We currently own a Dirt Devil bagless upright; I’ve been pretty satisfied with it, but there are a couple of things about it we don’t like, and we’ve had it for about 5 years, and are feeling like maybe it’s getting time to replace it. We had an in-home demonstration of the Rainbow vacuum, and were impressed; of course, if we were going to buy one, we’d buy it off ebay for about $400.00. But lately, I’ve been hearing more about Dyson vacuums. We can also get one of those on ebay for $400.00 or less. By searching the archives, I’ve found two Dopers that own and highly recommend them. If you own one, please answer the following questions:
How long have you had it?
Are you as pleased with it now as when you first bought it?
Would you buy another one?
Which model do you have?
Anything about it you don’t like?
Is it easy to disassemble? (One of hubby’s biggest complaints about our Dirt Devil is that he needs a screwdriver to take it apart).
Feel free to add any other info you might think is relevant.
We got one last night. It sucks impressively. The guy at Sears didn’t know much about it and took a lot of time fumbling around trying to configure and disassemble the floor demo; he was initially pushing some other traditional machine that he was more familiar with. My wife didn’t have any trouble with it though. We paid an extra $30 for the “+Floor Tool” model but chose to skip the “Animal” which was $100 more than the base price - in addition to the under-bed floor tool attachment it has another tool designed (I guess) for animal hair, and also includes some cleaning spray and powder. The animal attachment can apparently be purchased separately for around $40, but not at Sears. The basic vacuum picked up a pretty enormous amount of cat hair without the attachment so I don’t think we need the “Animal” doo-dad.
It has two filters- one “lifetime HEPA” that I’m not sure can be cleaned, and a second sponge filter that can be washed. My wife wasn’t too thrilled with the color (red and sparkly purple), but it’s growing on her. In fact, she originally wanted to pay the extra $70 for a lavender/grey “Animal.” It’s easy to assemble and disassemble, but almost everything is plastic. Also very compact - if you’re interested in playing with it, hit a department store that sells it and experiment with the floor model. There are buttons to press to disassemble anything that’s intended to be disassembled.
This has been our first non-cheapo vacuum and so far I’m pretty impressed with how much stuff it’s picked up. It’s easy to dump the dirt and hair, and you don’t contact the contents if you do it right (Sears guy got it all over his slacks though). As far as I can tell, it doesn’t accumulate dirt anywhere outside the collection bin except the filters (one of which is washable), so hopefully its ability to suck will not diminish over time. As I recall, Consumer Reports said the Dyson was easy to break or something like that. If this thread is still around in a while I’ll keep you posted. Good luck!
I gots me one. It truly sucks. In fact, it sucks harder than any vacuum I’ve ever owned, and that’s been a few. The last two I had, one a Dirt Devil, one a Hoover, both uprights, literally ate themselves. It was horrifying. In both cases, bits of plastic and rubber somehow came loose somewhere in the beater, were ground into squealing bits, and in the process of self-consumption they burned out their own motors. I’m talking smoke, sparks, terrified pets. I dunno, I’m vacuum cursed or something.
Back to the Dyson: Again, an upright (not sure of what other models they make)…bought it at Best Buy for like $350 or somewhere in that neighborhood. I’m very impressed with it. I like the way you can simply pop off the container, pull the little trigger, and the bottom just opens and the junk slides out into the trash can. Very convenient, and keeps crap from flying everwhere in a dusty cloud. I’m told I can clean the HEPA filter in the dishwasher, and that’s mighty cool too, in my book.
Yep, nothing sucks like a Dyson. And unlike all my other purchases, it doesn’t show any signs of going from suck to blow. I highly recommend it.
There must be some way to combine the “nature abhorrs a vacuum” and “Dysonsphere” concepts into a horribly witty and brilliant pun-filled joke to go here, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.
Fairly large and slightly unwieldy. Don’t like the way you swap tool attachments (oooer missus).
Yes.
It’s all very lovely, although I accidentally vacuumed the cat up and now he’s entirely triangular in cross section after passing through the Magical Cyclonic Pipe Wizardry.
