Which power tool brands actually last?
Bosch and Metabo. Bosch tools get fixed 61% of the time when they land on a repair bench and Metabo tools 58%, near the top for power tool brands with big samples. And Metabo tools are typically 14 years old when they reach that bench, the oldest of any brand with enough recorded ages, and roughly three times what Ryobi and Parkside manage.
That comes from about 13,300 power tool records in community repair data collected by the Open Repair Alliance, where volunteers log what came in, what was broken, and whether they got it working again.
Brands with 100 or more records:
| Brand | Records | Fixed | Typical age at repair |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flymo | 245 | 68% | -- |
| Bosch | 3,769 | 61% | 9 yrs |
| Stihl | 196 | 60% | -- |
| Gardena | 297 | 60% | 6 yrs |
| AEG | 180 | 58% | -- |
| Titan | 103 | 58% | -- |
| Metabo | 433 | 58% | 14 yrs |
| Nilfisk | 109 | 56% | -- |
| Skil | 146 | 54% | -- |
| Black+Decker | 1,836 | 53% | 10 yrs |
| DeWalt | 242 | 53% | -- |
| Ryobi | 407 | 51% | 5 yrs |
| Makita | 603 | 50% | 8 yrs |
| Einhell | 186 | 50% | -- |
| Topcraft | 159 | 46% | -- |
| Parkside | 563 | 46% | 4 yrs |
| Kärcher | 2,027 | 45% | 5 yrs |
| Hitachi | 119 | 44% | -- |
| Vax | 103 | 43% | -- |
| Dremel | 184 | 42% | -- |
Two numbers matter here, and they say different things. Fix rate tells you whether a broken tool is worth taking apart. Typical age at repair tells you how long the tool ran before anything went wrong. We only show it where 100 or more of a brand's repairs record an age.
Metabo is the standout on the second one. Its tools are typically 14 years old by the time someone brings one in, mostly older corded machines that essentially refuse to die. Parkside, Lidl's house brand, is typically 4 years old at repair, under a third of the working life for a fraction of the price.
The battery is what kills your tool
Batteries are the number one or number two failure for every cordless brand in the data. DeWalt 12% of failures, Ryobi 11.8%, Makita 8.6%, Black+Decker 8.4%. That is one failure in eight to twelve, and it is not the tool.
Here is why that matters more than it sounds. A dead battery on a current platform is a $60 to $150 annoyance. A dead battery on a platform the manufacturer dropped is the end of a perfectly good drill. The motor is fine. The chuck is fine. There is nothing to plug in.
So the real durability decision isn't which drill you buy. It's which battery platform you buy into, because every tool you add after that is locked to it.
What to look for in a platform:
- Longevity. Makita LXT (18V) and DeWalt 20V MAX have both been running for well over a decade with backward-compatible packs. Milwaukee M18 the same. These are the safe bets.
- Pack availability. Can you buy a replacement battery at a normal store, today, without hunting eBay? If not, skip it.
- Tool range. A platform is only worth committing to if it covers what you'll want in five years, not just the drill you need now.
Budget platforms are the risk. Cheap cordless kits from brands that come and go leave you with orphaned tools when the packs die, which the data says happens somewhere around year four or five.
And if a tool stays on your bench, corded sidesteps the whole problem. Metabo's typical 14 years at repair is a corded-era number. No pack to degrade, no platform to get discontinued.
What we looked at
Four things went into these picks:
Community repair data. Repair outcomes from the Open Repair Alliance, about 13,300 power tool records. Fix rate shows whether a brand's tools are worth repairing. Typical age at repair shows how long they run first.
Battery platform stability. How long the platform has existed, whether old packs still fit new tools, and how easy replacement packs are to find.
Warranty. Three years is the norm for pro cordless. Milwaukee's five is the outlier, and a manufacturer willing to cover a tool for five years is telling you something about expected return rates.
Serviceability. Whether brushes, switches, chucks and packs can be replaced, and whether the brand sells parts to people who aren't authorized service centres.
Disclosure: Some product links on Sundr are affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission. This doesn't influence our analysis. See our full affiliate disclosure.
Power tools that last: 2026 picks
Makita 18V LXT Brushless Drill. Best Overall - Warranty: 3 years - Price: ~$326 · Check price on Amazon
LXT is one of the longest-running 18V platforms out there, so packs and tools stay easy to find. Brushless means no motor brushes to wear out, which removes one of the classic power tool failure points. Makita's repair record is middling at 50%, but the tools are typically 8 years old when they reach a repair bench, so they run a long time before anything goes wrong.
Trade-offs: Battery is the top Makita failure at 8.6% of records, same as everyone else in cordless. Three-year warranty is standard, not generous.
Milwaukee M18 FUEL Hammer Drill. Best Warranty - Warranty: 5 years - Price: ~$222 · Check price on Amazon
Five years of coverage where nearly everyone else offers three. That's the clearest durability signal in this category, because warranty length is a bet the manufacturer makes with its own money. M18 is a large, established platform, so the packs will still be on shelves in a decade.
Trade-offs: Priced for trade use. If you're drilling a few holes a year, you're paying for headroom you'll never touch.
