Purchasing factory refurbished tools

[ray vile]

Has anyone ever had any experience with buying any of the factory refurbished tools that are for sale on Ebay, Amazon or any other of the tool outlets that are online.

They are alot less money than purchasing new, But I wonder if the quality is the same

[Phil Shull]

Greetings Ray,

I recently purchased a DeWalt D51257 Factory Reconditioned 16-Gauge Finish Nailer from Toolking.com and it seems to be just like it was fresh from the factory.

Granted I haven't put in through a long period of extreme work, but what I have done has uncovered no problems so far.  No jambs, misfires or anything like that.

The one "problem," if that is what it is, was that the gun did not come with a carrying case or any "extras" (nails, oil, etc) though it did have a standard DeWalt Instruction Manual.

So far I am completely satisfied with the purchase and would recommend the same to anyone who asked.

I wish you well,

Phil

[Jens Jensen]

Yep I buy Dewalt rebuilds from www,hardwaredales.com and have never had a problem.They are based out of Bellingham Wa.They sell new and rebuilt also full supply of Kreg Tools.http://www.hardwaresales.net/internet_division.html

[steve kidd]

hi ray, i got my dewalt miter saw from amazon, years ago. still no problems. just becareful with ridgid, im not sure you still get the lifetime warranty and you know i am a ridgid man. what are you looking at to buy?

 

[ray vile]

the planer, 399 @ home depotand 299 online refurbished, but my brother inlaw gets 10% at home depot so after shippng it will probably only a couple dollars difference

steve kidd said:

hi ray, i got my dewalt miter saw from amazon, years ago. still no problems. just becareful with ridgid, im not sure you still get the lifetime warranty and you know i am a ridgid man. what are you looking at to buy?

 

[John Schaben]

I'm big on reconditioned tools. Most of my stuff has a little "R" on it somewhere. Most of the reconditined outlets are good on customer service and shipping. My table saw shipped for $6.

I usually get my Hitachi stuff from reconditionedsales.com, Most everything else from CPO

http://www.reconditionedsales.com/Woodworking___c470.aspx

http://cpooutlets.com/our-network-of-stores/

[Daniel Hanten II]

I recently purchase a Dewalt refurbished impact driver and have not had any issues.  I purchsed from www.tooliday.com which is run by toolking, but is like a daily deals website. 

 

If you do purchase from HD I have had good luck getting them to accept the 20% of coupon from Harbor Freight for a single item which is more than your brother in law can get.

[Gene Maiorano]

When I can, I get eBay auction tools...got a Jet Shaper, knives & cutters for it, other tools like cordless drills, just about anything.   There were times when I was disappointed...DOA happens sometimes or too much mileage, but mostly it's a positive source.

[Jay Boutwell]

Hi Ray, I think it has alot to do with the quality of the tool in the first place that will depend on how good you can expect it to perform.  I have bought a couple rebuilt nail guns in the past to get me by on a job site.  One was a non-brand that hardly got home with me before it went bad and the other is a bostitch brad nailer that i purchased around 15 or so years ago.  It has seen many days of firing nails in all kinds of enviroments that had plenty of saw dust and actual mud and water and it is still on of my best nail guns in my collection.  From my experience with the building trades the factory rebuilts perform just as well as the new tools providing that it was a quality tool in the begining and was rebuilt correctly.  I have had tools that are new fail just as easily as the rebuilts like my senco stapler that was always on the shelf for repair.  I rebuilt it once and it worked awhile and then failed.  I had it rebuilt again by a professional gun repair and it failed again within a matter of a short time.  i fixed it by junking it out and bought another one of the same brand and model and it is still working today and that has been several years ago.  So I guess in conclussion some of it depends on just how good was the tool origionally built in the first place.

[John Schaben]

I think Jay is dead bang on this. If for no other reason than when upgrading tools, the cheaper tools are pretty much an expense, not an investment. They have pretty much zero resale/tradein value. Where the name brand stuff, even with the dog beat out of 'em, will command premium prices in the used market, some as much as 50% retail or more... Shoot, even Craftsman seem to get good money for used tools and I haven't considered them "quality" for a good long time.

Jay Boutwell said:

Hi Ray, I think it has alot to do with the quality of the tool in the first place that will depend on how good you can expect it to perform.  I have bought a couple rebuilt nail guns in the past to get me by on a job site.  One was a non-brand that hardly got home with me before it went bad and the other is a bostitch brad nailer that i purchased around 15 or so years ago.  It has seen many days of firing nails in all kinds of enviroments that had plenty of saw dust and actual mud and water and it is still on of my best nail guns in my collection.  From my experience with the building trades the factory rebuilts perform just as well as the new tools providing that it was a quality tool in the begining and was rebuilt correctly.  I have had tools that are new fail just as easily as the rebuilts like my senco stapler that was always on the shelf for repair.  I rebuilt it once and it worked awhile and then failed.  I had it rebuilt again by a professional gun repair and it failed again within a matter of a short time.  i fixed it by junking it out and bought another one of the same brand and model and it is still working today and that has been several years ago.  So I guess in conclussion some of it depends on just how good was the tool origionally built in the first place.

[Jens Jensen]

Besides tools I even go a step further and have my cordless batteries rebuilt

[John Schaben]

Looked into that myself. Problem I have is by the time I pay the rebuilding charge plus shipping two ways, I can buy a new one.

Jens Jensen said:

Besides tools I even go a step further and have my cordless batteries rebuilt

[Gene Maiorano]

For cordless tool batteries: If you have the time & you're good with patience & soldering, you might try buying "sub-C" rechargeable batteries and replacing the cordless batteries yourself.
I've done it, it works well and is a whole lot less costly than new plus the shipping is lower than letting a vendor rebuild for you..
All that is in the original battery pack is a group of batteries wired in series-each of the individual batteries is 1.2volts, so a 14.4volt battery pack, for example is 10 sub-C batteries...and you can buy higher ampere hour (mAH) capacity than the original...it actually can be better than new.
A supplier I have used is All-Battery Center, an eBay store.