Don’t have one…bought a Pahntom Thunder about 7 or 8 yeears ago. At the time it was truely a revolutionary vacuum. They had similar claims, the handle turned into the extendo-sucker, bagless, hepa filter etc. I really think their vacuum woke up the hoovers and Eureka’s as they didn’t have anything like it.
Sucked like the dickens too…fora bout 4 years. Then they went out of business. WE managed to buy a new beaterbar on ebay, and a couple of drive belts and lites and it came right back.
Now it’s getting weak again and we’re in the market. I’m not sure I wanna pay the $400 for a Dyson (or whatever the orecks are goin’ for now) as I can’t tell if I’ll end up having yet another 8 year vacuum cleaner.
My parents had a full metal Hoover that ran for YEARS…they’d occasionally get it serviced, but it just seemed to last forever. HOWEVER that sucker was HEAVY, and TIPPY, and a PITA to put the hose attachments on. They’ve definately improved things since the early 70’s when they bought it.
I’ll never ever buy another Bissel product - two shampooers dies a pre-mature death.
We bought the cheapest Hoover shampooer they had. It’s cord was 6 feet shorter, and it didn’t have a powered wand attachment. Saved $70 over the next model up and never missed the extra features.
What’s teh point of this rant? I think ANY new vacuum cleaner will probably work well, but I don’t know anybody reviewing 5 year old vacuums. Will a $150 vacuum and a $400 vacuum compare well over 5 years? Will the more expensive one work $250 better?
We were all set to buy a Dyson and then we saw last month’s Consumer Reports. It had them rated as merely average in cleaning ability. We ended up with a bagless Wind Tunnel and have been happy with it so far.
Well, that’s why I asked how long the Dopers have owned theirs, to see if they keep their value. Here’s the way I see it: five years ago, we paid $170.00 for our Dirt Devil; since then, we’ve had to have the belts and filters replaced twice, in order to keep it working pretty well. The belt and filter replacement runs $70.00 each time. So, we’ve actually paid $310.00 for our Dirt Devil; you can get a Dyson upright, brand new, on ebay for around $300.00. So, now we’re in the same price category. . .unless the Dyson will need the same kind of regular service that the Dirt Devil has.
I think I heard something about this one other place, but sometimes real-life and Consumer Reports do not agree. Everything I’ve been able to glean from anyone who actually owns a Dyson has been wonderful. If someone who owns one posts and tells me not to bother, it would definitely give me pause. Also, we’re probably not buying a new vacuum cleaner for another 6 months, so I have plenty of time to make a decision.
I agree. Everything that I had read from people that owned them was in the form of a glowing report. However, the SO is a CR fanatic and takes everything they say as gospel.
I bought my Dyson five years ago, and have never had a moment’s trouble with it. It works as well as the day I bought it. It has no trouble picking up pet hair. The only annoying thing about it is that when you empty the bin, the inner ring falls out and you have to fish the dusty thing out of the rubbish. I think that could have been designed a bit better.
Mine is a floor model, not an upright. For rugs that are covered in pet hair, I pull the wand toward me, then lift it off the floor and away from me. For some reason this seems to work better than the back-and-forth “scrubbing” motion.
So, do you have a lot of carpet? Hardwood Floors? Short or long shag? (That sounds like a PERSONAL question, to me.) I’ve only had upright vacuums, it seems like you’d always be dragging around the base…
Lib and I have had our Dyson (Animal model) for a few months now and we love it. The carpet looks cleaner, feels cleaner, and I’m even breathing easier now. All of this was immediately noticed the first time I used it. It was also pretty shocking to discover what our old Hoover wasn’t picking up!
Yes we have a Dyson Radix Cyclone DC 07. We have had it for roughly 18 months and yes just a happy now as when we first bought it. It is easy to use, easy to empty, and has a place on board for all the attachments. I think it’s absolutely brilliant. I would certainly buy another one but doubt I will have to for a long time. It’s also great for picking up animal hair and for allergy sufferers and asthmatics. See here.
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