Porter Cable routers R.I.P ?

[Curt Harms]

It's interesting as HD still is offering PC routers for sale online.

I have 2 PC routers, a 2 1/2 HP plunge router and a 3 1/4HP mounted on a Woodpecker lift in my router table. I also have a little Makita trim router which I beginning to enjoy using. I can't get most of the parts for the 2 1/2 HP router any more even at erplacementparts.

Can't get parts for the 890 when it just became known they were discontinued? Maybe there's something to the rumor that new parts are unavailable from the manufacturer. There's Elaire for replacement collets, brushes and bearings are pretty generic. Other parts though could be a problem.

[Brian Behrens]

Good riddance. The electronics in the new 7518 are garbage and the warranty is not worth the paper it's written on. After mine died like most of the others, it took 5 months to get a resolution under warranty. PC said they couldn't fix it and I wound up getting a refund. This was after battling them to even accept the under 1 yr old router for repair under the 3 year warranty. After they had it for repair for 2 months, I had to launch my own investigation as to what the status was. I really think they just threw it in the trash and had no intention of contacting me. God help you if you ever have to contact PC for warranty help.


It was literally the worst customer service I've ever experienced from any company. Having been through this, I will move away from Dewalt also.

[Dave Sabo]

Dave, I was commenting about the Dewalt 618 only because I own two of them and also own two PC 690’s, so feel confident that I can compare and contrast the two. Never owned a PC890 or a DW616, so cannot comment.

One PC690 I have is a later model 690LRVS model that has soft start, multiple speeds..

That’s fine , but but they are different h.p. / wattages as well as size and weight. 616 vs 690 is a better, more useful comparison. Otherwise , we could go round and round with all kinds of comparisons from all our collections that would only be relevant to us.

Can't get parts for the 890 when it just became known they were discontinued? Maybe there's something to the rumor that new parts are unavailable from the manufacturer.

ereplacement has lots of 890 parts in stock.

[Mike Kees]

PC tools were awesome stuff before they were bought out and cheapened down. I do not remember ever having to spend money on a PC tool for repair except for the cheap plastic toggle switch on the later 690's. As a carpenter reliability and repair costs of various brands are important to keep track of. Just this summer I got my hands on a used Makita 9924 belt sander . Needed a new knob for the tracking control , it only cost $ 2.30. At the other end of the spectrum the most expensive parts I have needed were on Bosch tools. Wish I had figured out that Makita replacement parts were so cheap years ago. Probably would have way more Makita and less Dewalt stuff now.

[wayne booker]

My 890 is still running fine in my router table, and I've recently become a convert to the Bosch 1617 and I really like it. So sad to see such a venerable brand just stop making the one thing that they were so well known for. Seems like when a company's fortunes rises with a successful product, the corporate leeches come along and buy it up when it's valuable, then set about cutting costs to squeeze out every dollar they can out of it and in the process kill the thing that made the company great. Then they just sell it off as a commodity to someone else who thinks they can do the same, but by then it's too late, the product sucks by then and customers are already moving along to other brands. Corporate greed is what killed it.

[Edward Weber]

I know this is an old thread but now a few years on, I wonder if discontinuing the router line has hurt them financially.

I still try to avoid most things spld under the Stanley-Black & Decker umbrella.
No confidence at all that "X tool" will be there tomorrow, judging by what they did to the router line.

[Bruce Wrenn]

I know this is an old thread but now a few years on, I wonder if discontinuing the router line has hurt them financially.

I still try to avoid most things spld under the Stanley-Black & Decker umbrella.
No confidence at all that "X tool" will be there tomorrow, judging by what they did to the router line.

It wasn't just the PC line,but the Delta line also.. Most everything new I see branded Delta in JUNK. IMHO!