Upright Vacuums Reviews

I bought this vacuum three years ago. Actually I bought the original three years ago. It was replaced three times in the first year. We bought an extended warranty on the vacuum and thought that would make it ok to deal with any problems. The first vacuum started sparking after 10 minutes, and then blew up. We replaced it since it was under warranty and used the second vacuum for about 4 months before the belt blew when we replaced the belt the vacuum blew up again. Again we replaced the vacuum with the same model. Also during the entire use, the vacuum has smelled of burning rubber. While we have a lot of carpet, none of our older vacuums have made this smell. We figured out that the vacuum will only last about 20 minutes before the burning smell starts. Now we have the vacuum pile selection raised to the highest setting (we figures that the smell was coming from the brushes inability to move quickly when down on the lowest pile setting). While the vacuum seemed fine for a while...the suction is now down to almost nothing and the belt on the vacuum lasts about 3 uses. So every third time we vacuum...we have to change the belt. We have also experienced the vacuum falling over when using the attachments. Please save yourself the time, energy, and frustration that this vacuum will require.

We bought this after moving into our new home...new house=new dirt=new vacuum...lol...well needless to say i was thrilled to turn it on and use it for the first time...vacuuming was enjoyable...the first time anyway!!! After that the vacuum couldnt be used for more than 10 minutes before it would overheat and turn itself off...and not able to run again for 20+ minutes!!...Nothing like trying to clean your house and the vacuuming alone would be a all day thing...i was VERY disappointed :(

We purchased our Hoover vacuum probably about two years ago. It offers a ton of features, including a cleanable filter and a separate HEPA filter. There is also a washable exhaust filter. This vacuum cleaner works incredibly well, pulling all kinds of dirt out of the carpet and off our vinyl floors. There are a lot of nice features, including a very bright front light, and various attachments to allow you to vacuum furniture and the edges of walls.

Given the Hoover name and all the wonderful features, as well as the cost, I thought this vacuum cleaner was going to be an outstanding buy. We replaced a Kirby vacuum cleaner with this Hoover with the expectation that the Hoover would last us for at least 5 or more years. Unfortunately, less than two years into using it, the Hoover gave up the ghost when the motor smoked.

We treated the Hoover well, emptying the can and knocking dust out of the filter weekly. We rarely ran the vacuum longer than a half hour at a time, and vacuumed only common household dirt. Thus, this vacuum cleaner should have been in an environment where it lived for a very long time. We are vacuuming a bare floor when the vacuum started smoking and the smell of a burning motor started to fill the room. Replacement motors run from $80 to $130, plus the labor to replace them. We will likely opt for a new vacuum cleaner given the cost of replacing the motor.

We were going to go with another Hoover, probably a self-propelled given the difficulty we had with pushing this vacuum, but after seeing a substantial number of negative reviews for self-propelled Hoover vacuums and for Hoover vacuums in general, including others with motors that have burned up, we are wondering whether we should go back to Sears. We've had two Sears canister vacuums, with our current one more than ten years old and running strong.

After doing quite a bit of research about this and reading many reviews, I've found that the real probelm with this vacumm and possibly other Hoover products is an internal thermostat.

What this does, after having a Hoover customer service person explain it to me is, cut the power off when the motor reaches a predetermined temperature as not to damage the motor. He explained to me that he is very familiar with this as many machines have the same problem, as he's answered similiar questions from other consumers.

What happens is that when you vacumm for about 10 minutes, the thermostat cuts off the power supply to the motor. After you place the off/on switch back to the off position, and wait for another 10 minutes, you can then use the machine for approx. the same amount of time.

We do this routine and it takes us about an hour and a half to complete the job.

Hoover has done a real disservice to its customers by not supporting their product. After extending the warranty for an additional year I asked the Customer service agent,"will this repair the problem permenantly?" He replied, "Probably not." I asked him if they could give me some sort of discount on purchasing another machine, but they declined. I then explained that the service center is in Seattle......only 2.5 hours from Portland by car, or as the CS agent suggested that I ship it for to them...at my expense!? This isn't exceptable as the shipping costs would outway the replacement of the machine.

