Customer Reviews

DEWALT Bare-Tool DC825B 1/4-Inch 18-Volt Cordless Impact Driver

5 star:		(97)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I actually got this tool when I bought the 6-tool set that comes in a contractor bag. I really bought the set for the reciprocating saw, the circular saw, the grinder, and the "normal" drill. My attitude toward the impact driver was more or less, "eh, that thing looks pretty wimpy". Well, that was two months ago, before I completely re-framed half of a house. This is now the most used tool I own. I can drive 3 1/2" screws into studs and headers all day long, one handed. As long as I'm driving straight, I will never strip out screw heads with it. In fact, the worst problem I have is breaking bits. The DeWalt "Impact Ready" bits are the worst. I will sometimes break a bit after only one screw. That should give you an idea of the torque and power this thing generates! The good news is that I did find that, surprisingly, Kobalt bits seem to hold up very well for some reason. I can sometimes get 50 screws driven with one Kobalt bit! I'm talking 3 1/2" screws into yellow pine, by the way. If you're driving 2" screws you'll go all day with one bit. Get the Kobalts, though - they're $13 for a box of 50 at Lowe's. The DeWalts are something like $7 for 5 bits - which are good for about 10 screws total before they all break.

It may seem intimidating that it breaks bits, but don't worry, my 97 pound girlfriend has no trouble at all using this thing. Really it's unbelievable. There is simply no way to put into words how well and easily this thing drives screws. It seems impossible. The days of leaning into the back of a regular drill with all my weight, just to have the screw head strip out millimeters from being set are over!

I'm buying one of these for my brother for his birthday - it's the best gift I could possibly give to someone that does any kind of carpentry or drives fasteners. Absolutely worth every penny.

PS. I know this review is over the top, and I'm sure there are other drivers that perform just as well, but my experience with this tool has been just great, so I wanted to share it with the world! Thanks for reading!

I own 9 impact drivers from 3 different manufacturers and my old Dewalt (ni-cad style) was my least favorite of the group but this new one (which is made for the new 18v Lithium-Ion type batteries but works with all my old 18v ni-cads) is top notch. Dewalt has apparently fixed most of the problems found in the old ni-cad style impact guns (like excessive bit wobble) and added a light like the Makitas and Ryobis have. Now more compact and more powerful than the competition. A definite winner.

I use this tool to drive drywall and lag screws. I have not had any problems. The redesigned tool is smaller than the older one and the led light has made this tool even better.

Not long ago a friend gave me an extra DeWalt 18 volt drill he'd come into. I'd been using a 12 volt Makita for over a decade, and I was impressed with how much more torque and battery life the DeWalt had. The same friend also had a DeWalt impact driver from the same series, and again, I was impressed how well this handled mechanical tasks usually relegated to a pneumatic impact driver. But even more impressive was how well the DeWalt worked for driving screws.

A few years ago, the major cordless tool makers started to come out with impact drivers which they marketed not to mechanics, but to carpenters. While today's 18volt cordless drills do a pretty good job of driving screws, they still start to bog down when driving really long screws into hard or resinous wood. The slow, stall, and eventually overheat. But impact drivers don't do this. They work on a different principle, using a motor-driven hammer to repeatedly strike an anvil that drives the output shaft. As the load increases, they switch from spinning to a rapid-fire staccato impact mode, in which every impact turns the screw a bit farther, while the motor continues to spin and bring in cooling air.

I was very pleased to discover that Amazon had a DeWalt impact driver available in a batteryless and caseless package (for those of us who already have a charger and several batteries) for about $125. I purchased mine for a mix of yard projects- this is a great tool for driving the big screws used to tie landscape timbers together- home projects, and motorcycle/scooter maintenance. And amazingly, it's even lighter and more compact than the DEWALT DC759KA Heavy-Duty 18-Volt Ni-Cad 1/2-Inch Cordless Drill/Driver Kit. I'm giving away my Makita 12v drill/driver to a nephew who likes tools and gadgets, and switching 100% to the DeWalt system.

