Tool Addicts

Ryobi Recalls Cordless Drills

Tom McKenna, senior editor

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Ryobi's 18-volt cordless drill is being recalled by the manufacturer.

Courtesy CPSC

The recalled drill is model number HP 1802M.

Courtesy CPSC

Ryobi's 18-volt cordless drill is being recalled by the manufacturer.

Photo: Courtesy CPSC

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Ryobi Technologies Inc. just got more bad news. In addition to losing a tablesaw lawsuit earlier this year, the company is recalling about 455,000 cordless drills purchased at The Home Depot between 2001 and 2003.

According to a report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the switch on the Ryobi model HP 1802M 18-volt cordless drill "can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers." The CPSC says Ryobi got at least 47 complaints of the drill overheating, smoking, melting, or catching fire. Among those reports, 12 consumers said their property or vehicles had sustained damage, and two people reported getting minor burns.

If you have this model drill, you should remove the battery and stop using the tool immediately. Ryobi will replace all the drills free of charge. For more information about the recall, visit www.ryobitools.com.

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Comments (1)

advanzio writes: I'm sure that eventually Ryobi will recover from this "mishap" with their portable, battery powered drill. Unfortunately Ryobi is on my list of "never buy from Ryobi" now, or in the future. Wat back when Home Depot had another preferred electric drill vendor, Ryobi was their "cheaper" or less expensive line. This was before Home Depot got snooty with their vendor at the time and eventually struck a deal with the line of Rigid tools they now push. I bought a Ryobi portable drill and it went south quite quickly. I tried calling "customer service" and got a real round around. No problem. I just put the name Rybi on my "never buy from them again" list. In the meantime I had been reading my annual report from Home Depot and the board chose to pay their CEO 200 million dollars! I quickly totaled the number of shares outstanding and divided that into 200 million dollars. That totaled almost 5 cents per share. My wife and I at the time had a large number of shares and we realized that this 200 million dollars was costing us almost $25. Needless to say, our Home Depot stock is now Lowe's.
Back to Ryobi. I have switched to DeWalt and have never had a problem with any of their products. Matter-of-fact I had bought a 14.4 model and now most of my portable DeWalt tools are 14.4 volts. I recently bought a DeWalt 14.4 drill and it really has exceeded my expectations. Occasionally I go into Home Depot to see what the "competition has and they still have Ryobi and it still appears, to me, to be the same "cheapie" construction and lowest price tools. AND Lowe's has juststarted carrying a lot of DeWalt line. So I guess Lowe's made the same decision as I did several years ago. Stock DeWalt, they outlast the competition.
Posted: 11:12 am on October 23rd

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