Official RYOBI response to their Li-Ion battery

[gsoriano]

This was the conversation I had with Ryobi when I was informing them about why I was frustrated with my batteries that won't work anymore.  Guess I'll be looking at Ridgid from now on.     Comments

2014-04-21T23:59:23-04:00

I would like to say that I am extremely disappointed in the One plus Li-Ion batteries that I have. I was given them as a gift since I owned a set of Ryobi One plus tools. In less than a year and a half 2 batteries are dead. My charger blinks red then green pretending to charge them then stays lit on green. When I grab the batteries (either one) none of them work. I have always been impressed with Ryobi and had been a faithful customer up until this point. I work around a lot of tools and not having a battery that works is the most frustrating thing to happen.

2014-04-22T00:01:16-04:00

I must add, that I hope someone from your R&D group should look online and see how many people have turned away from Ryobi due to the battery issues.

2014-04-22T09:01:54-04:00

GERRY

There are no issues with the batteries. If maintained properly they will not have any trouble.

store between 50-100 degrees

charge the batteries every 4-6 weeks to maintain the cell life

remove from the charger once they are fully charged.

let the battery cool after each use before you charge.

To obtain warranty coverage/service or repairs if you are located within the Continental U.S., you may return the complete product to The Home Depot store nearest you. The Special Services Desk Representative can help you with repair process and procedures for your product. You also have the option of taking your complete product to your nearest Authorized Ryobi Service Center for service or repair. If you are located outside the Continental U.S., you will need to take or send your product in to your nearest Authorized Ryobi Service Center for repair.

Your closest Authorized Ryobi Service Center can be determined from the service center locator through the URL link below, by searching based on your mailing zip code. If you should need further assistance in locating a service center, please contact the Ryobi customer service phone staff at 1-800-525-2579. If the purchase receipt is no longer available to verify warranty coverage, the products serial number can be used to determine the products warranty status.

http://www.ryobitools.com/support/service_center_locators

With accessories like extra batteries and chargers, you must provide the Home Depot receipt to the warranty service provider, along with a tool for testing. If you purchased factory reconditioned power tools, they carry a one year warranty only, with the receipt.

Best regards,

Tim Beasley

One World Technologies, Inc.

2014-04-22T12:06:08-04:00

Tim,

2014-04-22T12:09:54-04:00

Tim, I have been using power tools for more than a decade. I know how to use my tools as well as the accessories that go with them. As I mentioned, I cannot believe that Ryobi has not addressed the discontent that a lot of people have who own your tools. Your response is very condascending and I would guess that people will feel the same when they read about it after I post it. Thank you for the tips I, just like most every Ryobi owner already knows.

[DR99]

Well just to let you know Ridgid, Ryobi, and Milwaukee tools are all made or owned by the same company called TTI. I had 2 brand new Ryobi batteries fail after one season, and a friend has had issues with similar batteries failing quickly too. I mostly use my ryobi batteries for outdoor tools now. If you look online people have not had the best of luck with the Ridgid LSA either which gives you free batteries for life. You have to jump through a lot of loopholes to make a claim depending one the warranty center. I think the problem is that either a protection circuit trips too easy on the Ryobi packs and makes the charger fault too easy. Makita has a similar problem with packs going bad quickly for no reason. I will say I have had zero issues with My Milwaukee packs also so they must have things worked out right on the M18 and M12 battery packs. I know it sucks when batteries go bad as the replacement costs are astronomical.

[TylerDama]

DR, aren't Ridgid batteries made by a different company other then TTI?

[TylerDama]

Either way it is infuriating when a company will not back their product or warranty!

[DR99]

Any of the power tools sold at Home Depot have TTI made battery packs with cells sourced for some company. The Ridgid plumbing tools like the propress tool use a different battery pack. The Ridgid thing is super weird Emerson Electric owns the Ridgid brand, but they licensed the right to Home Depot to sell power tools under the Ridgid name. In turn Home Depot contracted TTI to build the Ridgid tools at Home Depot. Emerson electric still sells their own Ridgid branded tools in plumbing supply shops and such and also Ridgid vacuums.

[TylerDama]

that is confusing, shouldn't have asked... are most tool manufactures this confusing? 

[DR99]

All the brands under Stanley Black and Decker corporation is pretty crazy, but they are all pretty straight forward as brands they own and run. Ryobi is in a similar situation. The name is owned by the Ryobi corporation of Japan which sells a totally different tool lineup in Japan. The rest of the world is sold Ryboi tools which are made by TTI which are made under license. The cherry on the top of that one is that Ryobi is exclusive to the Home Depot in the USA. Ryobi tools are confusing but not nearly as confusing as the whole Ridgid deal.

[DR99]

This is a great way to tell who owns which tool brands.

http://toolguyd.com/tool-brands-corporate-affiliations/

[Conductor562]

that is confusing, shouldn't have asked... are most tool manufactures this confusing?

All tool manufacturers re-brand products made by someone else to some degree. Take Snap-On for example. There are many items on the Snap-On truck that say Snap-On on them, but you can go to Sears, etc., and buy the exact same tool, from the exact same OEM, made on the exact same line, for a fraction of the price.

I could sit here all day and give examples, but you get the idea. It's actually less common with power tools than it is with hand tools.

Store brand power tools are one of the few instances where you see a lot of rebranded power tools.

[Kato]

Ryobi sucks, everyone knows that. Teaches you a lesson to buy that junk.

 

 

I've had batteries refuse to charge, put a battery on the charger and the charger says it's dead. Pull it off, put it back on, same thing. Put the battery on one of the other chargers, charges perfectly. Don't ask me why, but I've run into this a few times now with the Lithium batteries, had it happen today matter of fact. Batteries suck, because they die, and it's typically when you need them the most. That's why I always try to have more than I need, because you never know when one is going to give you hassles.

