Ridgid warrantee made useless

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
OK, nice little 12 V drill. Registered. Ridgid is the in-house license tool for Home Depot. Not just some brand they carry. Back in MD, when a battery went bad, took it to the store and the service desk replaced it. Spool forward a few years and now in NC. " That is through Ridgid, not Home Depot. You have to go online and file a claim"

Go inline. Nope. Have to Phone. All are busy. Select callback and it picked up not my phone number, but the menu buttons! No callback.
Ship insured postage paid at owners expense.

Well, you can buy a NEW 4 AH battery for $28 on e-bay instead of spending about $15 to send a 1.5 AH back. In other words, Home Depot is not playing fair and no reason to buy their tools for the lifetime warrantee. ( OEM Ridgid 1.5 AH is $59 )

Right, if my table saw fails, I am going to ship it back? 6 inch Jointer?

Bought third party batteries for my Milwaukee M12, Porter cable 20V, and older Makita 12V. Work fine. Screw HD. I bet I can pop it open and just replace the batteries. They are all just about the same. Proprietary cases to make you buy their brand replacement.
 

tri4sale

Daniel
Corporate Member
Try another HD, I've heard lots of people are able to go in and get them swapped out. And if you are on FB, message Ridgid directly there, might get some help.
 

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
One in MD had a rental desk. Maybe that is the difference, but the clerk said he used to work at the Chapel Hill one and they did not. Worth a try.
18V Makita XT281s kit sure looks nice. Would be nice to have a 1/2 inch cordless.
 

MarkE

Mark
Corporate Member
Had to have my Ridgid ros serviced. Did the claim at Ridgid online then brought it in to Home Depot in FV, with paperwork from Ridgid online and they sent it off to the the repair facility, which I believe is in Raleigh. Ridgid did offer the option to send it direct to the repair facility or drop of at HD. The PITA for me was it was 6-8 weeks to get it back, which ended up being 8 weeks.

The lifetime service agreement is a nice feature, but they sure do seem to make it harder than it should be to get things serviced. And now my sander needs to go back with the same problem.
 

Gotcha6

Dennis
Staff member
Corporate Member
Reminds me of the story they told about my grandpa buying life insurance for his mule, as said mule was a necessity to a farm in his day. The mule got sick and as was the custom, he took him out of the barn and into the corral as it would be easier to dispose of him without having to drag his corpse across the barn door sill.
When he filed the claim for the insurance, the first question they asked was, "Did the mule die in the barn?" Since he didn't, they denied the claim as that was the stipulation in the fine print. He never had much use for insurance - or insurance agents after that.
Sometimes guarantees aren't worth the paper they are written on if you have to jump through all the hoops they have.
 

tri4sale

Daniel
Corporate Member
One in MD had a rental desk. Maybe that is the difference, but the clerk said he used to work at the Chapel Hill one and they did not. Worth a try.
18V Makita XT281s kit sure looks nice. Would be nice to have a 1/2 inch cordless.

Fuquay and I think the HD on Strickland or Capital has a rental desk, might be worth a try. With Covid call centers are a pain right now, so I'd try messaging on Facebook and see if they can help. I did take my drill to a repair place off Capital by the Beltline when I needed it serviced under the LSA.
 

spartyon8

Peter
User
I took my planer to the Hanes Mall store in Winston and Was told that the tech was backlogged and they couldn’t promise it would be repaired or replaced for at least 3 months. Wanting to use the warranty that convince me to go Ridgid in the first place, I started filling out the paperwork and stopped when he charged me a $20 inspection fee. Even though my warranty information was in their system he said it didn’t matter, everyone has to pay the fee. Long story short, I sold the planer to someone else with them knowing it needed a coplaner adjustment of the feed rollers or cutterhead. Put that money into a Dewalt 735x and couldn’t be any happier.
 

junquecol

Bruce
Senior User
I've used the LSA a couple times. First time, drill went to J&S Tools in Raleigh. Several, as in many weeks later, UPS drops off a reconditioned tool to me. Drill has worked fine for many years now. Second a battery, took to the Fuquay store, and they replaced it on the spot. Had one set of tools they said I didn't register them in time, but I had Certificate of Mailing to prove I mailed registration in time. Took two years, and threats of legal action to get tool regisered. They sent me a letter stating that as a courtsey, they were doing registration this one time. Fired off a letter to them stating that it wasn't a courtesy, but them doing what they should have two years earlier. As SOON as a tool appears on your Ridgid Dashboard, PRINT OUT DASHBOARD!! DAMHIK!
 

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
I have heard of them "losing " registrations. Heading to a store with rental. If I get a new battery for just a trip, I can sell it with two good, sell my 18V impact I just don't like and buy the Milwaukee 2892 kit on sale right now. Probably get rid of my HF hammer drill as if I need a "real" one, I have a big Makita. Nice day to get the MG out for a drive.
 

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
Drove to Chapel Hill. Confirmed they no longer do counter replacement. Really snotty guy just shoved the phone number at me.
Never buying a Ridgid brand again. Only reason was for the batteries as they are slightly bigger and bulkier than the better ones. A step above Roybi, but not Bosch/Makita/Milwaulkee. More on par with DeWalt. and Hitachi.

Hard decision. I kind of like the Makita 6 1/2 inch circ saw I want for a panel cutter station and other tools slightly better than the M18 ones, though the M18 drill I like slightly better.

