Dewalt launched a new 20V Max cordless snow shovel last year, and influencers were leaving overly positive reviews on Home Depot’s website.
That meant it was a great snow clearing product, right? Not quite.
Incentivized reviewers were giving it 5 stars ratings and saying things like “I can’t wait to use it.” There were photos of the snow shovels sitting in living rooms. “5-stars: I’m so excited to try this out.”
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See Also: Tool-Selling Shenanigans
But then winter came, and with it snow.
Actual customer and user reviews were terrible – a litany of 1-star complaints.
Users described the Dewalt cordless snow shovel as delivering “shockingly poor performance.” It was “an epic fail,” and “absolute joke.” “Dewalt has moved into the toy industry with this one.”
By the end of last winter, it was clear that this Dewalt tool disappointed a lot of people. Yes, “squeaky wheel” and all that, but there was an immense amount of negative feedback.
I checked Home Depot’s online store today to see how things ended up.
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Ah. Apparently the reviews were so bad Dewalt or their manufacturing partner took down the product listing.
That’s right, Home Depot is no longer selling the Dewalt DXSVXA2016-002 20V Max cordless snow shovel. I guess the reviews were so bad they stopped selling it.
However, Dewalt just launched the DXSVXA2016-002B, which looks to have been given a blank slate at Home Depot.
Goodbye DXSVXA2016-002, hello DXSVXA2016-002B.
There are two 1-star reviews so far, but they’re both a bit ridiculous. One reviewer gave it 1-star because there’s no snow to test the tool on, and the other complains about how Dewalt 20V Max batteries, which aren’t included, are expensive.
The tools look identical. Did they just relaunch the same product?
It really looks like the user reviews were so bad that Dewalt or their manufacturing partner scrubbed the Home Depot product listing and replaced it with a blank slate.
It seems to me that this was done to hide all the bad reviews from last season in order to sell more tools this year. That seems awfully shady and shameful to me.
Cullen
Optimistically the B model may have upgraded electronics to better shovel snow.
But I think we all know better than to trust a corporation.
Adam
Usually the B at the end, means it is a bare tool, but upon looking at last years link, it is listed as tool-only as well.
I really think that if they changed anything, it would result in a new model, especially with such horrible reviews.
Adam
Looking more at the model naming nomenclature for them, this is a rebadged tool from another manufacturer, indicated by the DX. So Dewalt’s overall input was the yellow color code & font.
So even more so now, I doubt there were any internal changes, and adding the B makes it stand in line as a bare tool, also allowing them to scrub those reviews.
Check out the Mellif “knock off” QESOO (is it pronounced like the cheese 🤔), that is 12″ width.
https://mellif-tools.com/products/12-cordless-snow-shovel-compatible-with-dewalt-20v-max-battery
S
Was it that low on power?
It seems to me most ‘power shovels’ get pretty poor reviews, I suspect because people expect too much out of them.
Jason
That’s kind of what I was wondering if people are just expecting it to do too much or are using smaller batteries on it. Gotta assume you’d want an 8 AH at the least.
I use the Hart universal attachment on my Greenworks 80v power head and while it has a ton of power, it has its limitations. Mostly I use it to “edge” around the house so I don’t hit the house with the snow blower and then it’s nice on the steps if a lot of snow blows in.
Kyle
My recollection is that pretty much every brand launched their “own” power shovel right around the same time, which leads me to believe that none of them actually did the R&D on the item. Instead this strikes me as some manufacturer approached every major tool OEM, gave a big song and dance about how great this product was, and managed to sell it to a whole bunch of them.
I don’t think it has anything to do with “expecting too much”, it’s that from the very beginning, it was a terrible Amazon alphabet soup brand grade tool, that a bunch of OEMs made the mistake of purchasing.
The disturbing thing here is Dewalt’s unwillingness to eat their humble pie and send these things to a garbage incinerator.
JMJR
I was hoping Dewalt was going to come out with something like this, but when they revealed the final product, I decided not to buy it.
Price was too high for perceived quality, it was built by a third party manufacturer, and actual hands on reviews were not good. It’s a shame they’re doubling down on the same terrible product.
Mike S
This comes right from the Harbor Freight play book. Give it a new SKU and all sins are forgiven.
Andy
I’ll stick to the $20 2-cycle old rusty one I bought off Craigslist a few years ago. Noisy as heck but it’ll cut through about anything.