What would you pay?..

[Ray Newman]

"...Festool items that were used in a commercial shop.

"Found an auction that has quite a few track saws and sanders that look like they were rode hard and put away wet."

--Johndi

Given the scenario you described, the question in my mind is: "How much would they pay me to take them?" Fe$tools are not exactly inexpensive and I wonder what replacement parts -- if needed -- cost and if the tool needs service center work, what would that cost?

[Carpenter Mark]

My general rule of thumb is to start at 40% of new for anything used and it goes down from there, depending on the amount of use a machine has had and how hard or expensive it would  be to bring it back to spec.- and that's for cast iron and steel tools and tooling

Now, Festool might be fairly precise, powerful and innovative when new, but to my mind there's way too much plastic and aluminum for them to hold up in a commercial environment for very long, and the cases on most handheld tools wear out past rebuildability pretty quick.
Offer .10 cents on the dollar, takes yer chances on whether they work.

[Eric Commarato]

Watch AvE on YouTube,  some salty language, but he is the guy who buys stuff and tears it apart to examine how well its made or not.  He reviewed a Festool item, I think it might have been their track saw.  It will surprise you some of the quality cuts even Festool makes on their products...they aren't necessarily all their cracked up to be.  I was always intrigued by Festool, but not the price. And since I saw his review, I have not been so eager to run out and purchase one of their products.  AvE also reviewed a Harbor Freight 4 1/2" grinder and it was surprisingly a fairly well made tool, albeit made in China.

[meackerman]

I would bet that most premium tools aren't built as well as we would think

A better question is how well built is Festool tool compared to say a high end Dewalt/Makita/Bosch/etc tool?

[Huxleywood]

Watch AvE on YouTube,  some salty language, but he is the guy who buys stuff and tears it apart to examine how well its made or not.  He reviewed a Festool item, I think it might have been their track saw.  It will surprise you some of the quality cuts even Festool makes on their products...they aren't necessarily all their cracked up to be.  I was always intrigued by Festool, but not the price. And since I saw his review, I have not been so eager to run out and purchase one of their products.  AvE also reviewed a Harbor Freight 4 1/2" grinder and it was surprisingly a fairly well made tool, albeit made in China.

The problem with AvE teardowns is there is no way to correlate his opinions with actual reliability or durability.  The fact is there are tons of TS 55s used in commercial settings and the anecdotal internet "data" shows an almost non-existent failure rate and the failure modes described are rarely have anything to do with the issues he posed.  Without the ability to correlate the observed "weaknesses" to failure modes it is basically entertainment.  It would be of some use if he dissected the competing saws from Grizzly to Mafell and I imagine he would have seen a pretty linear price to "quality" relationship with Grizzly at or close to the bottom and Mafell at the top with the NAINA Bosch and Festool close behind it.

Without context "reviews" like AvE provides do little except entertain and provide people who would likely never buy Festool tools with a validation of their opinion.  The fact he was baffled by the usefulness of the detachable cord lends credence to the position he doesn't understand woodworking workflow but he is unabashed in his dislike for woodwork.  Festool has some weaknesses in their line, with some tools that obviously have higher than should be expected failures but the TS 55 and TS 75 aren't one of them.

[Eric Commarato]

Yes I can see your point, it would be better if he tore down a competitor's saw and examined both.  Good points all around.