Porter-Cable Reviews

This compressor is light, portable, and drives a Senco framing nailer quite well. The first one I received smoked and choked, and Amazon promptly replaced it. The second one functions well; however, I dropped a short 2x4 which glanced off the regulator and broke it free of the tank. This pointed out a weakness in the design of the regulator, driving me to weld onto the tank a protector over the regulator, as well as firm up the fitting where the air hose connects - as any strain at this point was getting transferred to the weak potmetal connection to the tank.

PORTER CABLE REALLY BLEW IT ON THIS ONE. THE SWITCH WENT OUT IN THE FIRST 10 MINUTES. A YEAR AND A HALF LATER IT IS DEAD, WAITING FOR ITS FOURTH SWITCH. IN ADDITION TO THE SWITCH FAILURES, THE SWITCH LOCKING MECHANISM IS VERY AWKWARD AND IS PRONE TO FAIURE.
THE ROUTER IS ALSO UNDERPOWERED. THIS ROUTER STALLS OUT ON PROJECTS THAT MY 1-1/2 HP CRAFTSMAN BREEZES THROUGH. THE PLUNGE MECH CONSTANTLY STICKS AND THE MICROADJUST NEVER WORKED.
THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS NOT ANY BETTER. THEY HAVE YET TO RETURN MY PHONE CALLS OR E-MAILS. MY NEXT ROUTER WILL DEFINATELY NOT BE A PORTER CABLE.

I was very disappointed with Porter Cable. The plunge mechanism sticks, the on button is hard to lock on for router table use, the depth gauge is extremely hard to use, and it is not compatible with most after-market accessories. Mine is sitting on a shelf. In its place is a DeWalt 621 plunge router. It is lighter, has a much better depth gauge and is just better all around. I love my DeWalt 621. I wish I had bought it first.

I have to agree with many of the other reviewers who like this router for its smoothness, power,and low noise level. The grips are great, it plunges nicely, and the quality of materials seems top rate. However, my experience with this router has revealed two flaws that greatly detract from what would otherwise be a truly fine machine. While these flaws are not necessarily deal-breakers, those of you who are considering buying this tool may want to be aware of them.

First, as another reviewer has pointed out, it is impossible to accurately center template guides within the base plate. The user must screw the template guide holder into the baseplate, and since the holder does not precisely register into the baseplate, it is thus extremely difficult to accurately center the guides. If you use template guides and require even a moderate degree of accuracy, this flaw is a deal-breaker. Do not buy this router. On the other hand, if you never use template guides or plan on parking this baby in a router table, you'll have no problems. This would be a fine router for those purposes.

The other problem is another quality/design issue that can be remedied but is a moderate annoyance. On my machine, the release/locking lever for the plunge mechanism came loose on several occassions, making it impossible to plunge and lock the router at a desired depth. There is a small set screw in the lever mechanism that works loose and has to be constantly tightened and adjusted. This problem is not an isolated incident as it also has occured with two other cabinetmakers and their identical routers in my shop. In the end, having tired of constantly fiddling with our machines, the three of us adjusted the mechanisms as best we could, applied Lock-Tite to the set screws, and hoped we did it right because there would be no way to disassemble the levers once the Lock-Tite cured. Fortunately, the fix worked fine, and all three of us are happily using our machines without any problems. Again, not a deal-breaker and the problem was fixed, but this seems unnecessary for a $200 router.

The other router to consider in this price range is the DeWalt DW625 3 HP plunge router. Though it has more power than the PC 8529, it is the same size and weight. It's also variable speed and would be great in a router table. I've never been a huge DeWalt fan (many of their products seem overrated and overpriced), this seems to be an excellent machine. Several of the guys in my shop own them and use them for the dual purposes of plunge operations as well as major hogging through lots of material (the extra hp makes a big difference). Add it to your list of possibilities.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with the other reviews. I also am a Porter Cable fan but this was one of the worst tools in my collection. At the cost of $100 or more, I expected much better. The attachments don't stay on, it is noisy. And now, after moderate use, it rattles and wines. It was a good idea on the drawing board but in practice it fell short.

Well this certainly has a range of opinions. Even after the negative reviews I bought it since I have faith in Porter Cable (no kool-aid comments please). I thought I would address the comments by J. Smith directly.

1. Even with all the profiles there will be some times that they don't fit but by rotating the sander I generally get it to fit pretty close. I never have worn through a pad and gotten a black mark and do some pretty aggressive sanding (makes up for poor cutting). So I haven't had that problem. If you want to save a little money and get more variety on sand paper try this. I use regular sandpaper and spray the back with a 3M adhesive (#77). That will stay tacky for about 30 minutes so don't do to much. They stay on the profile fine and I am currently using some #50 to rough sand the trough for New Yankee Workship marble roll.

