Over at Ohio Power Tool, they have 3 FLEX Tools flash sales, valid today-only, 12/8/2022.
All three promos are of the “buy something, get FREE bonuses” variety.
Buy this FLEX 2-Tool Combo, Get a FREE Tool Box + 2 Accessory Sets
The eligible 2-tool combo kit is the Flex 24V Max cordless hammer drill and impact driver combo kit, with 2.5Ah and 5Ah batteries, charger, and tool bag.
Advertisement
Lowe’s has a different freebie offer for the same combo kit.
With the eligible cordless tool kit purchase, you get ALL of these as a free bonus.
Buy this FLEX Starter Kit, Get 1 FREE Tool
The eligible FLEX 24V Max starter kit includes a 6Ah Stacked Lithium pouch cell battery and charger.
The freebie tool selection includes your choice of a drill, reciprocating saw, blower, or LED worklight.
Buy this FLEX 4-Tool Cordless Combo Kit, Get a FREE Stack Pack 3pc Tool Box Combo
The eligible combo kit comes with a hammer drill, impact driver, 7-1/4″ circular saw, work light, charger, tool bag, and two Stacked Lithium pouch cell batteries with 3.5Ah and 6Ah charge capacities.
The free Stack Pack 3pc tool box combo is valued at $299.
Advertisement
Collin
Flex needs to release more tools ASAP.
Stuart
Like what?
AP
Routers, various sanders, table saw, miter saw. Off the top of my head.
MM
I think a belt sander would be a great move for Flex. There’s not very many on the market–Milwaukee only just released theirs, Dewalt doesn’t have any, neither does Makita, Metabo, HPT, etc. A belt sander is also a high power demand tool so that should really match well with Flex’s larger pouch batteries.
LK
metabo hpt may have one on the way actually — as the hikoki sb3608da 36v belt sander was just released in japan.
Collin
Lawn mowers, edgers, string trimmers, etc.
That’s where all the tool brands are focusing their R&D right now and a 24 volt line of professional OPE that takes full advantage of the 2500+ watts of power delivered by a Flex 10ah battery pack that is a fraction of the size of most dedicated OPE batteries just makes sense.
As Flex said at a trade show: they’ll make anything that already comes in red, just better.
Yisan
Long time lurker, first time post: I finally jumped into a few battery lines this season (with a lot of help from your site Stuart). Ignoring the breadth of tools for a moment, Flex’s price structure & promotions just weren’t as compelling as the other brands. I’d have taken the leap of faith that Chervon’s going to stand by the brand and roll out a lot more product but SBD, TTI, etc just overwhelmed them on price. As it is, i bought the Stack Pack combo when it went on sale (because it’s so well made and isn’t reliant on buying into their batteries) but the rest of my budget went elsewhere.
Stuart
Thank you for the comment!
Chervon/Flex is in this for the long-haul.
Dewalt and Milwaukee indeed overwhelmed them and other tool brands with respect to price and promotions, but I have to wonder how much has been gained with all of those deep discounts. I’m sure there are reasons why smaller cordless power tool brands haven’t been trying to match the market leaders’ holiday promotions.
Collin
I find it odd, but fairly unsurprising, that many people think Flex is overpriced relative to the competition or has worse promotions.
I believe the issue comes down to price vs value. As a famous person put it: y’all know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Everything in a Flex kit is at least one step above whatever DeWalt and Milwaukee is dumping during a holiday promotion sale. The standard Flex charger is equivalent to a DeWalt or Milwaukee fast charger. The Flex 5.0 battery packs in more cells than the standard issue Milwaukee/DeWalt 5.0 batteries. The Flex batteries also don’t skip on the rubber overmolding, unlike DeWalt. The performance of the tool itself is often on par or higher.
In other words, I think merely comparing prices can be misleading as Flex provides extra value with better than average chargers and batteries. Not to mention better tool performance in many cases.
Flex also has already been constantly running free battery or free tool promotions.
MM
I studied the Flex deals quite hard this season but I didn’t end up buying any. I just didn’t find most of their deals all that attractive, at least from my position.
The kits with the large tool count all have the problem of including at least one tool I don’t want; for example, they bundle the generic circ saw instead of the inline, or they pad the count out with things I don’t need, like lights.
I thought the 6ah Stacked Lithium starter kit with 1 free tool from Acme was a great deal. 12 amp charger, very modern battery, and your choice of tool with a pretty long list to pick from. The other deals weren’t so hot, basically “buy a starter kit and get a free 5ah battery”. Free batt isn’t a bad thing, but it’s just a standard batt, not the “stacked lithium”. I think it is a bit silly to jump into a brand new platform–which has a major selling point of latest generation highest performing batteries–only to accumulate a bunch of older batts. That feels like taking a step backward to me. If I’m going to buy into Flex I want a significant proportion of stacked batteries.