2 piece kits just about give you the impact driver for free over a drill/2 batteries and charger kit.
3 "kits" A Makita with 440 Inch pound drill, 2 3Ah etc for $229, Their slightly larger hammer drill kit ( same impact driver) with 2 4Ah batteries for $249, or the on sale Milwaulkee M18 500 inch pound kit for $200 ( normally $250) with only 2 Ah batteries. Don't really need the hammer part as I have a HF 6A corded and a big X whatever Makita, but the bigger batteries in the Makita may be worth it. Drill is about half an inch longer but never had to use a 1/2 inch in a tight space. Need to check the blade compatibility for multi-tools between Makita and Milwaukee. My Dremel is not the best in that regard and GAD does it make noise. Seems every time I need it, it is an awkward place where a cord is inconvenient.
 

bowman

Board of Directors, Webmaster
Neal
Staff member
Corporate Member
<shameless plug>
Buy raffle tickets, we are giving away Hilti 3pc drill/driver set with 2 batteries & charger. These are 12v, but wow these are nice.

</shameless plug>
 

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
Yea, well respected, but I have M12 set. I want to limit the number of systems/chargers etc. I was up to 6 before I started dumping redundant ones.
Should still buy a ticket or two every now and then to support the forum.
 

Ralrick

New User
Rick
There is a ridgid authorized service center in Henderson, NC. I had an issue with an old chop saw that they were helpful in getting resolved. It's about 30-40 minutes from N. Raleigh.
 

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
Good to know, bit over 50 miles. You can get two new batteries third party for $32. Driving 100 miles is not worth $16. How they can retail them for $60 with a strait face tells even more.
 

FrankK

New User
Frank
Had a similar situation with a roller stand I bought at Lowe's. The tightening screw stripped out after about 6 months of use. Stated a year warranty on paperwork. Tried to take it back, but was told the warranty was with the company, not Lowe's. Tried to contact company. No contact info on paperwork that came with it. Tried Googling it. Nothing came back. Chinese import with phantom shell company in Texas. Thought to myself, now that's downright devious to give a warranty on something with no way to return it. So I just went to Lowe's, bought another one, and returned the defective one a day later. It worked, but that's the last tool I'll buy from Lowe's.
 

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of choices. Market driven by lowest price, not best value.

Just asked my HVAC guy. Milwaukee all the way. The gutter guys Monday were Makita all the way. So just as undecided as ever. Seems Makita and Milwaulkee are pretty universal on multi-tool blades. I want a new multi-tool, angle grinder, trim saw at least.

Looked at the specs and guess I should keep the Ridgid 18V impact driver. It is 2500 inch pounds where the M18 and Makita are 1500. 1500 is far better for driving construction screws, 2500 is almost as much as my Central Pneumatic air gun and sheared several screws I was driving. Could be handy. Won't worry about a second battery though.
 

23tony

New User
Tony
I don't know about power tools - even Craftsman with their "lifetime unconditional warranty" (which WAS solid, don't know anymore) never seemed all that great to me on their power tools.

As for brands, almost seems it's what you find works for you. I never seem to hear consistent stories about any of them.
 

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
Who makes the tool is no where near as important as what the brand pays for. Chinese/Philippine etc OEMs will build whatever. There only a handful of actual manufactures and even fewer for many of the parts. For instance, I recently bought a Harvey band saw. Ever herd of them? Built many Grizzly, SawStop, Powermatic etc. ( Very happy with it BTW) GeeTech is another, but you wont see their brand in the US. I think they are starting in Europe. Which company builds what tool changes every 6 months or so. Not all tools for a given brand are made by the same company.

Any of these companies CAN make a top notch tool. They all understand SPC. They know quality is not free ( It is profitable). Quality is building what was intended. Do not confuse quality with functionality, design, or reliability. If you intend to build crap and build crap, then you may have perfect quality. I remember back working on Sanyo answering machines, circa '72, They could fail within weeks of the warantee but never before. Design feature. That they built them with that consistency shows excellent quality control. Gold Star ( now LG) had such great quality process control they could build TVs with no end of line setup or testing. That is how they were able to build a $90 CRT TV undercutting everyone else. Really cheap, poor performing, but infant mortality was no worse than anyone else. Customer perception of quality needs a new term so it is not confused with actual manufacturing quality.

This of course does not cover the infamous Chinese bait and switch where they get the test run approved than change parts, (bearings, glues, machining tolerances, plastic and alloy compositions, etc) for the next million, prepaid of course. Then the company goes out of business for a week before reopening so there is no recourse. Hide the principals names and get the same contract next week.

The point of this thread was to show the ill-intent from HD. Should not be a surprise. So, pick the tool as the tool only. A decade ago they honored their sales promises, now they don't. Was it smart to give LSA on a component they know only lasts 5 or so years at best? No, but they chose to do so and I can assure you, we paid for at least one battery swap in the price.

One might think the best option is to buy dirt cheap throw away (B&D, Ryobi etc) but look at the specs and performance. The cheap tools just don't work which makes them more expensive. Talking expensive, look at the actual final cost of HF tools. By the time you buy batteries and charger, more expensive than Makita! Even a lot of Ryobi is actually more expensive as they are sold piecemeal.

It seems there is a switch from drill/driver to drill/driver/hammer. Not sure I need the extra function, but the costs are about the same. Makes the tool about half an inch longer. I wonder if it implies tougher bearings and gears?

To be confusing, companies like Skill make some top notch tools, and some real junk. PC used to be the same, but now I think mostly junk. I have hated every DeWalt I ever bought. Just not tools I choose to pick up. Only complaint I have on Makita is after wearing out my 4 inch angle grinder, I got their 4 1/2. The switch design looks similar, but it takes two hands to work. Forget it with gloves on. Paddle switch next time! I wore out every Craftsman I ever had, but they worked well for the price where the cheaper tools today don't always. Good luck with Bosch. ( saber saw, drill, sanders). Bought the Dremel multi-tool from reviews and hate it almost as much as the Craftsman I burned up. Powerful, but the only way it does not damage your hearing is because it will make your hand go numb first.
 

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