2. It isn't really smooth but then it is a high speed vibrating sander so I didn't expect that. I have found that by tilting it slightly forward or backward it will travel in that direction along the piece quite nicely.

3. It is noisy but then I wear ear protection every time I use a power tool and I am sure your mother would want you to also.

4. I have had no problem with the profiles sticking and I even take them off and reposition them as one part fills up.

5. I don't know how else you would get the paper to stick without adhesive so don't understand this comment.

All in all I am very happy with this tool. Now back to sanding.

This is definitely the tool to have when it comes to difficult sanding tasks: It goes into inside corners and curves with ease and the variable speed allows less or more agressive sanding. The dust port is great, hardly any dust when hooked to vaccum. Great feel in the hand, good weight and just all around the expected American made PC quality!

I also purchased the robotool it was great until I stored it for a few weeks and it never worked again. It's great for finding the floor the beam now points right at it

I've read every review here; I agree that it is a slick tool. I will never buy another. After 6 months I needed to recalibrate. Then every 2 months it needed calibration. It completely failed shortly after the one year warranty lasped. I returned it for recalibration at half it's initial cost! Now the thing doesn't work at all. I've called the service folks and they want me to give them even MORE money to get it working. I've gone back to using string, a level, and a small weight for plumb. Honestly, don't waste your money on this thing, unless you're lucky to have plenty of money. But then, why D.I.Y.? By the way it was NEVER dropped or mishandled.

I too had one of these units and the same thing happened...after a period of none use, the unit wouldn't self level. I contacted robotoolz and initially, they wanted to charge me $80 to send the tool in to get fixed with no guarantees. I then saw these reviews of the product and decided to contact robotoolz and PC again. I emailed both customer service depts. explaining my problem and referencing these reviews of the product. My level was out of warrantee at time, but finally they admitted there was a known defect with the product and they would issue me an RMA to return the product and have it fixed or replaced at no cost. I sent them my old, yellow robotoolz level and just last week, I received a brand new PC 5 beam level in exchange. This seems to be the exact same product but the color is grey & black. Lets hope the self leveling issue has been corrected.

I bought this jig for my carpenters to install locks, assuming a Porter Cable jig would be of good quality. When I opened the box, I laughed to discover the plastic housing. The drill fit very poorly, did not spin freely, and did not fit through the hole on the other side of the jig without manipulating it. Tried the quick release and could not get it to disengage without a pair of pliers.

Just to see, I gave it to my lead carpenter and without my saying anything, he laughed too. Mr. Pike's review is from 1999 when, I believe, the jig was metal not plastic. It's shocking to me that a company that presents itself as selling tools to professionals would ever present such a low class toy. Thank you Amazon for taking it back, I could not risk even trying it on one door.

I have about 30 doors to hang. I bought the Classic Engineering 10800 and the Porter Cable 511. I received the Classic first and gave it a test drive through some scrap. It work so well that I never even needed to open the box of the Porter Cable and sent the PC packing.

I ordered this product with no reservations, having been familiar (I thought) with ones I had used in years passed (37+ years in the business of trim and finish carpentry). I was somewhat dismayed when I opened the box to find the exact jig I was familiar with, with the exception it was made from nearly 90% plastic materials!!! Why should I be surprised...isn't nearly everything made of plastic anymore...expecially things that shouldn't be! I put the jig to use immediately, having waited on this order to finish out some doors we had jigged and hung earlier in the week. The boring jig worked pretty much as I remember the old metal ones working. I was only apprehensive about tightening the plastic knob tight enough to secure the jig to the door (how many times have you overtightened a plastic knob on anything, only to have it come off in your hand?)The simple solution I came up with was to put a small 4" wood clamp on the jig holding it fast to the door. How about it Porter-Cable, can you make room in the 'plastic' carrying case for the 4"wood clamp?

I didn't have the shipping problem that other people are talking about, but after owning this unit for two years, I am dissapointed. First of all, the pump is not maintainance free. The manual wants you to pour RV anti-freeze inside the pump, using some hose that you have to make or buy, when you plan to store for 30 days or more. I tried doing this, and I don't think I was successful in getting the fluid in the pump. You have to pull the starter rope at the same time you are pouring the fluid into the hose intake. At the very least, this is very inconvienent. Also, I notice at times that the pump just dies, and then kicks back on, and repeats this cycle. I don't know what the problem is. I got the unit in good condition, changed the oil, filled with good gas, and still it does not run well. It may be that the pump is the problem, and not the engine. The bottom line is that for this money, I shouldn't have any problems within the first year or two. I would stay away, and look for a different brand.

