Porter-Cable PCL180DRK-2 18-Volt Lithium-Ion Cordless Drill Kit

I bought one of these kits a couple of months ago. The drill motor is powerful and the batteries last a reasonable amount of time. The charger is very nice and informs you of the charge status. I really like the drill itself, but it has a few minor irritations.

After using it in an unlit closet in a house under construction, I noticed that the LED flashlight is in a perfect position to keep the line of drilling in the dark because the lower edge of the chuck is in a direct line between the tip of even the longest drill and the little LED. It's a neat idea, but it could be moved (perhaps to the front of the battery receptacle?).

Speaking of the chuck, having a keyless chuck is a nice thing if you need to switch drills a lot and don't need to continually use the same one for many hours. I've never been a fan of keyless chucks, because they always seem to lose their grip on the shank of the tool. This isn't a knock on Porter's chuck, but on keyless chucks in...Read more

I bought this drill in a kit that included an extra battery , a flashlight and a charger for the batteries. The drill has performed well in what little use it has seen. The problem is that one of the lithium ion batteries will not take a charge now. When I put it on the charger, the indicator light on the charger blinks green for a few moments indicating that the battery is charging, but then it begins to flash red indicating a defective battery. This thing has only been used a couple times since it was bought as a Christmas present. I bought the one with lithium ion batteries because I was fed up with the memory problems of ni-cads, and now that one of my batteries is dead, when the other one depletes its charge, the drill is useless until it is recharged. If the second one goes bad, too, I'm out the total cost of the drill. Not much of a bargain.

Last summer I bought the PORTER-CABLE 18V cordless lithium drill/driver kit (PCL180DK-2) and one of the batteries didn't work right out of the box. I took it in to the local service shop where the guy tested it and told me it was faulty. He said he's seen this happen 'a lot' and he gave me a new one. Now, I pull it out this summer and both batteries are faulty (blinking red instead of taking a charge). So I've had three lithium batteries for this drill and all three didn't work.

With replacement batteries costing as much as half the drill kit, and a drill without power is an ugly paperweight, I'd advise you all to stay away from this product.

- Mark