Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

Looking back over the past year, one thing conspicuously absent from this forum is a rabid Rainbow enthusiast.  Perhaps it is difficult to justify the outrageous price of these door to door wonders.   To some extent, a Rainbow owner has to believe in the Rainbow sales pitch and doesn't want to be confronted with any negative information about the Rainbow.    I also noticed that overstock.com is no longer selling the refurbished Rainbow SE's with the Wesselwerks small power nozzles.    Given the economy, it's got to be tough selling $2000+ vacuums - even if they can purify one's home. 

The Rainbow is one of my favorite vacuums. I have an SE PE and an E Series. I prefer my  SE PE. I never pick up non wettable items and my home always smells the best after using the Rainbow. I do however wish they would rethink their power nozzle. It doesn't stear very well and doesn't edge clean well. I wish they would use something like the Eureka Express Power Nozzle.

Bud

budmattingly wrote:

Hi budmattingly,

A Eureka power nozzle was what they used when the fitted the first D2s for power nozzles. Then, they got the idea that they could do it better themselves. As the fittings and wands on Rainbow are pretty much standard size you can always opt to use a PN from another brand


Venson

Venson wrote:

I'm not sure what Rainbow is thinking with this power nozzle design.  They are selling a cleaning system at a ridiculously high price with less than a stellar power nozzle.  They improved the air flow/ suction.  They should be putting the best power nozzle on this machine period.  They should be making modifications to raise their dismal scores in the Consumer Reports tests.   

the same goes for Aerus/Lux and their paper bags.   When you sell a premium machine, it should be the absolute best.  HEPA cloth bags are on the premium vacuums.    The door to door machines need to be at least as good as the Miele's sold in the independent stores to justify the high prices. 

Severus wrote:

Here again it is a matter of business's first rule which dictates that you neither spend nor pay anyone any more than you just have to. Aerus can bank on a public trust as it linked to Electrolux at least by association and/or changes so limited that you still thinking you're looking at an ever famous Electrolux. They've popped in a new motor and spiffied up the look of the thing slightly and are prepared to run with that. Unless there are bag breaks, which I see as highly unlikely due to Aerus/Lux's basic design, the larger part of the public will be none the wiser and the guys at Aerus will smile and look the other way -- which they are.

As for Rainbow, if it give up its power nozzle meant to be identifiable specifically as Rainbow's to switch a generic even if better like Wessel Werk, I wonder what would be made of it.

Almost everybody's using the same attachment sets these days. I look at a half-dozen or more high priced machines and what do I see -- same PN and above the floor tools -- and can't figure out why consumers haven't noticed and, it being obvious at least to me that a vacuum is not better than the parts you hit the wood with, begun to think why should they drop a thousand bucks or more when they could have a machine with all the same tools for less.

That said, I like the design of Rainbow's bare floor tool, it's upholstery nozzle with removable brush and the re-designed dusting brush. In their own way, they are unique bit for all this time the big difference about Rainbow is that it has altered the bare floor tool to work with straight wands after forfeiting the curved lower wand it employed for like a hundred years. That kind of progress in itself has probably left the company reeling and it may take a while before it's ready to make another step.

Many of the steps I have seen Rainbow take over the years appeared to be more for the sake of savings. Thew machine itself gone from metal to plastic, cast aluminum tools traded off for plastic because providing the former was too expensive for their financial game plan though I'd advise you not to call the company and ask for the price of new ones. Anyway, to avoid the cost of development, retooling, etc., and concede that someone else's product is better than its own, it may be better to leave the issue alone. The HEPA only got added on because it was a viable pitching point.

The public is still buying Rainbow for the time being and for whatever else it may or might alter I don't think, due to the nature of the machine it will come up with anything that will enthuse more people to buy something that basically no longer fits the current picture. There's no longer great sentiment in as regards perfect housekeepers in this "set it and forget it" age.

Feeling they were wonderful, Granny bought Electrolux, Hoover, Rexair/Rainbow, Air-Way (now gone) and Filter Queen back in the day and their kids resultantly bought a lot of the same brands early on for no better reason than these machines were what Mom had. Nonetheless, times progressed and people's lives and livelihoods expanded as windows of opportunity for mundane tasks like buffing and polishing and appliance rituals shrank. Look at food. How many good, young "scratch cooks" do you know? Anybody got a kid taking home economics lately?

Rainbow is probably better served in attempting to tread water.

Venson

Venson wrote:

Venson,

to me what makes a Rainbow a Rainbow is the canister part, not the power nozzle.   I wonder how many Rainbow customers have turned to Consumer Reports and been shocked by the low ratings for carpet cleaning.   If the CR ratings are to be believed (and IF not - Rainbow should be working with CR to ensure that they are correct), Rainbow needs to improve something to improve the dismal carpet cleaning score.     The obvious choice is the power nozzle.  Whether that means outsourcing or insourcing is up to them.  I'm sure that Rainbow is capable of designing a top notch power nozzle.   If you spend $2200+ dollars on a Rainbow, you really do deserve the best. 

Hi Severus,

I thoroughly agree.  If you spend two grand on a vacuum cleaner you have a right to expect the very best performancewise.  But, that's an area that only a small part of average vacuum consumers have an appreciation of as most will never have an eye to tell.  To the average vacuum buyer and/or user, clean is because they see nothing on top of the rug. Few of us have particle counters or suction meters on hand to monitor the level of virtue there is to machine. We go on the sellers word.

