expiredminntwins | Staff posted Aug 08, 2023 02:27 PM
Item 1 of 7
Item 1 of 7
expiredminntwins | Staff posted Aug 08, 2023 02:27 PM
Ridgid 18V Cordless Digital Inflator + 2.0 Ah Battery $79 + Free Shipping
$79
$178
55% offHome Depot
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A good price point for bats is $10/Ah. Some HD sales will turn up batteries+charger kits for less than that. Also worth looking at end caps of the power tools sections, sometimes they have discounted batteries/kits there.
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I use this thing most often for quickly inflating family bike tires when we go out for rides and I think it's super handy to have around.
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I use this thing most often for quickly inflating family bike tires when we go out for rides and I think it's super handy to have around.
Ridgid power tools bought from an authorized merchant come with a LIFETIME warranty, whereas Ryobi is 3 years I believe.
That said, Ridgid does have fewer tools in their ecosystem and they're more expensive. They're more aimed toward users with specific hard use requirements. Ryobi is generally speaking the better option for the average homeowner looking for non commercial grade tools with more options. Contractors don't need hot glue guns and tire inflators. They want an impact that they can put the screws on (pun intended).
Ridgid power tools bought from an authorized merchant come with a LIFETIME warranty, whereas Ryobi is 3 years I believe.
That said, Ridgid does have fewer tools in their ecosystem and they're more expensive. They're more aimed toward users with specific hard use requirements. Ryobi is generally speaking the better option for the average homeowner looking for non commercial grade tools with more options. Contractors don't need hot glue guns and tire inflators. They want an impact that they can put the screws on (pun intended).
$80 and it doesn't even come with a charger. That's some Nintendo/Apple nonsense, as they don't include chargers in their expensive toys too.
So....gas station charges 50 cents....so that's break-even of 160 uses. Let's be wild and say you need to put air in your leaky tires once a month -- 12x uses a year. Over thirteen years later, you'll break even!
Wait, no, still forgot to add in the cost of the charger. That's $50 at Home Depot. Total of $130, or 260 gas station trips. Still at 12x a year, that ends up to being over 21 years to break even!
And for the rest of us normal people who put air in their tires.....twice a year? That's 130 years to break even. Let me know how that works out for you.
I actually appreciate that it doesn't come with a charger. It's not an easy problem to solve, since these companies need to appeal to new customers to get them pulled into the ecosystem, but for those who are already in the additional chargers become a nuisance.
$79 is the regular full street price for this bare tool.
When it first hit the market, it had a sale price of $49 for a while, before that figure crept up to $59 during subsequent sales.
But during one of DTO's good sales, a "factory blemished" unit could be had for as low as ~$30 shipped, with free shipping. That's how I bought mine. Otherwise, with their shipping fee factored in, it was usually in the ~$50 range total, only $10 less than what one might pay at Home Depot, where one could buy it off the shelf, with a 90 day return period to evaluate it.
That said, the selection of "blemished" (practically, new and LSA-eligible) Ridgid tools at DTO has dwindled to three items and there are no assurances that will change again, or that this tool will be a part of any such potential offerings in the future.
The cordless power tool game is like razors. They give good deals on packages with the handles with the blades, and make money on the blade refills, in this case the batteries and chargers.
If there is a need for other tools, like drills and saws, a package deal with those types of tools, plus batteries and a charger are better objective values.
There are even pretty good package deals on the batteries, such as the $79 package deal that pops up every so often, with (2x) 4.0Ah batteries, charger and a bag.
A bare tool, such as this one, with the smallest battery and no charger isn't a great way to buy into the system. But for someone who already has some batteries, chargers, and wants the inflator, plus effectively a $20 battery, it's ok.
So if you're just looking for an inflator, and not this one in particular, nor intent on starting a Ridgid collection, there are other options well worth considering before this one.
Also keep in mind this tool has a five-minute duty cycle. It works great to top up tires, fill balls, or other low volume items, but isn't really meant to blow things up scratch. There are usually beefier models to handle those types of tasks.
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I actually appreciate that it doesn't come with a charger. It's not an easy problem to solve, since these companies need to appeal to new customers to get them pulled into the ecosystem, but for those who are already in the additional chargers become a nuisance.
"Additional chargers become a nuisance."
No one is forcing you to keep them if they're that big of a deal. But hey, what do I know. I think it's out of line spending $130 to replace spending 50 cents at a gas station. Maybe I'm the only who'd think that if you had two batteries and two chargers, maybe you'd want to charge more than one battery at once? And if you have so many of them -- sell them? give them away? donate them as a tax writeoff? the options are endless.
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