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When you start doing projects around the house, you quickly realize just how handy a drill can be. Almost 20 years ago when I bought my first place, a good cordless drill was the first thing I picked up, tool-wise. It still works, but those batteries are showing their age. So, when it was time to be driving a lot of screws on a project, I knew it was time to get an impact driver. Since I’m a DIY’er, and not a pro, I was just fine with heading over to Harbor Freight and picking up the Bauer 20V Cordless Impact Driver.
Why you might want an impact driver
As I mentioned at the outset, I’ve been doing home DIY for some time now. I always thought my drill was decent (and it probably is, aside from the batteries running down super quick now). However, when it came time to drive screws, I was just shocked at how much more difficult it seemed for my drill to do it, versus what I would see in DIY videos. Turns out, it was a completely different tool they were using.
That tool, of course, was an impact driver (this article highlights the differences between a drill and an impact driver). Basically, an impact driver is designed to drive screws, and drive them in quickly. This is thanks to the massive torque they can drive in (which is the impact part of the name), as well as the fact that it’s a two steps forward, one step back (in terms of the rotation) that helps it drive things much more quickly.
Bauer 20V Cordless Impact Driver: why I got it
Since I’m a DIY’er, a more affordable tool like the Bauer 20V Cordless Impact Driver just makes sense. No, it’s not a brushless motor, and no, it’s not a big name that you’ll find at your local home improvement center. But let’s be honest – while you might think you want to go with the red, yellow, or blue “big name brand”, a lot of us are pretty focused on price. Yes, we want performance, but if we can get the job done affordably, that’s going to win.
And you know, that’s really where Harbor Freight has carved their niche. They offer a lot of things at sometimes unbelievable prices, so you can get the stuff you need to get the job done (and now that I’ve been seeing HF content on social media, I think I need to spend more time just wandering the store) without breaking the bank.
For $59.99, you’re getting the tool, a 1.5 Ah 20v battery, a battery charger, and a soft-sided case to carry/store it all in. In other words, it’s a bargain. Throw in a few bucks for some extra #2 Philips bits, and I was ready to get to work. Does it sort of sting to have yet another battery system on my workbench? Yeah, but based on my experience with this driver, I could see more Bauer tools ending up in my arsenal.
Putting it to work
First things first – you need to get the battery charged up. Once that was done, then I headed out to start ripping out the boards, and then getting new ones put up with the Bauer 20V Cordless Impact Driver. So, how was the performance? In a word – amazing. After 20 years of driving stuff with my drill (or a screwdriver), this was like night-and-day.
You do have variable speed (depending on how hard you pull the trigger), so you can start slow and then just bang that screw on into the boards. When I did similar work last summer, it took forever (not to mention having to swap things out if I need to drill pilot holes before putting the screw in). This, the screws went in like a hot knife into butter.
One thing you might wonder is how the battery life is, especially since it came with a 1.5 Ah battery. I went through two different days of replacing boards, and the battery still had charge. I’ve been doing other projects since, and have had to charge it once. I was worried I’d run through it quickly, but it’s actually been surprisingly robust – even with the LEDs on the front lighting up the work surface. And you don’t have to wonder how much capacity is left. There’s a button on the battery itself that will tell you how much charge is left.
Do we recommend the Bauer 20V Cordless Impact Driver?
In a word? Yes! Unless you’re a professional, I’m pretty certain you will come away quite happy with how the Bauer 20V Cordless Impact Driver gets the job done. And really, at the $59.99 price, you can’t complain (if you already have batteries, the tool on it’s own is even less). On top of that, this is the one rare time I purchased the warranty. When I was doing some research on drivers, I learned that the HF warranty is pretty good. You run into any problems with the tool (or the battery) and you can get it swapped out, easy peasy. So, yeah, putting another 2 years of peace of mind on there seemed an easy decision to make.
So, what’s next? Given how well the Bauer 20V Cordless Impact Driver has worked for me, I imagine I’m going to get a set of impact-rated sockets that will fit into that quick-change 1/4″ chuck. Past that, I have a feeling there will be some other Bauer tools hitting the workbench as the project needs show it. For now, you can check out all the details at your local Harbor Freight, or of course over at harborfreight.com
Bauer 20V Cordless Impact Driver Specifications