 

The old NiCads, when they didn't charge you could pull the plug and plug it back in rapidly a few times, and the light would turn red and the battery would charge. It was a good way to get more life out of the batteries when they refused to charge, but I don't think the Lithium chargers will do the same thing.

[DR99]

If you look online people have tons of fixes for Nicad batteries from over volting the pack to fix the battery memory issue. You can also just find the bad cell and swap it out. Nicad batteries are so much simpler to deal with than Lithium packs, but you lose the power and run time with old nicad stuff. With lithium batteries there is so much more going on between the tool and battery and the charger and battery.

[Punda1991]

Buy two new batteries and replace the bad ones with the good and take them back at diffrent times

[Javier]

Lol its like being pissed at a chevy product and switching over to buick

[Conductor562]

That was a dick response from Ryobi though.

[Guest Indecision]

1, Ridgid isn't all it's cracked up to be. They conveniently have no record of my registration though I did it online the same day as an e-mail to customer service regarding a 1/2" drive impact. And they still have the e-mail saved in my customer service account. It also auto filled my name at the end... and now it magically says "unknown unknown" in my account.

 

2, I wasn't even trying to utilize the warranty/LSA from ridgid, I was trying to register another product I had bought... needless to say it went back to the store until this is resolved. If it's no resolved, I have a full set of Ridgid tools for sale

 

3, Tim Beasley is the same name they put on all of the customer service correspondecnes from Ridgid, too. Though it's someone in India in reality.

[Conductor562]

Good info Guest_Indecision. How about signing up?

[TylerDama]

it is a little disheartening to hear this about Ridgid.....I hope this isnt a common occurrence. 

[Jimmijo]

Any of the power tools sold at Home Depot have TTI made battery packs with cells sourced for some company. The Ridgid plumbing tools like the propress tool use a different battery pack. The Ridgid thing is super weird Emerson Electric owns the Ridgid brand, but they licensed the right to Home Depot to sell power tools under the Ridgid name. In turn Home Depot contracted TTI to build the Ridgid tools at Home Depot. Emerson electric still sells their own Ridgid branded tools in plumbing supply shops and such and also Ridgid vacuums.

I never know Ridgid owned by Emerson electronic. But I do know TTI owns most of the homedepot contracted tools. I wonder is that mean TTI owns Emerson electronic as well? I also know where exactly is the TTI headquarter in Hong Kong. It was a few subway station away from where I used to lived;) I meant TTI is a huge China own company. They do own a lot of power tool brands....

[Jimmijo]

Wow! I felt horrible to see that ryobi response. Good replied back from you tho. Ryobis battery packs are pretty bad. I fixed and custom rebuilt 6 or 7 of them so far. Like Dr99 mentioned. Ryobi battery packs circuit board always failed and ended up kill the li-ion cells. Also they have bad p113 chargers. If you endeds up still can't deal with them under the warranty. Maybe you can try it a try to fix yours with this youtube video clip help you to fix your p103 battery packs.

[Jimmijo]

Alot of time if you have the p103 and p104 battery packs use 5 and 10 Samsung SDI INR18650-13Q cells. I usually only find one or two cell of 5 are bad. If you have more than 2 bad ryobi p103 you often can use the 2 packs to make one pack to work. It just my idea;) or if you have a few you can sell the broken packs on ebay for $20ea. Trust me people will buy them. At least I bought a few not working p103 packs for 40bucks on ebay and costed me another 10bucks with an hour and half of work to get all 3 fixed before.

[DR99]

I never know Ridgid owned by Emerson electronic. But I do know TTI owns most of the homedepot contracted tools. I wonder is that mean TTI owns Emerson electronic as well? I also know where exactly is the TTI headquarter in Hong Kong. It was a few subway station away from where I used to lived;) I meant TTI is a huge China own company. They do own a lot of power tool brands....

Emerson electric is an American company.

[captconch]

Ryobi's official answer sucked as much as their 18V+ batteries and chargers do. I know Ryobi makes cheap tools, but the batteries and charger are the heart of their system--and they both suck.

They offer a multi-charging unit that charges about 5 or 6 batteries, Sure, I'd like to have one unit instead the five chargers plugged in all over my workspace, but why spend $80 bucks on a charger if it won't last long enough to justify the expense? After less than two years out of the 5 charges I had, 2 of them don't work. The 5 batteries I had are now down to 3 that are working (I even wiped the terminals on both charger and battery with anti-corrosive juice and then wiped the excess away and that didn't help). We're f**ked and stuck with a whole tool system that fails too soon even though the tools themselves are great and innovative. Are we supposed to constantly buy new chargers and batteries?  What a waste of our money and of the environment. It seems we all bought in to their terrific system of cheap, useful tools only to find they don't last long enough to justify the expense.

What do we do now?

[chrismccabe484]

I had a brand new ridgid battery fail and had no problem just sent them an email and did what they told me to do and had a new battery in less than 2 weeks

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[kornomaniac]

. Makita has a similar problem with packs going bad quickly for no reason. 

 

Just for corectness.... that's an issue thats years and years old

[Nordraw]

That's the issue with any battery operated tool. How long the batteries last. Because that is how they get you, with new batteries that have to be purchased. Like razors they will just about give you the razor then it's an arm and a leg for the blades. I feel if a battery gets a lot of use and lasts 2 years then you can't complain too much. Any less then that and you have been taken. Anyway, it was a bad statement by the Ryobi rep and makes them look bad. You should send that to the head office and see how they respond. Might get a discount on a new battery or something.