I will not be purchasing another vacumm from Hoover again. I'm also going to make a point of explaining the entire issue to folks asking my advice about vacumms or anything related to Hoover.

Because I'd hate to be labeled as any companies shill, I'll suggest that when buying a vacumm that you consider anything other than a Hoover.

Lastly, is it really execptional to ask for a vacumm to last more than 6-12 months. Our last machine, a Eureka is still running. We wanted to buy a new machine with allergen filtration and something that would be bagless.

However, now we find ourselves trading opions with Hoover on whether or not their product should be expected to last a certain amount of time, especially when our last vacumm(purchased in 1991) still runs. Many other family members from the 50's still run also.

Technically, it doesn't even rate one star! My husband and I bought this last year when we moved into our new house. We got so tired of searching for bags for our old one and thought a bagless would be great. When we saw it had a filter too, that seemed like an added bonus because of my many allergies. And we believed Hoover was a good name. What a piece of crap it turned out to be! It doesn't pick up well. It spits stuff out the back, especially on hard floors. It "drives" difficult. The dust container is tiny....I must empty it 4-6 times if I vacuum our entire 2100 sq. ft. house all at once. And that's a disaster.....dust flies EVERYWHERE no matter how careful I am. So much for my allergies! The hose for the tools is very short. And it's very loud. I cannot think of a single good thing to say about it. (OK...it IS a decent shade of blue!) We just picked up a Eureka 4870DT tonite based on Consumer Reports recommendation. (Also checked out the Amazon reviews on it. They were pretty good.)

I bought this for about $170.00 one a year ago. The only way I can make it pick up dirt is to get on my hands and knees and use the hose by hand. This gets frustrating because the hose comes unattached every minute or so. Im very tired of buying vacuums that end up in the land fill after only a year. This vacuum should not ever be on the market... BUYER BEWARE.

When I bought this vacuum (or the equivilant 3 year old version) I was absolutely ecstatic! I had just moved in with 3 boys for roomates who each had a vacuum. 1 had a dead motor, 1 did a really bad job and the other one we couldn't find bags for. I splurged and bought a hoover. I was in awe of how much of my roomates cats long hair it picked up that first day. Within weeks though it would get clogged regularly and you'd have to take it apart and use a coathanger to get the clogs out. Also there were constant battles with the roomates to make sure they cleaned not just the canister, but the filter too since that had to be done every time. As someone allergic to both types of dustmites, I'd be congested the rest of the day when I was the one vacuming. The belt needed to be replaced several times which was another pain in the bottom. It just never seemed to have the same kind of power again as it did those first few days. When my husband was doing the stairs recently, the brush keeps spinning when you use the attachments and ruined the lino it was sitting on. Yesterday (just over 3 years later and past the extended warranty)I was doing the stairs and the motor suddenly started to make funny noises and smell, within seconds it died. It won't even turn on now, I thought maybe it had an automatic shut-off like a blow dryer but nope, she's gone. I've just bought a dyson, one filter to clean every few months, that's it. The canister is spring loaded, no contact with dust and the power is awesome. I had vacumed my upstairs with the hoover just before it died, went over it less than 24 hours later with the dyson, picked up tons of fine dust as well as dog-hair from the previous owner. We had bought our house a year ago and the hoover had never picked it up. The extra cost pays for itself in the long-run when you think of how much it costs to replace the bands and filters over a 3 year period, go with a Dyson.

I finally retired my old hand-me-down college vacuum about a year ago and decided to go with this nice, Hoover, mid-ranged bagless. The first one I bought started smoking and sparking within a week. I took the flame thrower back and asked for another. I had a rocky relationship with the second one, sometimes it worked for me, and sometimes it didn't. And then, within a year, it just died...no sputtering, no warning. Dead.
I think I will run over it with my car, then go Dyson shopping.

This was the top-of-the-line bagless vacuum cleaner available at a local retailer. It doesn't do a good job in general, particularly on pet hair. The main vacuum has little power, and the attachments have next to none. I would not purchase this product again.