DeWalt 20V MAX XR Hammer Drill. Best Platform Coverage - Warranty: 3 years - Price: ~$267 · Check price on Amazon
20V MAX has the widest tool range and the easiest battery availability of any platform, which is exactly what you want from a long-term commitment. DeWalt fixes at 53% in the repair data, a bit above Makita.
Trade-offs: Battery is DeWalt's top failure, at 12% of records, among the highest of any cordless brand we track.
Festool Track Saw TS 55. Best for Precision Work - Warranty: 3 years - Price: ~$1,298 · Check price on Amazon
Festool sells spare parts and service documentation for its tools, which is the thing that decides whether a 15-year-old saw is repairable or landfill. Track saws also live on a bench rather than getting thrown in a truck, so they take far less abuse than a jobsite drill.
Trade-offs: Expensive, and the accessory ecosystem gets expensive too. Festool doesn't appear in the community repair data with enough records to rank, so this pick rests on parts availability, not repair outcomes.
Cheap tools or buy once?
Both answers are fine. It depends on how often you'll use the thing.
The gap is real and it's big. A Parkside tool, Lidl's house brand, is typically 4 years old at repair. A Metabo is typically 14. Parkside also gets fixed only 46% of the time versus Metabo's 58%, so when a cheap tool breaks it's more likely to be done for good.
But a Parkside drill costs a fraction of a Metabo one. If you hang a few pictures a year and assemble the occasional flat pack, four years of drill is four years of drill. Buying a pro tool to use twice a year is just paying more per hole.
The honest split:
- Occasional home use. Budget brands are fine. Buy the cheap one, expect four or five years, replace it without guilt.
- Regular projects or renovation work. Buy into a major platform. The cost difference disappears once you're on your third replacement.
- Daily or trade use. Pro tier, and the five-year warranty starts to matter.
The exception is anything with a spinning blade or a lot of torque. Cheap saws and grinders fail in ways that hurt. Spend there regardless of how often you use it.
Not sure whether your current tool is worth fixing? Run it through the true cost of replacing versus repairing.
What torture tests show
We don't run drop tests or teardowns ourselves. Project Farm, an independent YouTube tester who buys everything at retail and takes no sponsorships, does. His results line up with the community repair data in a way worth noticing.
| Test | Top performer | What stood out |
|---|---|---|
| Impact drivers (2020) | Milwaukee M18 Fuel | Highest torque in both directions, and kept working after a 10-foot drop onto concrete. The budget Bauer overheated driving a 7-inch lag bolt and died in the drop test. |
| Hammer drills (2025) | FLEX 24V Turbo | Top overall score. Milwaukee M18 Fuel Gen-4 came second, DeWalt's DCD999 was fastest in hammer mode, and a $57 Kimo kit was the value surprise. |
| 18V/20V batteries (2020) | Split decision | Milwaukee proved toughest in abuse testing, DeWalt measured the highest capacity, and Makita shut down earliest to protect its cells. |
Three takeaways, and all three match the repair data:
- The big platforms are all legitimate. Milwaukee, DeWalt, and Makita each won something. Pick the platform that fits, not the spec sheet.
- Budget tools fail the extremes first. Bauer handled light work fine and failed the abuse tests. That's the lab version of what the field data shows: Parkside tools are typically 4 years old at repair, under a third of Metabo's 14.
- His long-term pick matches ours. Project Farm's own favorites page lists the Milwaukee impact driver as the one he actually uses. Milwaukee is also the only major brand here backing its pro cordless line for 5 years.
Sources (the full methodology is in the videos, and they're worth your time before committing to a platform):
- Impact driver test. Milwaukee vs DeWalt, Makita, Bauer
- Hammer drill test. FLEX, Milwaukee, DeWalt, Makita, Ryobi, and six more
- Tool battery test. Milwaukee vs DeWalt vs Makita
What actually kills power tools
From the community repair records, in rough order:
- Battery packs. The top or second failure for every cordless brand. DeWalt 12%, Ryobi 11.8%, Makita 8.6%, Black+Decker 8.4%. Cells lose capacity with cycles and age, and packs that sit flat for months often won't come back. A replacement pack fixes it, if the platform still exists.
- Electrical faults. Bosch 9%, Black+Decker 8.4%. Switches, triggers and internal wiring. Trigger switches take every start and stop the tool ever makes, and they're often the cheapest part in the whole thing.
- Motors and brushes. 6.0% of Bosch failures. Brushed motors have carbon brushes that wear down and need replacing, typically a cheap fix if you can get at them. Brushless motors skip this failure mode entirely.
- Physical damage. Kärcher's second failure, at 8.3%. Drops, cracked housings, snapped hose fittings. Not much to do here except keep the case.
- Chargers. Easy to overlook and easy to replace. A tool that won't charge isn't always a dead battery.
Three of those five are cheap parts. That's why fix rates in this category run so high compared to sealed consumer electronics: there's usually something to replace.
Compare brands
See how power tool brands stack up on repair success rate from community repair records:
- Power tool brand reliability rankings. Bosch, Makita, DeWalt, Ryobi, Parkside and more, ranked by repair success rate
- Bosch vs Makita. The two highest-volume brands in the data, head to head
- Bosch vs Parkside. What the price gap actually buys you