I did not intend to start “unfounded rumors.” I asked a question as a consumer on a site with industry insiders in response to strange pricing decisions I saw being made at multiple locations across the country.
At no point did I state that I had any inside information. In fact, I emphasized my lack of information and the circumstantial facts I was questioning.
Here in Southeastern PA was recently back at Lowes trying to track down materials to make my bath fan exhaust work in the space I have for it.
It looked like Lowes had out all of its new Spring inventory – mowers had replaced snowblowers, the front of the store was all seed spreaders.
The only cordless mowers on the shelves were Greenworks and Kobalt.
There were probably 5 or 6 Craftsman push mowers but they were all gas.
All of the other Craftsman outdoor tools in the aisle were V20.
Did an inventory check on the Lowes website, and while the V60 line is still listed, I was only able to find a single string trimmer within 15 miles of me, and nothing was available for shipping.
Perhaps they’re just late to bring new stuff to the market, but this would be quite the slow rollout for Lowes’ flagship brand if so.
EDIT: They are still listed as products on the Craftsman website, and in fact all of them have a “NEW” sticker branded on the corner of the product image. Looking at the specs, they all seem to be the same as last year, and several of the reviews are several months old.
looking at how the V60 system was made it seemed like the battery was only for the OPE stuff and a one trick pony. Sort of thought there would be a craftsman analogy to the dewalt flexvolt. the battery shapes were a touch odd too. sort of like an afterthought.
Around me none of our lowe’s stores have a V60 device on the shelf. Lots of the V20 though. I thought the same thing, that the V60 series was going to be rebooted.
Chimming in here with what I know locally. I talked to a few managers at my local Lowes today. One overseeing the outdoor garden area said they would not be filling the shelves with anymore V60 stuff as it didn’t sell well at all. Not sure what this means in general for Lowes but I won’t be getting it locally if I wanted it. So I’m glad I didn’t buy into this system.