[crew219]

Originally Posted by velobard

I bought a slightly used Metabo and being a newb with a rotary, started off cautiously on speed 1. I made a first pass on half of the hood on a friend's car and noticed it was getting quite hot. I stopped for a few moments and when I tried to start again, it was going into overload protection mode and was reluctant to spin. I tried it once more at home, experienced the same thing in less than 5 minutes again and took it to the local authorized service center. They checked it out and said it looked like new inside, they couldn't find anything wrong. They also suggested I use a heavier extension cord. After picking up a 12/3 cord I had the same thing happen, then tried polishing the top of our dryer without an extension cord. It still overheated <5 minutes. On speed 2 it made it just about a full 5 minutes before it did the same thing.

After taking it back to the shop again, the repair guy checked it out, talked to Metabo and told me this is supposedly normal, that the cooling fan doesn't work effeciently until you're in the upper half of the speed range. I even tried calling Metabo directly, had a customer service rep put me on hold while he spoke to 2 different product managers for this buffer and they still insisted this is normal.

I haven't had occasion to go out and try it again yet on higher speeds, but I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this.

How "hot" is hot?

I haven't noticed my metabo getting significantly hotter than my PC or the Makita I used to use, and I do a lot of polishing in the 700-1200rpm range.

Dave