Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

Some observations -

• Oreck is conspicuously missing from the upright ratings.
• Panasonic has a new AeroBlast for $700 is a apparently a poor copy of a Dyson that burps loudly when it reverses the air flow to clean the filter.   Why would anyone pay so much for a Dyson copy, particularly when the filter clogs with fine dust?
  
• Hoover's fall from grace is noted, presumably due to their ill conceived bagless vacuums.  Hoover now has the worst reliability of the uprights.  Dyson is second only to Kirby in the reliability rankings.   
  
• For uprights, Kenmore takes the top 2 spots (bagged and bagless), followed by the Riccar SupraLite RSL3, the Electrolux Oxygen EL5035A, and the Kirby Sentria.  
  
• The Halo is #33 on the list for uprights. 
  
• The $60 Hoover Tempo Widepath has a better tool airflow score than the Dyson DC17 as well as better carpet cleaning scores. 
  

Hi gang,

I was at the Riccar site today and discovered a link to a video segment re the top-rated vacumms in the last CR review.  I found it especially interesting since women are involved in making the discussion and, being the main users of these appliances, have a less clinical outlook at the whole thing.  For them it''s often simply about getting the job done.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23008886#23008886

Best,

Venson

CarmineD wrote:
There's no possible way the Tempo will outlast the DC17.  Having seen a Tempo/Windtunnel up close and having used one, I know that.  It's not nearly as well made as the Dyson (remember who's second most reliable in the CR report).  When you buy a $60 vacuum, you get what you pay for.  You don't get the quality of a $500 vacuum, it's just not possible.  You get something that will last you a couple of years and that's it.  Not to mention the cost of upkeep, bags, belts, and such.  2 Type Y bags sell for $9 at K-Mart.  If you change them once a month, it will cost you approximately $60 a year.  Dysons have no additional maintenance costs.

Speaking of Dysons and such, I had a chance to visit my good friend Tom this past week for a cross-country trip to NC and spent last Wednesday and part of yesterday at his shop.  Wednesday afternoon a lady brought in a Tempo (the same one you recommend) for service, complaining that it would not pick up well on carpets.   It looked like a fairly recent machine as the body itself wasn't in bad shape and not abused.  Turns out the belt was stretched and needed replacement, after only one month of use.   The machine itself worked OK (a little squealing), but of course the bag hadn't been changed since who-knows-when and smelled horrible from the exhaust.  The headlight bulb was also burned out, go figure. 

When was the last time you heard about a Dyson belt stretched out after one month?  Another customer brought in a very well-loved yellow Dyson DC07 (easily 4-5 years old) that had been used in a commercial setting.  The bin latch would not release so it needed replacement; consequently the bin was packed full with nasty hair, dirt, etc. since no one could empty it.  The pre-motor filter was absolutely filthy and looked like it had never been cleaned once in its entire life.  But guess what?  Not only did it still run and had suction, the exhaust didn't stink.  Aside from that the machine was fully functional and nothing else on it was broken, as bad as it looked!  I can only imagine how a WindTunnel would last in that environment, not long.  It especially wouldn't continue to pick up and pack that bin even more full like this DC07 did.

Sure, there are probably people that like the Tempo as the reviews indicate, but notice that unlike the DC17 reviews, none of them say it makes them breathe better, or get all of the pet dander out of the carpet.  None say it makes the carpet look better, and not one of the reviews you posted show that anyone's friends recommended it to them. 

CR may not like Dysons all that much, but there's one thing the Dyson has that the others don't: the word-of-mouth popularity that cannot be stopped. 

-MH

M.H. how did the dc07 cyclones look,clean or blocked,did anything get by the premotor filter?

MOLE

mole wrote:
Hi Mole,

The cyclones were dusty, but not clogged.  I heard they do trap some residual fine dust from use and this machine was far from new so that's understandable.  A quick blast with the air compressor will clean them.  The area behind the pre-motor filter was clean.

