Over at Amazon, they have a new blacked-out Metabo HPT (formerly Hitachi) 18V cordless impact driver kit, WH18DBFL2QB.
If you ask me, this might be positioned as a holiday season 2019 “special buy,” maybe even a Black Friday special. But, we’ll see.
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The new Metabo HPT cordless impact driver features a new all-black color scheme. In regard to features and specs, it has a brushless motor and is rated at 1522 in-lbs max torque.
- 1/4″ hex drive
- 1522 in-lbs max torque
- 3100 RPM
- 2300 BPM
- LED worklight
- Length: 5-1/32″
- On-tool battery indicator
- Weighs 2.9 lbs with 1.5Ah battery
The kit comes with a 1.5Ah Li-ion battery and charger.
Price: $159
This new Metabo HPT brushless impact driver lacks a lot of the features and premium specs that make the Hitachi/Metabo HPT triple hammer impact driver a personal favorite. See Ben’s review of the triple hammer impact driver here. However this new single-speed model is significantly less expensive.
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At $159, this new blacked-out cordless impact driver is still NOT a particularly HOT value. Consider the similar WH18DBFL2S model, which looks to feature the same exact tool but in typical Hitachi and Metabo HPT green and black color scheme.
This impact driver, which looks to have the same exact specs, also comes with a removable belt clip and carrying bag, and is bundled with a higher capacity compact 3.0Ah battery.
Price: $148
Discussion
If you don’t care about blacked-out vs. green and black color schemes, the WH18DBFL2S bundle gives you a higher capacity battery and extra accessories, plus $11 savings in your pocket.
With no carrying bag, belt clip, a 1.5Ah battery, and blacked-out color scheme, plus the October launch, I’d bet that the WH18DBFL2QB kit will almost definitely be a holiday 2019 special buy.
The blacked-out cordless impact driver kit is currently $159. If it is destined for holiday season or Black Friday discounting, what price do you think we’ll see it at? $99 is a magical number for single-battery impact drivers and drills. If we don’t see it priced that low, perhaps $119? $129?
Speaking frankly, $99 would almost be necessary for this model to succeed at holiday sales. There are going to be brushless impact driver kits from Dewalt, Makita, and Milwaukee Tool at this price point. Bosch has a brushed motor impact driver kit at $89 at the time of this posting, and we might see $99 pricing on their Gen 1 or even Gen 2 “FREAK” 2-in-1 impact driver kits.
In my opinion, $159 is too high for what you get with this blacked-out special edition cordless impact driver, at least compared to the “regular” kit.
Let’s for the moment assume that this Metabo HPT kit is destined to be priced at $99 for Black Friday 2019 or the Holiday 2019 shopping season. If you’re in the market for a 1-battery impact driver kit, how likely are you to buy this one?
Speaking personally, I love my Hitachi/Metabo HPT 18V triple hammer impact driver. But, my driver also has the triple hammer engineering and multiple speed and torque options. If I can’t get those features at the $99 “special buy” price point, then the comparative factors come down to max torque, tool size, battery capacity or count, and how appealing I find that brand’s 18V cordless power tool platform.
Metabo HPT tools typically offer solid engineering. I’d find this to be strong competition in the “special buy impact driver” category, but only at $99. If it’s priced any higher, and too many advantages would be awarded to competing brands, objectively speaking.
If this turns out to be a special buy at $99, would you buy it over other brands’ $99 impact driver kits?
If you *must* have a blacked-out impact driver at this price, also consider Makita’s sub-compact model, which is $159 for the one-battery kit.
John
Pass. Go on ebay and just buy an 18v triple hammer, still one of the best impacts made. That 1.5ah battery should just go away.
Joe H
I avoid buying any black tools if I can avoid them. Black tools tend to get lost because they are hard too see under low light conditions especially if they fell under a workbench or vehicle. I spray paint a number of black tools if I didn’t like the other options available.
Altan
I agree, in that regard DeWALT is the most successful I should admit.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Makita-TD171DZ-Impact-Driver-TD171DZAB-Authentic-Brown-18V-Body-Only-from-Japan/153042092670
Wayne R.
