Starter power tool recommendation?

I have to do a simple brake job on my Odyssey (rotors, pads).

My hand tool collection is up to the task, but my power tool collection is skewed toward woodworking and home improvement.

I was thinking of adding at least an impact driver to help with stuck bolts, so I wandered around the tool area of the local big box store to see what they had. I'm used to seeing all sorts of bundles with a couple of primary tools, a battery or two, and some random add ons... but there there was basically just one 'kit' per big brand.   The kits all seemed to be an impact driver, a hammer drill, and a few other things.

My existing tools are all corded, so this would be my first step toward an battery ecosystem.  A know Adam Savage recommends the big yellow brand because there are just a lot more things that are compatible with those; but I've had better luck personally with team red.   

Am I better off waiting until the holiday sales start up?  Any recommendation on the best place\site to shop?

PS.  I'm a long time subscriber, but lost access to the old Yahoo email I used to use.  I think the last time I posted was in the wooden bow making thread in the Projects forum.  I've avoided using brand names above so the mods don't think this is a canoe.

Thanks.

I'm in Ryobi House, but thats mainly because thats what I could afford in college. I've looked at a few of the other brands to see if its worth swapping, but I haven't seen anything that would make me change.

One piece of advice I heard for people looking to pick a power tool ecosystem is to look at the ancilary tools of each brand and which are you most likely to use? Any of the big brands are going to have a good drill, driver, saw, impact, etc. What are the ancilary tools (woodworking, yard work, chop saws, etc.) that you might want in the future and which brand has the best options for you?

You can also pick one that matched the color of your favorite sportsball team and be just fine.

I've had good luck with my Dewalt tool collections. I upgraded to the brushless ones several years ago, they have been great. 
 

When I switched to the brushless ones, I started with one of the bundles with a drill and quarter inch driver, then bought an impact. I have used my air impact exactly once since then, and that was only because of limited clearance for the tool. 
 

I would buy the DeWalt tools again if I needed to replace them. 

Team red?  You mean Milwaukee?

Great tools- I definitely wouldn't call them starter tools. 

Ryobi.

I used to repair all brands of power tools and Ryobi is the only company that has pledged to not change the battery format.

Sure, there's far better tools out there but there's nothing worse than having to junk perfectly good tools because the batteries are no longer available.

Makita did that to me years ago and they can eat a whole bag of dicks for it.

I like Milwaukee, but I also use them daily at work.  They have a huge variety of cordless tools for nearly anything.  They are expensive, but they take a good amount of abuse.

I've been very satisfied with the performance and VALUE that I've gotten from the Ryobi 18V tools I've bought over the years.

Edit: I'm a cheap bastard, so I always buy them when they're on sale.  Usually from home Depot 

I don't think you go wrong with any of the big name brands.  I have a bunch of the really old Craftsman stuff that I actually bought in-store at a Sears.  In a Mall.  In person.  It's all really fine still, but I'm not sure if I could get new batteries for them at this point.  I started buying in to the Ryobi 18v system recently for home and shop and I've been really happy with the variety of tools offered.  The big 1/2" impact is a monster.  The tire inflator is pretty excellent.  They've got some neat lights and fans - including one that sits on a bucket and becomes a misting fan.  The regular stuff is good as well.  I've got the little circular saw, oscillating tool, impact driver, drill, and the 3/8" ratchet and it all gets the job done.

I figured that I'm not trying to make a living with these tools, so I don't need super heavy duty, but I do want a pretty good variety of different things that use the same battery and I don't want to pay a lot for that muffler, as it were.

Indy - Guy said:

I've been very satisfied with the performance and VALUE that I've gotten from the Ryobi 18V tools I've bought over the years.

 

Edit: I'm a cheap bastard, so I always buy them when they're on sale.  Usually from home Depot 

Same here. I've also branched out to Milwaukee for the M18 1/2 cordless when it was on sale for when I need ugga duggas. Happy with both.

