Service…Accidentally hit “enter” before I finished typing the title. Oops.

This is a crosspost from another forum but I thought some on Knots might want this info. as well since I think the 5625 is one of the two choices for a big fixed base router.

I posted a response to someone’s asking about the Milwaukee 5625 and mentioned that the new one I had just received had some travel in the motor spindle. About .004″.

I’ve noticed that others have noticed this so I wanted to follow up.

I posted about a separate issue in the Milwaukee Tool Forum on their website and received a response a day or two following with a name, phone number, prompt cue’s to get through the menu, and an extension. The original posting was about some vibration and possible runout on a 5615 owned. While this was transpiring UPS brought my new 5625.

I unpacked the 5625 and before even firing it up I checked the spindle for play as I had read a post from Pat Warner that he had noticed this on a couple 5625’s. Sure enough it had the play so I called the cust service person and went through the issue’s on both routers.

While I was on the line he went and checked a motor (motors?) in-house and said they had a little play as well and said he would check with the tech’s and get back to me. Following day he called and said that he would issue a call tag for both motors and have them evaluated.

FedEx call tag arrived in the mail a couple of days later and I shipped them off. About a week goes by and I haven’t gotten them back so I call and he says they’ve been evaluated and problems resolved on both motors, they are shipping the next day.

Just got them back today and they are both fixed. Included was a service report with itemized parts.

No play in the 5625 spindle, the fix apparently involved adding a couple of wave washers. I was told these are standard in the 5615-5616 but not in the 5625. I’m guessing they will be now. Ran it for a couple of minutes to see if all OK; ran fine and didn’t seem to get hot so I don’t think the bearings are too tight now. In fact it still takes a bit to spin down, very different from the Porter Cable 890 I have. Maybe a motor brake on the PC?

Regarding the 5615 it has been taken care of as well. They added an armature kit (?), new bearing, and a new motor housing. It had slipped out of my hands while changing a bit and the housing hit the vice causing a dent. It vibrated before and after so I didn’t think this affected anything but it was swapped out. The motor is now very smooth.

Keep in mind the 5615 was over a year old before I thought to call them. It buzzed but it took a while for me to be bothered enough to see if it was bad enough to get service.

None of this has cost me any money in service, shipping, or downtime. Luckily the service fell at a time when it didn’t amount to any downtime because of the routers being out of the shop.

The 5625 issue was addressed quickly but it should have been as it was new. There should have been no spindle play to begin with but they took care of it.

The 5615 was better than average service I would say. Used tool and they basically overhauled it for no charge. I measured .0045 runout which is just under their .005 tolerance. Their tech measured .003 at 1.5″ over the collet after service. This seems fine as the motor is much smoother than it ever was before.

A little long winded for me but I think Milwaukee took care of the problem pretty well. The tools are fixed, I didn’t have to ship or drive it to a service center and they took care of it pretty quickly overall.

They have a 5 year warranty, hopefully I won’t be dealing with it again.

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Edited 3/9/2006 9:45 pm ET by adastra