You may have saved 10000's of us the same experiance.

Product was excellant. It seems that this pressure washer is shipped with some oil that is left in the engine from testing the unit before packaging. This oil spilled all over the unit and also soaked the air filter. Apparantly, the box has to be handled upright. UPS shipping does not do this. Once wiped down and the air filter replaced, the product worked like a dream. Plenty of power to wash my wood fence and wood play set. Highly recommended product but not from Amazon or any online store due to shipping requirements that frankly cannot be expected from UPS. Better to buy this from a physical retail outlet.

There's an art to using the thing and once you acquire it, you can do pretty good work with it. Until you catch on, you'll burn holes through one spot on your sandpaper and leave black rubber residue on your work in a heartbeat if you're using the rubber profile attachments. If you're using the diamond pad with hook and loop, you definitely want to have the dust wand and vac hose accessories. If you don't this thing will keep your face full of dust. They should be included as standard since they're almost a requirement, but they weren't on mine.

Other than bad balance, lousy dust control, too much noise, and some serious reservations about the quality outside the motor housing, I like it. It lets me do a lot of things that I previously either couldn't do or had to do by hand.

Just make sure you're adept at power tool repair, that you have a handly online source for parts for the thing (Sears.com is best I've found so far), and be prepared to accept the fact that the pad attachment brackets will be self-destructing on a regular basis, and you'll like this thing after you get used to it. If you can't handle those little problems, don't buy this thing.

Would I recommend it? Not without making you aware that you're going to be constantly replacing pads, pad parts and bracket housings IF you can find them to replace them. Porter Cable's parts distribution system is still operating in the 1950's. Thank goodness for Sears.com and another outfit that has a good parts website in Canada or we'd have thrown this thing away long ago.

The attachment system is a real disappointment. I could see somebody like Wagner making junk like this. I haven't found this to be typical of Porter Cable in other tools I own. Seems like I've got to overhaul it just about every time I get about halfway through a restoration job. It could have been better designed and Porter Cable could make parts for the thing more readily accessible like all their major competitors have done.

I'd give it five stars on workability (once I found and bought the attachments that were needed to make it workable for anything other than hobby use) and NO stars on durability and less than that on manufacturer backup. Wish it were different but that's what I've experienced.

I've had this thing a couple of years now. I still haven't found anything else that can do all the things that this tool can do as well as it does it. The profiles will let you restore practically anything once you learn to use them. The Fein may be preferable for doing jobs that the diamond pad does, but it just can't do jobs that can be done with the Porter profile kit.

I stand by my previous criticism of the pad attaching system. It's rather "mickey mouse" and not up to Porter Cable standards I'm used to in my other tools. But, we've got periodic replacement of the parts that self-destruct pretty much down pat now so it's not a big problem, when you consider what all this tool does that nothing else we've found can do. Also, I was told recently that Porter Cable is addressing the pad mount system problems in an update of the tool that is planned for release soon. I hope so and if they do, I'll be the first to buy one.

We've adapted the Profile Mounting Pad to dust collection by boring a couple of holes on each side of the holder and using the vac wand with it. Works great. Porter should have thought of it.

It's a tool we consider essential for restoration of detailed woodwork, both inside and out

This tool is great for sanding detail work like painted window and door molding in an old home. I just started working with it and my first impression is that this will allow me to work much faster than if I tried to do this by hand. I was able to remove paint from the molding of 2 doorways and 3 windows in about 2 hours. Not bad for using it for the first time.

It does take a little getting used to using this tool. This is not an orbital or finish sander. The inline action seems awkward at first, in my case only because the paint would gum up in the paper and cause the tool to kick back. If you move the tool constantly in a slow motion across paint (as the manual states) it works very well for paint removal.

I would agree that this tool is loud, but it is not unbearable. It is a little louder than my PC orbital sander, but not nearly as load as most shop vacs or compressors. Ear protection doesn't seem necessary for this tool.

The profiles stay on the tool without any problems. The sandpaper stays put too without any problems. The paper does wear quickly, but I sort of expected this with sanding paint. The sanding motion is very agressive. This can be a great thing for removing paint. However, you do have to change the paper often. The sand paper rolls are pretty cheap.

I bought my tool factory refurbished for about half of what I have seen it sell for new. I have no complaints about its performance or quality. This is another PC tool that I would recommend. Good luck.

