Bosch multitool offer with Screwfix

[graduate_owner]

Hi everyone,
I am no great fan on Bosch, although I do have a green range multitool which I bought about 2 years ago for £60 ish. Screwfix are now offering the blue range version for £80, which I would prefer and would have gone for at the time if they had not been about £130. This seems to be a pretty good price for those who don't want to stretch to Fein or Festool prices.
The offer is only until May 4th and is for the 250Watt version.

K

 

[Ed Bray]

I've got a well old Fein and the switch has stopped working (on all the time). I bought a Ryobi Cordless Multitool (I have a lot of Ryobi 4.0Ah Batteries) and have been using it a lot lately and I have to say it's actually better than the Fein, on the Fein the blade would regularly loosen and need to be retightened. I even bought a Fein Adapter that is supposed to stop this but that hasn't made much difference.

The Ryobi on the other hand, doesn't suffer from that and also has a light aimed at the cutting area which helps a lot. Very pleased with it.

The Bosch deal seems very good.

 

[AES]

Agreed graduate_owner, that seems to be a good deal.

I too have the green Bosch multi tool which I'm quite pleased with though it does vibrate a bit after a some minutes of use (i.e. my hand and arm notices it more). Like you I couldn't afford either the Bosch blue nor the Fein (which I had a try of during a demo at the local DIY Emporium), but at the end of the day, my green one is one of those tools where once you have it, you wonder how you managed without it, it is rather handy for all sorts of "odd jobs".

Personally I would recommend anyone who doesn't have a multi tool to grab that blue Bosch at that price - my blue Bosch 10.8V battery drill/driver is noticeably better in terms of battery life & power than the green one I had earlier - it just seems overall better than the green (which of course it's supposed to be as a trade/industrial class tool).

AES

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

I've got an old Fein....bullet proof

 

[graduate_owner]

I'm not disappointed with my Bosch, although it gets only occasional use. Perhape a pro would soon notice the fact that it is 'green quality'. It has been very useful on those occasions where another tool would be too fierce or too awkward.
It has been used more for sanding than anything else. I tried connecting an old vacuum cleaner to the dust porr at the rear of the tool, but the air flow was so low the vac got really hot and I had to stop using it (the vac). Since then I have held the vac nozzle in one hand and the Bosch in the other. A bit awkward but keeps the sanding dust down.

K

 

[Woodchips2]

Alternatively for the occasional user you could save yourself another £50 and buy one from Lidl or Aldi :lol:

Regards Keith

 

[Rhossydd]

Alternatively for the occasional user you could save yourself another £50 and buy one from Lidl or Aldi

+1 my cheap Aldi rechargeable has served me very well as a light user. As it can use Bosch blades too, you wouldn't see much difference in end result either.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I was brought up (as were others of my age) to buy if not the best the best I could afford. That theory no longer holds true, we have to balance the expected usage against the price. I have first class hand tools that I started buying when I was 13 (I'm 61), but I've bought power tools like a 9" grinder (Makita) that was the cheapest I could buy at the time - bought for one job because it would have cost more to hire, but it's done endless work since. Aldi chisels are brilliant for £8, for example - of course there are better, but hey ho they're £8. I read about 25 yrs ago that the life expectancy of a bottom of the range B&D drill was three hours! This figure sounds daft, but when it's broken down not so. The thinking was that in an average household it would be used for 5 mins a month (to put up a shelf, e.g.) and it would last 3yrs - if someone paid £15 - £18 for it they would be happy with its performance and buy the same brand again. Manufacturing has of course come on in leaps and bounds since then. If I were using stuff 40 hrs a week, I'd buy Mafell, Festool, Fein and so on, but reality rules.

 

[graduate_owner]

Cheap can be OK for DIY, or cheap can be really cheap and nasty. I think it's a case of being careful and buying according to your needs as well as yoir budget. I have some Aldi stuff and it seems fine for occasional use - I am not a pro. I have a Nutool pillar drill which I hate, but which has done loads of work (none of it accurately) and I would rather have it than be without it. On the other hand I have some cheap tools that are totally useless and I should have had more sense than to buy them (I was young then and money was really tight, although I threw money away on these so-called tools).

The line between rubbish and good is becoming increasingly blurred - or is that just my deteriorating eyesight?

K

 

[AES]

Agree absolutely phil, I was brought up the same way (I just turned 70 the other day, I still can't believe it!).

But just as you say, if one wants a particular tool (or anything else virtually) there's all the difference between a tradesman buying to work his/her tools daily to earn a living and someone like me who is in reality, "just fiddling around enjoying himself", (as my lovely lady says, "It's better than hanging around wasting money in the pub every night"). And another consideration in my case, with no one to leave an expensive "tools legacy" to either.

Normally, over here (Switzerland) things that I see on this Forum as being available in Lidl/Aldi UK appear here soon afterwards (sometimes even before they appear on this Forum) but in this particular case - multi tools - they didn't appear in either until a long time after I'd bought my green Bosch, and the only other choices then were blue Bosch and Fein (as I wanted mains rather than a battery tool). I don't regret that choice, though I do recognise that the Fein is a much better tool - probably the blue Bosch too.

As always though, there is a BUT: In another thread also in this section, but about Router collets, I explained a problem I was having re a collet to accept bits with 12.7 mm shafts. The (cheapo, "badge engineering") manufacturer was of no help at all with that, and it was only members of this Forum that got me successfully sorted out with an available collet to suit, a process that was complicated, frustrating and time-consuming. OTOH, that extra collet was a LOT cheaper than buying a new Router just to take 12.7 mm bits, which was the only choice I thought I was facing at one stage.

But again OTOH, both Aldi and Lidl have long guarantees on their stuff, and from all reports seen on this Forum, they handle those guarantees in a no-quibble fashion. So I guess if one thinks one may need "customer support" like I did, rather than "simple refund/replacement", then one should at least go for a "name brand".

Not an easy decision sometimes.

Krgds
AES