I have Ryobi I use at home,I have the killer 1/2" I impact as well as the 3/8" one.

The 1/2" cuts off after 6 or 7 ugahs. I have to remove and reinstall the battery,then it does it again.

The 3/8" lost the socket retaining ring.

My friend has Milwaukee ,the compact 1/2 with 4 power setting pops crank bolts torqued to 250ftlbs like nothing. He also has a 3/8 ratchet that is almost the go to tool. The driver tool ,he has 2,one with 1/2 drive adapter,the other with 3/8, also is near constant use.

The bad? Battery's. The high amp hour ones are expensive and the 1/2" drive one is different than the ratchet. 
If I wasn't all in on Ryobi I would have Milwaukee at home.

Ah the age old question of which master do you pledge your loyalty to?

It's my opinion that Ryobi is only there to make the meme work. I've seen multiple versions with different brands swapped out but the Milwaukee/Makita/DeWalt are always present.

It's also my opinion that if one of the brands was better than the others, it would be an easy choice, everyone would just use that. So between the red ones, the blue ones, and the yellow ones, it's your choice. Pick your favorite colour.

See what a your buddies use and pick the same so you can share batteries and borrow tools, or see what all your buddies use and pick something different so they don't steal your batteries. I don't know your buddies.

I had been using a Chicago drill for about 10 years when it finally smoked out. I figured it was time to pick a house. We use the red ones at work. We used the red ones at my last job, we used the red ones at my previous job. They worked fine and I liked them. I chose the red ones.

I started with a basic set. 1/2 drill, hex impact driver, 2 batteries, a charger and a carrying bag for like $169 on sale. picked up the 1/2" impact shortly after for full price. Home Despot does a lit of buy one get one deals, so the trimmer came with the bushwacker, the grinder was free with a battery pack, the sawzall is a beast and gets plenty of use as a pruning saw in the garden. Very pleased with all of them.

I ended up on Team Red. Probably because close to 20 years ago I bought a corded Sawzall that I've put through a lot of abuse cutting apart scrap cars. 
 

I did buy a corded Dewalt angle grinder that also has been through hell assisting with the rapid deconstruction of vehicles. 
 

But all my recent cordless tools have been Milwaukee. I have a 3/8" impact, impact driver, drill, and tire inflator for car stuff. Should pick up a 1/2" impact sometime for the stuff the 3/8" can't quite get. 
 

Also have a Milwaukee cordless leaf blower, string trimmer, and pole saw attachment for the trimmer head. Eventually may get one of the small handheld pruning saws for cutting up small branches. But the cost is tough to bear. I have Echo 2 cycle gas versions as well, blower, 18" chainsaw, and trimmer. Nice to have redundant backups in case. 

I'm all team yellow, a buddy is team red. It makes it easy at clean up time if we both bring tools to a job. I'm only yellow because I got tired of having different batteries/chargers and a good size yellow set was the deal that week. I bought that, tossed the stragglers, and built from there. 

I am Red. But regardless wait on the 2 tools you want, charger and 2 batteries deal no matter the color.

Red here for 12v and 18v, Green for 40v stuff.

I have friends that run the Hammer Store stuff and are happy with it.

In reply to ShawnG :

Soooo much this!!  I have Makita, Black & Decker and even Snap-On tools that are like that.  I started in Team Dewalt, but am always eyeing Milwaukee tools for variety.  And yes, even Dewalt has at least two different batteries that are mutually-exclusive from each other.  

Luckily, you can now get adapters to adapt almost any battery to any tool, so start with the brand that has most of the tools you like and need, and go from there.  

I started my journey with dewalt because I got a trimmer with the 40v/20v battery. Got some of the heavier duty tools so I can leverage the giant battery. Ended up really liking Milwaukee m12 for the smaller tools so have both. There are definitely things the m12 impact can't do that the 20v one will. Generally you can't go wrong w any of the big brands unless there is a specific tool you can only get in one series. 