I bought this last year after my Black and Decker 18v drill died it's 3rd death. I got it in a 4 tool combo kit on sale at Lowes. I build haunted houses for the Halloween season so most of what I do construction wise is with rough and sometimes very old and hard woods. The woods are also made super tough (like rock) from a chemical that must be sprayed on them to make them fire retardant. I found that before, even with an 18v drill that screws would shear off before going into the boards which made it difficult to make secure connections in the wood. It is hard to make something look old and spooky and still have it be safe so having good, solid tools is a must. Right after I charged the battery I tried this tool out. Wow!! It drove a 3 inch deck screw into an old hardened 2x4 in the blink of an eye!! I had never used a tool like that. It quickly became a favorite of mine on the jobsite. I used it hard and it never once let me down. I bought it toward the end of the build so I only got to use it on a few hundred screws but never a disappointment. I'm looking forward to using on this season's build as well as in my volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity. I would highly recommend this tool to anyone who builds.

Once you get a dedicated hex driver, you will wonder how you lived without one.

Simply drives screws and bolts in smooth and fast, its also very small (compared to a drill). It also reduces the risk of stripping the screw. A great tool.

If you already have dewalt 18V tools with battery and charger, this is a very good deal

I do satellite television installs and almost flipped myself off a ladder about 25 feet in the air trying to use my Dewalt hammer drill to fasten a satellite to the roof of a house. Several of my coworkers use various brands of impact drivers so I tried out several of theirs to see what I wanted. Some of them were fairly powerful but I decided to buy the Dewalt so I could use my same batteries. After using this thing for just once I realized I made the right choice. It's more powerful than the other ones I tried from my coworkers and much smaller. I am very satisfied with my purchase.

I bought this tool to add to my dewalt collection. I have had the 18volt dill for years and did'nt think that I need an impact driver. I was wrong. I am using the impact more that the drill for driving large screws. It make the jobs much easier. The driver was shipped by a third party and I received it in just a few days. I was very impressed. This is an excellent tool if you do lots of repair work with 2 by lumber.

I have long been a loyal DeWalt costumer, especially when in comes to cordless tools like the 18v drill I purchased 6 years ago. That drill quickly became my favorite tool and has seen constant use since. In fact I was so happy with the drill that I did not see any reason to buy an impact driver, until a couple of projects I was working on required me to drive a large number of constuction screws and lag bolts. My drill was able to drive them but not as easily or quickly as I would have liked, so I decided it was time to give the impact driver a try and my only regret it that I did not buy one sooner. This driver is by far the best power tool I have ever owned. It is absolutely necessary for driving lag screws or anything comparable but also preforms so much better in less demanding tasks like running deck screws. I have discovered that it is also quite handy for boring large holes even though that is not the intent behind the tool. If you put an Irwin Speedbore bit in this thing it will chew through 4 by lumber in no time. Using the driver for boring has saved my wrist on a number of occasions as those Speedbore bits require quite abit of torque to run and if the bit binds up while using a regular drill all that torque gets transferred to your wrist. Now that I have a set of Irwin Speedbore and Spade bits plus a decent hex drill bit set my drill is relegated to drilling metal and the occasional pilot hole.
This driver is also much better at removing rusty and stripped screws than my drill, just another unexpected bonus.
Without exception this is the one tool that goes with me to every job.

As a professional, I require durability from my tools. This impact driver was awesome. I bought it because I already use Dewalt cordless tools and batteries, so for $100 I would have been stupid to not buy this. I just put in thousands of 3.5" #10 exterior wood screws no problem, a hundred or so 5" fastenmaster lag screws and forget about shorter lag screws. This thing literally saved me hours of labor, so it paid for itself. I am not looking forward to hanging some cabinets with it and finally being able to screw inside of a 9" cabinet sideways.