Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a good miter saw for the money, but I would strongly recommend immediately checking that the fences are parallel. DeWalt has (or had) a problem with their fence castings, and mine was bowed (see photograph). Unfortunately, I did not discover this for two years, since I was primarily cutting long boards, where the bowing did not show up. It was only when I started cutting small pieces that I discovered the problem. I took the saw to a DeWalt Service Center, where I found out that 1, the three year warranty on defective parts is virtually useless, since the manager accused me of abusing the saw, and 2, they are in denial about the problem. The service technician who ground the fence flat admitted that he had seen the problem multiple times but had “no idea how it got that way”. The manager claimed that the one piece aluminum fence would bend easily, so it must be my fault, but didn’t explain how the bolts to attach the fence still lined up perfectly and why the technician ground the fence to get it parallel rather than just bending it straight (I tried bending the fence straight, but it wouldn’t budge). They were going to charge me $110 to fix a $220 saw. I refused to pay it and kept insisting (loudly) that it was a factory defect. The manager finally agreed that the fix would be under warranty (just to make me go away, I am sure), but said my warranty for the saw would no longer in effect for anything. Since the saw has been perfect other than the fence, I was happy to agree. If the manager had not relented, I would have salvaged my blade, and left the saw there and simply bought another one. Anyway, if you check the fence with a straight edge as soon as you get the saw and it is not parallel, you can either return it or take it to a Dewalt Service Center where they will not be able to claim that you abused the saw. Other than the fence, this has been a reliable and accurate miter saw. I did buy a better blade (Freud LU88R012 Industrial Thin Kerf Fine Finish Crosscut Saw Blade 12 inch x 80t ATB 1 inch arbor) at the same time I bought the saw, which brings up a weird fact. The manual says to “always use 12" (305 mm) saw blades with 1" (25.4 mm) arbor”, but the saw actually takes a 5/8" arbor. An adapter is necessary to use a blade with a 1" arbor. An adapter was provided with the saw. If I had known this, I could have bought my replacement blade with the proper arbor size.