I bought the 19.2 saw/drill combo and it was a total waste of money. The tools themselves are well built and sturdy but the batteries are complete garbage.I used the 2 batteries for maybe a total of 20 hours and one battery is already defective and you get about 5 cuts out of the saw before the battery dies!I can't even use this saw.When you use the drill the battery holds up better but who cares, I am a fencing contractor and thought it would be great to have a cordless saw to cut fence boards without dragging a cord and heavy saw out on the site, with this kit I still have to, if I do a small repair it might be useful if I don't need to cut more than 5 boards. Until they replace this 19.2 battery DO NOT waste your money.

I bought the driver and saw kit and the hammer drill kit. In the first year I replaced the drill/drivers three times...while under warranty. The saw worked well and the flashlight was the best part of this kit. Now it is a couple years old and the batteries are dead and at $90 each I am not replacing them. They were not used that much either...as the tools were broken half the time! I bought Hitachi this time with a five year warranty. I wasted $600 on the Porter Cable junk. Some sharp lawyer ought to file a class action lawsuit on this tool.

Bob Duren, NW Florida
First I am a die hard Porter Cable fan, they are the best hands down. I own about everything they make. I salute them for having an innovative approach to new battery technology but this "tower cell technology" or 19.2 volt network line is junk. They discharge too quickly and one of the two batteries included with this combo set is basically dying according to the charger diagnostics. I bought a new 19.2 battery and it also quickly discharging. I have requested two new batteries from porter-cable and will see if they stand behind their product as usual. I am a sub contractor and must mention they see serious use. All my other porter-cable tools are outstanding and I have NOT had to replace one over the years of use. This battery -19.2volt is a lemon. The saw and drill are excellent though. Wait until they correct the battery problem before buying this excellent combo. Meanwhile buy from another manufacturer. Caveat de emptor

this impact is suppose to put out 265 ft ,lbs of torque,what a joke,i tested this on my car and with a torque wrench,,the most torque i got out of it was 135 ft lbs and that was staying on the hammer for 10 seconds ,where do these companies get there max torque rateings from because i would like to visit that test lab. the impact did get warm after doing 5 lugs and even hotter after 10 lugs,,but no grease was dripping,,i imagine if your running lag bolts with this ,,it would get real hot,,it is light weight and doesnt bust your rist up while useing it,,i have other impacts that claim to put out high torque rateings and they dont get close to it either,,so i would have to rate this a 2 1/2 stars and it would hold its weight against all the other 1/2 impacts,,but for its name TORQUEBUSTER,i would take that off of the products image,,,(SOMEONE PLEASE INVENT A REAL TORGUE ELECTRIC IMPACT)porter cable has always been a good quality tool,,so i ask the same question (WHY DID YOU BUILD THIS???)

I find this to be a great tool, especially if you don't have a large air compressor. It is not expected to break lug nuts. You need a 450 ft lb air impact for that. But it will break and tighten most other nuts/bolts. It is great for driving lag bolts and running a tapping attachment. I have not had a problem with overheating or dripping.

Love this tool, hasn't failed me once. A bit noisy, but never quits or gets hot and I abuse my tools. Just like the rest of my Porter Cable tools I plan to have it for a Lifetime

I've had to replace my charger, and purchase two new batteries (8823 Model) (which lasted only 1 year of minor use). I am very disappointed in this product and Porter Cable will no longer receive my business. The batteries should at least be cheaper if they won't last long. Never again...
Porter Cable should be ashamed.

Even though the PC brand has always been very respected by me, as of late they have really been letting me down. I purchased 2 new batteries exactly 1 year ago and they are already junk, even under light use and complete cycling. The reciprocting saw fell apart, and the circular saw has no lasting power as compared to other brands.
Even though I don't want to, I will be replacing them with a different brand, maybe the new Millwaukee or the Ridgid line , as Ridgid offers free replacement batteries for the life of the tool, a definite plus.

I am an avid woodworker/metalworker who demands much from my tools. I have owned Craftsman, Dewalt, Mikita, Milwaukee and Porter-Cable corded and cordless power tools and I must say my 3 year old Porter-Cable 19.2 Volt cordless drill can allways be counted on. Believe me I have put this baby thru some abuse; charging the batteries in the extremes of temperature both hot and cold, dropping the drill off roofs and running the motor for long periods of time. The drill and batteries still charge like the day they were new! On a scale of 1 to 10 I would rate Porter-Cable a 9 only because of the added weight of using glass-reinforced plastics in both its batteries and drill houseings, which make the plastic all the more durable I might add though. The other companys drills quality wise on a 1 to 10 scale I would rate as follows...
Dewalt - 7 Excelent battery run time but short life
Milwaukee - 9 Excelent battery run time but cheesy plastic
Mikita - 6 OK battery life but bad run-time
Craftsman - 4 TERRIBLE battery LIFE, TERRIBLE RUN-TIME and plastic stabilizing gears in clutch on INDUSTRIAL Series Drills!!