When I put together my proposed purchase I’d have ended up with 4 tools, 2 basic chargers I’d never use, 4 old tech 5ah batteries, 2 stacked 6ah batteries, and two fast chargers for $1000. That’s too much money for too many “last-year’s” batteries. If they had offered discounts instead of the free batteries, or if they had offered stacked batteries as part of the deal instead–even if that cost more–that would have been a different story.
Bob
I probably have an odd opinion, but we use Milwaukee Fuel exclusively at work. I have Ryobi at home. We’ve been adding more bodies but not tools at work. Each kit costs us about $700 from team red for tools, batteries, and bits and another $300 for the packout. So $1000 all in. Since we have more bodies than tools, I’ve been bringing my Ryobi stuff to work (HP SDS-plus, HP impact, HP jigsaw, HP multitool) and the Ryobi HP line has been just as nice as the Milwaukee Fuel stuff. The Ryobi stuff is priced extremely competitively. The downside I see to Milwaukee, DeWalt, and Fuel is not that they are good/bad tools. They are all great tools, but they are too expensive. Even though they all go on sale, it’s still tough when you’re drill breaks and a warranty takes a week or two and it seems they are only full price at the local store when they break.
I just looked at Flex on Lowes website and it does look like they are having more promotions and their prices seem a bit more in line with DeWalt and Milwaukee which should help with sales.
Yisan
A cordless track saw that takes advantage of their battery power and depth of cut from the inline 6 1/2 circular saw, packaged in a Stack Pack and with an accessory to stand the tracks vertically on the box would be amazing and wouldn’t be too far behind Milwaukee’s upcoming release. Something to challenge Festool’s 75.
Robert
If I wasn’t already bought in a couple of other cordless tool battery lines, I would adopt Flex. The tools are good enough, and some are very smart. And what would have tip it over is the lifetime warranty they ran last year and this year for early adopters. If I remember correctly, the warranty even covered batteries, which is rare and huge. Normally, I would be weary of another abandonment by Lowes, but figure Chervon will stand behind them to a significant degree, so would take the Lowes risk.
MM
I believe that Flex is still offering that lifetime warranty, or at least they were until very recently. I very nearly bought some Flex from Acme last month, I poked around a lot looking for deals elsewhere as well, at the time Flex sill offering the “founders warranty” or whatever it was called and it said you had until the end of this year (2022) to register and get it.
I agree, I think that some of the tools are very smart indeed. The Inline 6 1/2″ circular saw, for example.
Plain+grainy
Off Topic; Gearwrench has a 16 piece metric/ sae ratcheting nut driver set at $37.15. The set has been cycling from $54 to $37, back & forth for sometime. #8916D. I notice Home Depot raised the high priced Toughbuilt saw horse from $64 to $70! No sales it seems on Dremel tools. I think I’ll wait for the Menards 15% off bag sale( I think it’s in January).
Plain+grainy
The Gearwrench set is on sale on Amazon.
Plain+grainy
The C700 Toughbuilt saw horse is over$70 at Acme, not Home Depot.
fred
In a strange (or perhaps planned) coincidence, today’s airing of The Price is Right TV game show – one of the “one-bid” items was a Flex tool set. I’m sure that some of the items placed by manufacturers on these game shows are probably coordinated with the season in order to spur sales.
MM
That 2-tool combo kit with the extra case and various bits looks like a pretty good starter set. I really like Flex’s impact driver. Not only is it very powerful but it has a fingertip trigger to release the bit. I greatly prefer that over the more common system with the sliding collar.
The starter kit with the 6ah stacked battery is interesting too. Note the speed of that charger, it’s not the usual cheapos you get with a starter set. That’s a 12 amp beast. Alas this deal is not as good as the one Acme had all November. They had a similar deal where you got a free tool with the kit but there were many more options to pick from.
Plain+grainy
I think the Flex impact has 2500 in lbs torque.
Plain+grainy
Interesting to see the Ridgid 1/4” impact rated at 2300 in lbs torque. The
Frank D
I have yet to see their tool storage at lowes?!
They’re reset the tool area a bit again, added locked fence panels … tool storage is pretty much zip nada ??
Bob
They’re tool storage is nice. I like it better than my pack out, but the company’s color is red, so we get Milwaukee. I do think for Flex to take off they need more tools in their lineup and lower the pricing a tad.
Stuart
My Lowe’s has Flex Stack Pack combos hidden away on the pallet racking by the Pro checkout – I really had to look for it.
Bob
Bummer! My two Lowe’s in Arkansas have them front and center near the pro checkout. It’s hard to miss. They have a big display at the end of the tool isle too.
Jeffrey Morefield
All these deals are done! I bought the 4 tool combo to get the Stack Pack for free. They emailed me and said that its all on backorder. but they are not canceling orders. Said they will ship them out as soon as they get in.
MM
Acme had a bunch of Flex on sale for most of November and the majority of it was sold out long before the end of the month. They honored the deals until the 30th but 95% of it sold out two weeks before.
Michal wood
Do they have sanders, table saw, miter saw, routers ??