Generic drill batteries?

[gafftapegreenia]

So the 18v lithium ion batteries on my Makita impact have finally both died. I've noticed that eBay is full of off brand replacement batteries for far less than the Makita branded ones. Does anyone have any experience with these batteries? The price is tempting but not if they're going to die in short order. I don't use my Makita impact driver heavily anymore, but its not broken and I'd like to keep it going.

 

[rsmentele]

I don't have any experience with Ebay types, but I have had batteries rebuilt at batteries plus, and they have worked great.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

I don't have any experience with Ebay types, but I have had batteries rebuilt at batteries plus, and they have worked great.

Mine told me they don't rebuilt lithium ions, only ni cads.

 

[65535]

You could rebuild them yourself, pre-tabbed batteries are fairly easy to come by.

Personally I wouldn't use an off brand lithium ion anything if I could avoid it.

How long did your batteries last?

 

[techieman33]

They might work ok, the big risk your taking with a generic battery is them catching fire, or exploding from poor quality control.

 

[Edrick]

Rarely should you trust eBay for something like that. Especially from over seas

 

[gafftapegreenia]

Yeah, the off brand batteries certainly seem suspect at best, so thanks for confirming my gut feeling to avoid them.

I knew that ni-cads are relatively easy to rebuild, but didn't know how hard li-ions are. I'll have to look into it.

The batteries themselves lasted about 2 years before the first pack died, and the second one is nearly done.

 

[danhr]

I bought an "eBay special" replacement 10.8v Lith-ion for my Bosch drivers last year. The results were far less than satisfactory. But at least it was cheap.....