+1
Altan
Makita does make tools in different colours it seems
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Makita-TD171DZ-Impact-Driver-TD171DZAR-Authentic-Red-18V-Body-Only-from-Japan/163278595828
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Makita-Impact-Driver-TD171DZAG-Authentic-Green-18V-Body-Only/173871152354
There are other colours as well.
Matt
It’s not a good deal but I actually prefer black. Particularly on any impacts I would use for automotive work which could be a potential use for this. I had Craftsman C3 impacts in both 3/8’s and 1/2 inch for years used for auto work and they still looked great when I sold them off. My new V20 red ones look horrible already and we’re only at year 1 on my 1/2 inch. Not even a couple months for the 3/8’s. The Milwaukee’s at my father in laws shop are the same. Give me black any day if I’m around oil and grease…
When I first saw the black Makita line that’s the first thing that I thought of.
Brandon
I am not that much of a fan of Craftsman’s radio active red color scheme. They look like a red version of Porter Cable that was hastily made out of whatever red plastic SBD had available to them. I will be running my C3 tools until I cannot either fix or replace them until I find a suitable alternative; I am liking Ryobi since they’re related to the old C3 tools, but not so much for the green color.
Matt
I didn’t care for the new red at first at all. Everything looked like a children’s toy and seemed cheap. The black C3 stuff looked more upscale to me. Moreso than higher end name brands even. I thought if they were going to do red, I’d rather they just stuck with the original darker shade. However, it’s grown on me though to where I like it enough now. It just took some time… I do wish the impacts were black like the C3’s though. Or at least made of different material that can be cleaned off easy. You can’t really even clean the new stuff, the plastic is discolored pretty easy. Even from sunlight. I’m hoping for a dedicated higher end line from Craftsman for those of us who want it. Perhaps those will be a darker color or just easier to clean off.
I agree on Ryobi, they could be the greatest tools on the planet but I just couldn’t deal with the color.
Brandon
If this kit came with a high capacity battery, or two of them, it may seem like an okay deal. For the price compared to my ten year old Craftsman, this one has nearly identical specifications at a premium price other than being brusless. I would think that Metabo would have a higher torque output for a brushless model in the rat-race of cordless power tools.
Mnoswad
Does the trigger pinch your finger like the green one does?
Stuart
I’d think so?
Toolfreak
Very weird for another brand to copy the black color scheme of the Makita subcompact. Makes me wonder what’s REALLY going on, whether they got a batch of tens or hundreds of thousands of motors that only work at one speed and so had a run of no-dye black plastic housings made, and voilà, here’s our special limited-edition holiday-only offering.
As for the pricing, yeah, it’s probably going to be $99 if not less, the $159 is just the “regular” price to make the “sale” price seem like a decent deal.
I’d pass at just about any price. Single speed drills/drivers really aren’t that useful once you have used variable speed models. I guess it’s better than nothing to drive screws and drill holes.
The What?
I think in order for this tool to succeed at all it needs to be priced at $99 when it’s not the holiday season and it should be $79.99 during the season. Otherwise nobody is gonna be interested. It’s a single speed which sux to begin with but it’s even worse that it’s $160. Hitachi never sold their tools for the ridiculous prices that Metabo is asking. This is exactly why nobody seems to be catching on to the Metabo hpt stuff. All the high prices that Metabo has tacked just because of the name hasn’t helped at all. And seriously, who gives a sht if it’s a German tool brand. There’s nothing special about this tool whatsoever for it to cost that much. If you look at any video of any impact driver competition that Metabo is a part of, they are one of the worst performers. They are subpar compared to just about any other pro brand out there.
Stuart
This is not a German tool brand, it’s not Metabo – it’s Metabo HPT, formerly known as Hitachi.
Hitachi launched their triple hammer impact driver kit at $400, and some of their other premium brushless cordless power tools are priced at a premium. Saying that “Metabo has tacked on high prices because of the name” just isn’t true.