Motorhead wrote:

MH,

I agree with you that a $500 vacuums should be built better and have more features than a $60 vacuum.  I would also expect the Dyson to perform fairly well on low pile commercial type carpeting where the brush roll design is less important.   Perhaps you forgot to mention that while the belt for the Hoover costs a couple bucks to replace, when you replace the Dyson's belt, you must also buy a new clutch.   Doesn't it cost around $90 to replace the belt and clutch, or has the price gone up recently?   I would expect your good friend Tom to be bullish on Dyson, because he stated on the old forum that he had invested a lot of money in Dyson repair parts, and he expected to have a fruitful retirement. 

For many people, the $500 is far beyond their reach.  It is great that people can buy a decent vacuum cleaner for $60.  It might not look as pretty as a Dyson, but it will do a good job on their carpeting. 

Dyson's not a bad vacuum.    It has taken Dyson a while to learn how to build a brush roll for American style carpets, but the Dyson DC17 seems to be a fairly good cleaner.   Perhaps one of Dyson's new vacuums would even work on Carmine's carpeting, but who knows. 

Hoover has certainly gone down hill recently, and now that it's owned by a Chinese company, the future doesn't look so hot.  A vacuum repair specialist told me that they will no longer repair Hoover, Dirt Devil, and Eureka vacuum cleaners because thecompanies don't want to pay labor costs, and they are extremely slow to reimburse the cost of parts.  He said that he loved working on Orecks, and that Oreck was very helpful. 

CR neither likes nor dislikes Dysons.  They put every vacuum through their set of tests and call them like they see them.  They report on the positives and negatives, perhaps in less detail than some of us would prefer. 

Hi Severus,

On the DC07 and DC14, the clutch as well as the belt from the clutch to the brushroll is not what wears out.  There's another belt that goes from the motor to the clutch (I had no idea these used 2 belts but apparently they do) that can stretch out over a long period of time and needs to be replaced.  That belt costs only 90 cents retail and the job can be done in less than a few minutes.  The DC15, 18, and 21 have 2 motors with a gear-driven brushroll, eliminating the belt completely.  That setup seems to be doing well (it would have to, otherwise Dyson wouldn't be using it in their new models with the exception of the DC17) although I heard from another person that he's had a few DC15s in with abnormally noisy gearboxes.  If I recall, that isn't too cheap to replace, with the price somewhere in the ballpark of $120-150.  The pattern I noticed with all of the stories I heard is that the machine isn't usually the real culprit; it's the customer either misusing it or simply not knowing how (i.e. not given a proper demonstration or reading the manual).  If you suck up fringe with it or a hard object and jam the brushroll, no the machine is not going to handle that well and a little more noise can be expected.

The bottom line is when it comes to misuse/neglect/etc., it doesn't matter what the machine costs or what it is.  If the owner thinks he/she can pick up anything they want with it, of course it's going to have problems down the road.

-MH

EDIT:  After reading IMacDaddy's post, someone else confirmed to me on the phone that the DC17 does indeed have a geared belt; I stand corrected.  For the longest time I thought it was gear-driven like the others; it certainly sounds gear-driven when it's running.  But it does make sense considering that one way to tell if the machine is either gear or belt-driven is to disassemble the nozzle (insert a penny or flathead screwdriver and turn the latches on each side, then remove the endcaps) to see if the brushroll comes out in 2 separate pieces on either side.  Any machine with a 2-piece brushroll is gear-driven.  The DC17's brushroll is one piece.

Actually, the DC17 does use a belt, but it is a cogged belt, which should last a long time, if not, the life of the machine.

does the brush motor stop,if it gets jammed or do the teeth on the belt just get ripped away?

MOLE

Hi all,

More of the public take on the latest CR vacuum reviews -- http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080216/LIFE0805/802160308

Venson

I have had my Dyson DC04 for 5 and half years.  I have never experienced a problem with the belt itself on the machine, it is still the same one that was put into the machine in 2002 when I had to call Dyson engineer to replace the clutch due to the original factory one being abnormally noisy.    Since then it has been no problem.  The only thing I must say is that feature of ratchet when the brushbar gets jammed doesn't work after a while because the belts do lose a bit of their tension, when my DC04 has got jammed it doesn't ratchet at all.