Quote Originally Posted by Jer View Post
This urban legend that Home Depot gets inferior tools to supply houses is complete BS propagated by tool houses to keep them in business. I've talked to reps from Dewalt & Milwaukee who say that they cut NO corners in the tools they supply Home Depot with and don't even know what tools are going to what suppliers until long after they've been manufactured. I was actually told this by several reps both outside of as well as in actual supply houses where they're trying to push the very tools I'm questioning. I can't speak for others but it just doesn't seem to make sense to produce inferior products that could/will hurt your image/name and the added complexity for tracking and supply chain just wouldn't offset small savings from cheaper sourced parts.
When I bought my last DeWalt about a decade ago (I do low voltage work and do entire prewires of homes with my cordless) there was a difference. The Big Box store drills had plastic chucks and the versions from contractor supply shops had all steel chucks. Don't know if there is a difference these days or not, haven't looked for one for a while, I just replace batteries every couple years.