I recently killed my DeWalt 18V XRP hammer drill and was close to tears because we've been through so much together. So much material. See what that does; I started by drilling wood and concrete to try mixing mortar. I have a 5 gallon bucket full of tile mortar and a large agitator attachment in the chuck of my drill headed to town. I've done two buckets of mud without incident, but on the final mix the rig gave up the ghost, full of smoke and a nasty smell of burning electronics, which is never a good thing.
I recently killed my DeWalt 18V XRP hammer drill and was close to tears because we've been through so much together. So much material. See, that's what it does. I stopped drilling in wood and concrete and tried mixing in some mortar. The 5 gallon bucket full of tile mortar and the large mixer attachment finally let me in.
I've made two buckets of mud with no surprises, but the last time the mix changed a bit. With the thick smoke and nasty smell of burning electronics, the drill finally died. The motor froze. I begrudgingly had to pull out my corded DeWalt 1/2" drill bit for this task. I blame myself for not training properly in the first place, I put it down to lessons learned. I think I'm out of luck because that 18V XRP hammer drill is about 5 years old. The warranty must have expired by now.
what to do…
I can't bear to get rid of my old friends. I put it under my bench and forgot about it for a while. One day a few months later, a friend told me about the DeWalt repair service program. I think I need to check. Let's face it, the last thing I want to do in these tight times is spend three hundred dollars on a new drill. (In fact, I'd love to own one of the new DeWalt Lithium-Ion XRP hammer drills that recently hit the market.)
I first turned to the DeWalt website. From there, I followed a link to find the factory service center closest to me. Conveniently, the factory is just an hour away. I called them and they explained the whole situation to me. Factory owned DeWalt Service Centers use the Guaranteed Repair Cost (or GRC) program. This takes the guesswork out of the repair process. They promise the repair price will not exceed the tool's published replacement price. This means that if you send your drill back because the switch is broken, they will just repair the switch and bill you for the repair plus the cost of shipping it back to you. Repair costs will never exceed the fixed amount for the tool. Most of the time it's less.
Bring my baked diamonds… I send it from the post office to the indicated address via a flat rate shipping box. Within a few days, I got a call from a service technician. He said my drill could not be repaired, but they would send me a newly made drill that was the exact same model as the one I sent. Got it: the combined price of a new drill and shipping is less than a third of what a drill costs new! I received the drill a few days later and was back in business. The only problem with the new drill is that it doesn't have my name all written on it like the old one did, and the overmolded rubber grip hasn't been sanded smooth!
how it works
As part of GRC's maintenance program, they perform a full teardown inspection, including thorough cleaning and lubrication, replacement of worn and damaged parts, and thorough performance and safety testing of tools. Now word is that since Porter-Cable and Delta are part of the DeWalt family of tool brands, they now repair them too. The DeWalt service network includes more than 85 factory-owned locations, so there's likely to be one near you. If you need to ship the tool to a service center for warranty or non-warranty service, make sure the tool is securely packaged and adequately insured to cover any loss or damage that may occur in transit. For service-related issues or for more information on service-related issues, please contact your nearest service center.
So don't throw away that broken DeWalt tool. For more information on DeWalt repair services, please visit here.