Customer Reviews

DEWALT DW983K-2 14.4 Volt XRP 1/2-Inch Heavy Duty Adjustable Clutch Cordless Drill/Driver Kit

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I purchased the new Dewalt 14.4 cordless drill a couple of weeks ago, locally this time I'm afraid, I just saw it listed in my new Tool Crib catalog. Thank you for such a great selection of tools, if its new and out their The Tool Crib will probably have it. Just a thought, in order to entice more people to purchase on line from you and have them willing to wait for their product to be shipped you might want to offer a deal, something more then the competition, or at least a bonus for buying from you.
As for the drill itself I have had nothing but Dewalt cordless drills for porbably 10 years or so. I tried another brand once but returned it immediatly and went back to a Dewalt. Dewalt may be alittle pricey on there cordless drills but for the professional who uses it as much as I do it is in my opion, hands down the best on the market. This new line of heavy duty Cordless drills are amazing. I was needing to build a 45' wheel chair ramp and had a lot of 4' lag bolts to drive. I was amazed by the torque of this new 14.4 drill it drove the lag bolts with so much power I snaped my socket adapter off. I was going to get an 18 volt this time but decided that I would get the 14.4 heavy duty and try it since I already had an old 14.4 and could interchange the batteries, I also just like the weight and size better. As for the power I think this new 14.4 is capable of most jobs, I still wish the batteries would last a little longer though. There are 2 other little things that I'm not sure of and that kept me from giving this drill a 5th *. The drill is so powerful that when driving the lag bolts the housing of the drill felt like it was trying to come apart. I need to check the srews that hold the housing together and tighten if nessessary, maybe that's all it is. The other thing is the key less chuck. I'm not convince it is better then the old model. It slipped several times when I did not have the hex shank of the bit aligned properly, I did not have this problem on my old drill and making sure the bit is aligned properly is kind of a pain and takes more time, this also worries me about round bit shafts. To sum it all up though, Dewalt is still the best out there and this drill just got better. The 14.4 is perfect in balance and weight and now the added power makes it a perfect choice. Oh, one more minor thing to Dewalt, the old style drill had 2 spots on top of the drill for your screw bits and now this new model has just one on the bottom by the battery. Some times the saying "don't change a good thing!" SHOULD BE LISTENED TOO!! CHANGE IT BACK!! (there are more then 1 type of screws!!!) Over all though, an excellent drill as usual from Dewalt!!

After one return for a new drill and then trying several Drills at the Depot, and two calls to Dewalt, I finally got the answer to why the clutch DOES NOT WORK in low gear - the drill is DEFECTIVE. The Dewalt tech put it this way: "We designed it to work in all speeds, but that's just the way it came out." In other words, the production model is defective. I have an old 2-speed 18V drill, and the clutch works as it should in the 0-450 rpm range. The XRP clutch does not work in the 0-450 range. Since low speed has the highest torque, this is where you most need a clutch!! Wait for Dewalt to fix this! They know it is defective, but are trying to tell everyone it is normal. Bad show.

With Bosch being made in Mexico, and Porter Cable in Taiwan, I was left with two brands: Milwaukee and DeWalt. I chose the DeWalt because of the third gear. I got the unit home, charged it up, and placed a bit holder and bit in the chuck, pulled the trigger and noticed a considerable amount of wobble. If you are looking for an accurate drill to make clean holes, or drive screws without the bit slipping out of the head, this is not it, others have mentioned the same.

Second, the gear selector gets jammed, and is not as fluid as it should be. A minor quibble, but enough to make me return it for the Milwaukee 0516-22. Now that's a power tool! It has 10 less lbs of torque (negligible), but the chuck on this unit is beautiful. If you absolutely do not need the third gear on the DeWalt, the Milwaukee is a far better tool. It's made in Germany where precision is a top priority, which clearly shows.

I purchased this cordless drill. At first, it seemed to be a high quality, heavy duty drill. Very shortly after using it, however, problems became evident. The gear selector switch frequently sticks, causing you to have to start the drill again before changing gears. It is almost as if you must find the right spot in the gears. The torque control selector absolutely does not work on low speed. I tested the torque selector on setting "5" and the gear selector on setting "1" and was able to drive a drywall screw all the way through a 2x4! Great torque, but no control at all. When stopping the drill in gear selectors 2 & 3, I kept hearing a crunching, rattling sound. The DeWalt phone rep told me this is normal and is due to the chuck. The upside to this drill is that it can be abused/neglected and will still perform the same, albiet the above mentioned flaws. The DeWalt drills which were widely sold prior to the the XRP model had a clutch which worked flawlessly every time! What happened? The bottom line: the clutch problem and gear selector sticking was enough to make me get a Makita (which has worked perfectly, every time so far).

