Dropped $800 on a used Hilti hammer drill and it paid for itself in two days

I was on a job in Cleveland last month breaking up an old concrete slab and my old rotary hammer just quit. Rented one from the yard for a day and that was $150 gone. Found a beat-up Hilti TE 70 on Craigslist for $800, took a chance, and that thing chewed through the rest of the slab in half the time. Anyone else ever luck out on a used tool that felt like a risk at first?

3 comments

3 Comments

kim_west24d ago

Wait, you mean you didn't just light that $800 on fire and hope for the best? I've been burned by enough "bargain" tools that I usually assume anything over $500 is a scam until proven otherwise. But hey, your mileage may vary, and it sounds like you got the one that actually works.

wyatt_green3123d ago

Right? The "hope for the best" approach is basically my whole strategy at this point. I've bought so many "professional" tools that fell apart after a month, it's made me super skeptical of anything that's supposed to be a deal. But then you get that one cheap thing that somehow outlasts everything else, and it messes with your head. I swear the tool industry is just a lottery where you're paying for the chance to get a good one, not a guarantee.

umamartin22d ago

My neighbor's been building decks for 25 years and swears by those $20 Harbor Freight tape measures. The $100 Milwaukee ones his crew bought all snapped in 6 months. I get the lottery feeling but honestly the expensive stuff usually earns its keep if you actually need it daily. Those $50 hammer drills from the hardware store will die on the third hole when you hit a stud, then you're stuck driving back to return it and losing an hour of work. Cheap tools are fine for a weekend project but treating them like a reliable system for daily use is just gambling with your time, which is worth more than the money you saved.