Which Angle Grinder?

I reckon it's luck of the draw with cheap grinders, I broke 3 (different make) grinders in a year and switched to Bosch. I'd get the highest wattage Bosch one you can afford and then go on the Bosch site and register to get a 3 year warranty.
(Admittedly I did this, it lasted 2 1/2yrs then I couldn't find the extended warranty or remember the username or password to reprint it )

I bought a clarke one about 12 years ago. About 6 years ago I dropped it and the body broke. I glued it together with Araldite and reinforced it with gaffer tape and it's still going strong.

It's always been cheapies with me. They tend to last OK and I'm pretty certain that all of the cheapos are actually from the same factory somewhere in China, from the no-brand £9.99 ones from discount stores, the Draper-stickered ones to the ones that places like B&Q charge laughably too much money for. They all look very similar and the parts interchange on them, at any rate.
I find the lock mechanism to be the weak point, and usually means I have to jam a screwdriver into the gears to lock them once it breaks. ;D
Brushes are replaceable but usually something else goes before that.

I bought one for £35, the motor burned out within a month. So I bought a cheapy for £15 and I have now had it for over 4 yrs and still going strong. Sorry I can't remember the name but I think I got it from Focus.

Cheers,

Stu.

Currently on my third cheapy.
First one died in clouds of stinking smoke and second one smashed the gears.
Since they're so cheap I've got no problem with replacing them once a year but they always seem to die on me when I need them the most,which is frustrating to say the least

I currently have 4 cheap ones.

It's better than spending £40 on a good one, as if one dies I'll still have 3 left.

So far, I've kept all 4 working for more than a year now. And I do a fair bit of work with them.

If you buy Bosch only buy a blue one, green ones are domestic diy models and won't last. That's my first choice, then Makita or Dewalt, but I don't like the placement of the disc lock on the Dewalt

I would never buy a cheap grinder simply on the grounds that my Makita gets serious duty and it's coming up to 12 years old now

I use a dewalt, its about 2 years old and suffered some abuse along the way as well as being dropped, clamped in vices, run on gen sets, cut steel, ally, wood, rubber ( that was hard work!) filled with stone dust weld spatter etc and it is still all fine
had 3 cheepos die in quick succession and realised it wasn't worth the petrol to return them!
Over the years I had a bosch, AEG and B&D all ok but they all die in the end

i bought a £60 black & decker in like 1992 and it lasted until about 2002 then stopped working, so i bought a cheapie, it lasted A DAY and just got hot and smelly under any kind of strain. bought another cheapie, lasted maybe 3 days . However I nicked the brushes out of the cheapies, put them in the B&D and its alive again! Replaced the brushes again this year so that thing has been running like EVERY DAY more or less, and for the last 15 years. (with only brushes replaced twice) changing the brushes takes about 2 minutes by the way. What i like about that machine is the cable can unplug from the grinder, and also the cable is decent rubber which is really soft and flexible. Bought a Bosch recently too so that I don't have to keep changing discs. That seems nice and has a soft start feature which is nice.