Thanks Russ, I enjoy reading your posts and your absolutely right total cost of ownership includes quality, service life and the often forgotten serviceability.
I've really been taking a hard look at the tools I have. I do not put anywhere near enough hours on my tools to really justify many I have. The little extra I make can help a little but they are not paying my bills or recovering their costs. Time recently has been difficult to find..... "Finding work is not a problem, it's making it worthwhile that's hard".
The DWD460's a really nice drill and if I had a problem with it I would look at the cost to repair it, but it's also a tool I can quite easy get by without. I had a 5 year old saw pop it's motor this year, it was $300 for the parts, good saw just not worth it when I could replace it for <$600.
I've also been looking at other tool options as well. The Dewalt DWD220 I just bought, was half the cost of my old drill, twice as fast, weights about half and it has a variable speed trigger. It also has an electronic clutch and for the money I paid, I could not be more happy with the the change.
Around the time the Dewalt 20V Max tools came out I went though my cordless tools and sold those I could. There really was not anything wrong with them but the cost of maintaining so many battery platforms was not worth it. Although I made a fairly large investment long term it needed to be done.
I guess the point of my post, is that it's not always easy to walk away from an investment in a tool, but in some cases the right answer may be to just cut you loses.
Yeah Anadevi, fixing a tool is often times much cheaper than just replacing it. It may take time finding the parts (for example, my Black and Decker Air inflator) but it's much cheaper than buying a new unit usually.
Finding original parts if they are discontinued can be somewhat easy or exceptionally challenging. Challenging to the point where the average person may find it impossible with some older tools.
But talking about your tool, if they are about to discontinue the switch and if your current switch is on it's way out, I highly recommend buying a back up (of the original) if it's still sold. As I am quickly learning with my tools, that is easily the most important aspect of any power tool. Even the Festool's and Hilti's tools are like that as well.
Glad I could help though Anadevi.