Makita Lithium Ion 18V Battery Failures Anyone?

[Furu]

Yes I had a failure and they would not honor the warranty as the chip in the battery that disables the battery permanently said that it had been plugged into the charger three times and that the charger said all three times that the battery was bad. Tip: If the charger says the battery is bad DO NOT try the charger again it will be your second attempt and the third voids the warranty on the battery.
Makita used to always have a good rep. I will not buy another Makita power tool that requires their batteries ever again.

 

[Steppenwolfe]

We have had so many Makita battery defaults that we have switched to Milwaukee tools. I was a die hard Makita guy for 30 years, but not any more. Can't use the tools without a decent battery.

 

[mjonesnh]

I seem to be one of the lucky ones and have had zero problems so far. Have three 3.0 and one 5.0 amp hr. batteries that are the new style with the star symbol.

 

[KYErik]

Here is an interesting idea- "waking the lithium ion battery up" with a small jolt of higher voltage.

How to Awaken Sleeping Li-ion - Battery University

Bringing a dead Li-Ion to life

If a chip inside counts the charge cycles and takes the battery out of service once the limit is reached, then this wouldn't work.

 

[Dutch445]

i started a deck railing project today and dragged out the makita set i have had for 6-7 years, still original batteries.
this job required the 1/4 impact driver for screws, the recip saw, the circular saw, and a drill. my bad as i started with
2 tools with batteries instead of keeping one full while i used one up first. so i ended up with some down time waiting
for a battery to charge. i had to cut out some decking for new railing posts (4x4) and ended up with extra 2x material
under the 5/4 decking that also had to be cut out. needless to say the first 2 holes took a while and using the recip saw
kills the battery almost as fast as my 4.5" grinder.
i noticed one battery took what seemed like an excessive time to charge. but eventually it hit full charge.
in the past i've have had the battery charger blink and beep like a bad battery a few times, but took the battery off, waited a few seconds, and restarted
charging and it always charged up.
today that happened once, but it may have been the "hot" signal as it was sitting in direct sunlight and i put the battery right on the charger
after it died. i removed it for a few minutes and restarted charging and all seemed ok.

i had not had much usage of these tools lately, quick uses here and there but not worked them like today in a while, but by the
end of the day they seemed to be working fine, and the rest of my deck post holes were only in 5/4 so they were no problem.

i would like to get a couple more batteries and a double charger but, after reading this post i'm not so sure i want to!

 

[sixdogs]

Funny thing here...I asked my wife to read the instructions again on the Makita batteries and she said she would but that the charger was still melting the plug during recharges. What?

She said it's been going on for a couple years and that we changed the outlet last year trying to cure it. I thought it was fixed. So maybe I do have something going on and just don't know about it?