This drill, like nearly all Makita tools, is flawless. Makita is especially good with cordless tools and they have led that field for a very long time. I am a professional theater designer/builder. I only say that to inform readers to the kind of work both my people and myself perform. Very exacting work usually on finish materials, and of course, under pressure. Equipment that is unreliable or worse, unpredictable, would do us in. If you look into any of our work trucks or job boxes you will find a predominance of Makitas. pWith these drills, runout is lower than other manufacturer's corded drills that are more expensive. Chuck breakage is, well, I'll let you know if it ever happens. I have about 12 drivers and drills and I gave my oldest driver to my field supervisor as it looked like it would be the first Makita unit to "crap out". According to my Sup, it's still going strong helping him on the weekends with his household repairs. pNow the caveat. While it's always a good idea to use a drill for drilling, it isn't always a good idea to use them for driving. If your installing 3 inch screws with a drill, your working too hard and taking unnecessary risks. Both to the finished surface and also to the screw head. I would like to recommend anyone reading this to consider the Makita Impact Drivers. They are the finest tools I own. We literally cannot live without them. With an impact driver, the load on your wrist is a fraction or what it is with a drill. This extra load means if you miss, there's a huge dent in your work piece. But with the impact driver, you can cup the phillips head with your opposite hand and catch it if it "cams out". "Cams out" meaning the bit popping out of the screw head with a sudden twisting motion when the screw hits resistance. But the impact driver rarely cams out because with every rachet of it's mechanism, it reseats itself into the screw. With a drill, it's the force from your wrist and arm, (and sometimes your shoulder and back) that keep the bit in the screwhead. Not a great situation when your working extended off balance from a ladder! With the impact driver, I have hung off the side of a scaffold holding the impact driver in one hand, and tightened down a 6" long 1/4" diameter lag bolt that we missed without a struggle. And YES, with the quickchange 1/4" hex drive, screws, drillbits, sockets, and lots of other things snap right in and work great.pWhat I don't get is why nobody seems to know about these tools. Every new job site I go to brings a new group of subcontractors to me asking about the impact drivers. They hear the rachet sound, (sort of like a high pitched version of the impact drivers used at tire centers) and they come in to see what the noise is. Then they try it, love it, and go try to find one. Nobody carries these things. I try to send all of them to Amazon but half of them don't have computers. The Makita Impact drivers have to be the most poorly advertised tools around. But the word is spreading slowly. I also apoligize to anyone reading this expecting a review only on the drill and hearing so much about the impact drivers. But most people who are looking to drive screws with a cordless drill would be better served to try an impact driver and they probably don't even know about them so I am hoping they bump into this article and then with an understanding of this option, they will make an intelligent decision.pIn closing, what we do is pre-drill with these drills and drive in the screws with the impact drivers. Each guy carries both. I know it sounds like I work for Makita but I don't. Week after week I loan my impact to someone for 5 minutes. With no pre-drilling, they drive a 3" or 4" screw into a 4 X 4, turn to me and smile.

I compared the Makita 6336 with the DeWalt 983, literally. I also compared the Makita 6336 with the Bosch 3660 and Porter-Cable 9878. Handsdown, the Makita was a better drill over-all and they got my money. The Makita had much better speed control (and smoother setting shifts), better torque control (unlike the Dewalt with none at the lower speed), and a better battery (2.6Ah vs. 1.7 with DeWalt and 2.0 with the others, not to mention Makita's NiMH). Makita's new ratcheting chuck, similar to DeWalt's, was an added bonus.As for top-end speed, unless your doing precision work (which would drive me to a drill press anyway), I saw no performance differences. And for high torgue, if I need to drive 1/2" lag bolts into railroad ties, I'll hire somebody. Bottomline, go with what you need, not with what someone wants to sell you.My ranking, Makita #1, Bosch #2, DeWalt #3, and Porter-Cable #4.

I have been using this drill for about a year and love it! The torque is plentiful, 3" screws into stud walls with no problem the 2nd power setting is very handy for the extra umph and speed. The Clutch is very accurate. It has 16 clutch settings, way more than you'll ever need, but they are there if you want. The Metal front piece is great. I've chewed up several plastic noses on other makita drills and really prefer the metal. The drill feels very comfortable in either hand. Battery life is excellent with the 2.2nmh (black) batteries.

This is a great drill! I have no complaints about the drill.