This drill was purchased as a replacement for another cordless drill from deWalt that I had simply worn out, I LOVE THIS DRILL!!!
This has got to be the best yet from DeWalt, Powerful ,yet light(relatively speaking), A keyless chuck that actually works-WOW..

I am so impressed with this drill that I plan to replace all my other DeWalt cordless drills with this new three speed, powerful, absolutely excellent drill.

A fantastic , well built, powerful cordless drill. An excellent buy and a quality addition to any tradesman's tool kit.

I have tried a number of cordless drills over the past 15 years or so and put them through very hard use daily, the DeWalt tools have always held up better than any other brand, and I own or have owned Makita, Hitachi, Porter-Cable and Milwaukee and DeWalt puts them all to shame, with a combination of quality, durability,power and ease of use.

The best you can buy and lighter than the 18 volt drills with what I consider to be as much power for a 14.4 volt drill.

This new XRP model seems to have a few bugs in it.#1-Many people have complained about the clutch not working at low speed.#2-The transmission has also become suspect.I know the clutch definitly has problems, but the real problem is the fact that either the chuck (new Jacobs single sleeve) or the motor arbor it is threaded onto wobbles like crazy.I am returning mine before the 30 day guarantee and will wait untill someone at Dewalt will actually go out and look at what they are shipping. I would take it apart myself to see if its the chuck or drill but I want to make sure I get my money back.

Just bought my DW983. Looks solid, but where's the torque control at the low speed? I guess DeWalt forgot to include it! Though the torque adjustment ring functions at the first speed, there is no reducing the torque (you'll drive your smaller screws all the way to China)! Service tech says it's normal, I couldn't disagree more. High torque is great, but if it is uncontrolled it's dangerous. It's going back.

I have owned and used this tool professionally for 8 months now. As an electrician, I bought this one, instead of the 18V DeWalt drills that many of my colleagues use because I felt the lower weight and the slightly less torgue were offset by the lower price. As other reviews have indicated this is probably too much of tool for the occasional weekend user, unless you are going to be engaged in high torgue work building decks, framing or drilling into concrete. I used this drill to perform electrical construction work on a new Long's and a new Jack-In-The-Box with super results. The tool's weight at 5.2lbs was not too bothersome (after I was in shape) holding it overhead and fastening couplers and straps. The torgue/clutch control is a bit tricky (therefore the 4 stars) but only takes getting used to. And yes on round shanks, if you don't have the chuck tight a bit might slip...but in my case, this usually occurred if I did not have the Unibit in tight and I was drilling through thick steel. On routine fastener work, this never occurred but it occasionally did when drilling into cinderblock for anchors.
The decisive test of a power drill/driver for me is the ability to drive Unibits into metal framing members easily and retain battery life. This drill with its 400lbs of torgue and the XRP battery did that (on high torgue) and it was useful for about 1 or 2 hour's worth of ¾" Unibit drilling. There is nothing like the time-waster of having to get down frequently off a Skyjack for a fresh battery. Fortunately, that was not the case.
This is a great power drill for the price, no doubt about it.
If I were buying a power drill today, I would look seriously at the new DW055K-2 with triple the torgue and double the RPM or the new DK054K-2 with 2.5 times the torgue of this DW983K and double the RPM. These new models weigh in at 4.1 lbs versus 5.2 lbs for the DW983K, a difference you can feel after 8 hours of work The shorter housings of the new model drills will mean more control over driving screws yet require more arm motion and reach, certainly issues to consider.

I'm returning this drill. The clutch won't slip at all, no matter what the setting, when using the lowest of the three gears. I contacted DeWalt, and they said they received a lot of questions about this. DeWalt says this is normal for this drill and suggests using the middle gear (which is equivalent to the highest speed setting on two-speed drills) for driving screws. The manual doesn't say that the clutch won't work in low gear, so I'm not sure why DeWalt tech support feels this is normal. Other than this, the drill is well-balanced and I like the ratcheting chuck for one-handed tightening of bits.

Contrary to most of the other reviews, i've had the opposite problem w/the 983. The cluth is constantly slipping. The first couple of times that i used it, i had no problems. But the last couple of times of use, i've had to go with my old milwaukee to complete the project because the clutch was slipping so badly on the DeWalt. Torque setting or speed makes no diffrence. This was the first DeWalt drill that i have purchased, and will definately be the last. Drill is still under warrenty, so maybe i will not be out [the money]. I would not recommend this drill to anyone. Save yourself some frustation and go with a Milwaukee or Makita.