But as for money spent, how much machine do you buy versus how much do you pay to benefit of the sellers profit?  I'm guessing but, as an instance, a new Kirby by now probably sells to distributors and door-to-door vendors for maybe $550 a pop.  The buyer however is asked to pay $1,700 at least.  If that's the case one might wonder if the machine's worth $550 or $1,700 or somewhere in between.  I am sure it's the same with Rainbow -- and other door-to-door sold niche brands with low consumable requirements -- the actual cost of the machine may well turn out to be triple or four times its wholesale price. The phenomenon here is that people have been buying into these names for years and years without making a big deal out of it because they believe that they're "getting something".

Rainbow is a nice idea and has been all along but it has and has had its shortcomings.  Way, way back in the day Rexair had a cloth after-filter under the top lid of the Model B.  As I have only seen few in comparison to the machines I have seen without, I assume that the after-filter was only a very brief part of Rexair history.  Why?  It made it obvious what the machine failed to capture.  Down through the years the pitch was that the contained "rain storm" in the water pan was catching everything but it wasn't.  Apparently not many people bothered to simply look or test things out.  No matter how often you emptied and refilled the water pan of the non-HEPA fitted D2 I had, there was still fine dust to be found past the spider after use for normal cleaning.  Rainbow has now managed to segue to the HEPA filter and come off merely as being modernized and everybody's happy. 

Thus far, enough of the public feels that they're getting something and Rainbow is prepared to sit tight with that for a while.  Electrolux, Kirby and Filter Queen also did the same for long spans of time.

Venson

If Rainbow goes the route of others before who couldn't withstand the economic downturn, it will be a sad day and time. 

According to the latest WSJ news:

U.S. gross domestic product rose at a 2.2% annual rate from July through September, according to the government's third and final reading. It was the second time third-quarter GDP was revised lower. The government initially reported third-quarter GDP growth of 3.5%, then lowered it to 2.8%. In the second quarter, GDP contracted 0.7%. The latest figure was below Wall Street forecasts of 2.7% growth.

BTW, Gross Domestic Product [GDP] is represented/driven 2/3 by American spending.  For those who thought the 2007/2008 economic malaise was a temporary blip, we are now at the end of 2009 and things are worse not better.  Still no light at the end of the tunnel, regardless of what the politicos may say otherwise.

Carmine D.

CarmineD wrote:
It's Rainbow's responsibility to adapt to the times.  I would advise Rainbow to (1) fix the power nozzle, (2) be more generous with the carpet cleaner attachment, (3) be more generous with the "sidekick" attachment, (4) a price drop and/or free or low cost financing would be a plus..  The carpet cleaners in particular are a sore point with many consumers.   Requiring them to provide names of people who will accept a Rainbow demo within a short period of time is a nuisance.   There have been a lot of complaints by consumers who say they've provided names but never received the promised carpet cleaner.  Or the salesman doesn't call the people within the time period, so they don't count. 

Severus wrote:

Hello SEVERUS:

I was never a fan of Rexair/Rainbow in part since I always favored uprights.  But especially since I knew them when they tauted their canns as especially made for asthma and allergy users.  Didn't mention that after these repiratory sufferers had vacuumed, then they had to deal with the mud clean up rather than the dust.  Rexair conveniently left that part out. 

Carmine D.

Severus wrote:

Hi Severus,

Again, I have to agree.  It would be wonderful if Rainbow adapted a gentler frame of mind when it comes to pricing but as none of its other door-to-door or niche brand competitors are reducing their prices it's not likely that Rainbow will.

My last encounter with Rainbow itself was when I wanted to purchase its optional 16-inch bare floor tool.  I contacted a rep and told him what I wanted and also immediately informed him that I was not about to pay him the approximate one hundred bucks it listed for.  We agreed on $65.00 (shipping included and no sales tax as it was to come in from out of state) and I still payed two times what the thing's actually worth.

This happens not with Rainbow alone.  It costs over sixty bucks to buy a replacement floor and rug tool from Aerus. 

Rainbows mini electric nozzle should be included as part of the basic system.  For years while the big kids were puting a dollar value on every screw, nut and bolt, lowly Kenmore has been throwing electric mini nozzles in the attachment sets selling with most of their canisters sold with PNs.  And we're talking cleaners that sell from only $250 to $400.  I think Miele should be doing the same but it just won't.

What's the price on Rainbow's rug cleaner and the comparison to what you'd pay for getting one of the Hoover or Bissell machines specifically made for that purpose on the market?

As for the "tell a friend deals", they're simply useless as Rainbow is an acquired taste and you'll be a long time looking for two more people, forget ten or so, who are even remotely interested.  The tell a friend thing is mostly a ploy to cinch deals with possible buyers by leading to believe that they may have an actual chance to defray the cost of an expensive purchase.

If I wanted a Rainbow today, I'd wait for a good deal to turn up on eBay and also consider swapping out the PN for another.  Simple as that.  Far less money and far better value.  Anyway . . .

Hope Santa's marvelously generous to you and that your new year's a bright one.

Best,

Venson