# Battery recall



## papasombre (Sep 22, 2011)

I was looking for to post this. Finally I decided to do in this forum since it is related to safety.

Last year I bought two medium duty cordless drills to do some projects.(Picture 1) Each one came with two batteries like the one shown in picture 2. Unfortunatelly (or not?) one of the batteries fell over the floor and the carcase was damaged as you can see in the third picture. I tried to buy a replacement to keep the drills as they originally were and found that the battery is more expensive than the drill itself but, the surprise was biggest when during a more detailed search I discovered that these batteries were recalled by US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Hitachi Koki USA,Ltd. from March the 20th of 1997!!!

A statement on the Release #97-084 says "Consumers should immediately stop using Hitachi drills with FEB9 series batteries involved in this recall" neverthe less the batteries can be bought by internet. Only Amazon says that the item is out of stock and no news about its reposition have been given.

The above mentioned Release also says "The battery could overheat and melt while being recharged. If consumers touch the overheated battery, their skin could be burned."

I wonder why, knowing all these facts, these batteries are still on the shelves?:nono:


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## wbh1963 (Oct 11, 2011)

Alexis,

Thank you for sharing this information with us.

Since my brother's cordless drill is Hitachi, I found the recall statement you quoted to get the exact model numbers. His drill is much newer and not included in this problem.

I noticed that the statement included a telephone number for consumers to call in order to obtain replacement batteries. I also noticed that the statement listed serial numbers for the bad ones.

It is possible the batteries with the unit you purchased are replacement batteries. It is also possible that they were original batches with different serial numbers that were not found to be dangerous.

As to the batteries available on the internet, I hope that most of them are of the good serial numbers, but suspect that some may be of the bad serial numbers also. A sad fact of life is that when there is profit to be made, there are people out there who will ignore safety in pursuit of money.

Have you verified the serial numbers of the batteries you have? FEB9 is the model number. About the serial numbers that are bad, according to the CPSC recall:

The batteries involved in this recall have serial number *06, 16, 36, 56, 76, 86, or 96*. The serial number is located on a black and silver sticker on the side of the battery.


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## Garyk (Dec 29, 2011)

Alexis,
If you no longer trust the batteries you may be able to have them rebuilt using the newer technology. If you have a Battery+ store close to you they can advise you. I have two Bosch drills that you can not buy batteries for (the new style won't work) and I had them rebuilt. They are better than the originals and cost a lot less than 2 new drills.
Gary


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## papasombre (Sep 22, 2011)

Thank you, Bill and Gary.

I checked it more than twice and the broken battery is included in the recall. Maybe they are not available in USA but manufacturers try to sell them in others countries where the lack of control is not an issue.

There is a tendency to use foreigner companies to produce some items that later are incorporated in the final products. They are named OEM ( for Original Equipment Manufactures) and, for a bargain, they sell these items to somebody who needs them. Safety does not matter, only the big incomes.

Even if I have the possibility to rebuilt it, I won't take the risk.

Best regrards.


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## wbh1963 (Oct 11, 2011)

Heating up and cooling down may be what weakened the plastic enough that it broke when dropped instead of just bouncing. Better it broke the way that it did, than melting into a puddle of goo and possibly starting a fire.

Especially with e-bay and the web in the modern age, if it's small enough to be mailed and available anywhere, it's available everywhere, whether legal or not. If an item doesn't look like drugs or weapons on an random x-ray, or smell like something the random sniffing dogs detect, it probably gets through to its destination in the mail.




papasombre said:


> Thank you, Bill and Gary.
> 
> I checked it more than twice and the broken battery is included in the recall. Maybe they are not available in USA but manufacturers try to sell them in others countries where the lack of control is not an issue.
> 
> ...


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## OPG3 (Jan 9, 2011)

Interesting article here! Hitachi is one of my favorite brands of tools. Many of them are manufactured in the area near where I reside. Hitachi is also a very good customer of mine, so our business is loosely reciprocal in that we both benefit. I say "loosely reciprocal", because even though I own and use daily several of their tools, I am unable to buy them direct and have found my local Lowe's Stores to be a great vendor (Lowe's is also one of my national customers).
Here's where I need to get on my "soapbox" about product warranties and one of the reasons that I very rarely purchase used power tools. When you purchase new tools *ALWAYS TAKE THE TIME TO FILL-OUT AND MAIL-IN THE WARRANTY REGISTRATION.*
Without filling-out this registration, the manufacturer has no way of knowing who owns the tools...and guess what?...People often go unnotified about things such as exactly this! Tool manufacturers are typically very respectable people, with a sincere interest in assuring customer satisfaction, but without this information - the customer is setting themselves up for a fall! I am constantly buying new power tools of all types (many having nothing at all to do with woodworking) and I ALWAYS IMMEDIATELY FILL-OUT & RETURN THE PRODUCT REGISTRATION CARD(s). Yes - it is important. Also while I am on this soapbox, let me offer-up this handy tidbit of info: It is quite common that companies having received these product registration cards will send valuable coupons back as a thank you! Please people, let's all do this correctly; for our own good!


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## papasombre (Sep 22, 2011)

Bill, Otis.

Thank you for your comments. Both of them are right.

This thing happened only by chance. If the battery did not fall down I'd never know about this battery recall from 1997. I think that time enough has elapsed to recover all of these pieces but, more than 12 years later they are still on the shelves, at least in this part of the world.

Best regards.


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