I bought Ridgid for two reasons. Lifetime warranty, and at work they were the only tools we couldn't kill. When all the other tools were dying, the old beat up Ridgid stuff kept working. That was 20 years ago, but the Milwaukee tools we had more recently were really good. 

Red in the garage; yellowish-green (Ryobi) inside the house and yard. Idk how I got this mixed up. 

I don't think you can go wrong with any of the major brands today. I have Ryobi because that's what I could afford when I started buying tools and have not been disappointed. Big thing is to commit to one brand and stick with it because there is nothing worse than having to remember what battery is charged for what system. 

wae said:

I don't think you go wrong with any of the big name brands.  I have a bunch of the really old Craftsman stuff that I actually bought in-store at a Sears.  In a Mall.  In person.  It's all really fine still, but I'm not sure if I could get new batteries for them at this point.  I started buying in to the Ryobi 18v system recently for home and shop and I've been really happy with the variety of tools offered.  The big 1/2" impact is a monster.  The tire inflator is pretty excellent.  They've got some neat lights and fans - including one that sits on a bucket and becomes a misting fan.  The regular stuff is good as well.  I've got the little circular saw, oscillating tool, impact driver, drill, and the 3/8" ratchet and it all gets the job done.

I figured that I'm not trying to make a living with these tools, so I don't need super heavy duty, but I do want a pretty good variety of different things that use the same battery and I don't want to pay a lot for that muffler, as it were.

You can get battery adapters for those old craftsman tools.  I have 2 adapters that are permanently mounted to my impact and my angle grinder.  The ones I got allow me to use dewalt batteries.

Edit to add (as stated above as well), there are adapters to run almost any voltage compatible battery on any tool.  So, we are not really stuck with a specific tool brand due to battery.

In reply to wae :

" and I don't want to pay a lot for that muffler, as it were."

Sure, you won't pay a lot for a muffler but we will up sell you on rear coil springs and shocks so your GM car sits a foot higher in the rear than it did before. . . .

Had a red 18V drill at old job, was great but the batteries seemed to degrade after a few years.

For home shop, got a red drill with battery that was a display unit, needed to jumper the battery to get it to charge.

Next was an impact driver with 2 small batteries on sale  ( $ ??  ) , then a sawsall less battery for about $ 120.  It is really hard on batteries so I only use it for small jobs where power is not available

Have a 1,500 W 12 VDC to 120 VAC power inverter from a service truck that I power from a idling vehicle.  That comes in handy in the field to run a corded saw ,  grinder or electric chain saw that always starts. 

My last job had Hercules ( Blue Harbor Freight ) drill, small anger grinder.  These were surprisingly good, the only real issue was the drill went from 0 RPM to 50 RPM rather than 0 RPM to creep that is needed when drilling holes without center punching. 

Got Dad Ryobi string trimmer and hedge trimmer in the low $ 100 each range.  Each came with a battery + charger ( 1.5 AH and 2.0 AH ) This works out fine because when a single battery is depleted, Dad is ready for a nap as well.

I'm all in with Makita and some baby Bosch. As long as they continue to be in the hunt, I'm on the hook, I guess. FWIW, I've been collecting for about 50 years so kind of a full array of pneumatic, corded and cordless. I remember buying Snap On air impact. Oh, so expensive at the time, but what a tool! Makita kicks its butt. Once I found that the cordless recip saw was every bit the equal or better than corded Milwaukee I said "I'm in". Big time. Never counted, but I must have at least a dozen 18V Makita tools. Still have pneumatic staplers and nailers in all flavors. That's the curse of being an old tool junkie!

Another data point.

I've been seeing lots of NEW red and yellow stuff at swap meets.  The chances of this being stolen product is near 100% if it isn't counterfeit so avoid at all costs. Same goes for unboxed new stuff on the net.