Unreliability of upright vacuum cleaners

[MM]

Since moving into my new house five years ago I have bought not one, but TWO upright vacuum cleaners.

The first was a Panasonic MCE468. It lasted about two years, then simply stopped working. I reckoned the price to repair it was probably more than a new machine, so in July 2007 I bought a factory-refurbished Hoover PurePower 1900W. The local shop that sold it to me said that these machines (they are always replenishing their stock of factory "seconds") are refurbished by Hoover, then sold at roughly half price. So I paid £34 for mine and it looked brand-new. No trace of dust in the bag cavity, for example. It came with a six-month warranty.

Huzzah, I thought. A virtually new Hoover for £34 can't be bad. And it was fine. It sucked up the dust brilliantly. Until a couple of weeks ago.

It began to cut out. I thought the same thing had happened as happened to the Panasonic. Dead for ever more. But no. After ten minutes or so I switched it on and lo and behold it worked again!

Over the past few days, however, it is cutting out so frequently that it has become unusable. Also, it now makes such an awful screaming noise I have to wear ear defenders like roadmenders with a pneumatic drill.

So I have two choices: Get it repaired or buy a THIRD upright!

If I choose the latter, I've just checked the Argos catalogue and the choice is overwhelming. So what would you recommend?

I can't afford to spend a fortune, so a Dyson is out of the question. The catalogue starts with an Argos own brand at £38.99 and ranges through a Panasonic (spit) at £59.99, an Electrolux also at £59.99, a VAX bagless at £63.59 to a VAX bagless at £73.39. But there are dozens of others.

Alternatively, I could replace the motor myself if spares are available. Are they?

I took the Panasonic to pieces and checked every connection to the motor, right up to the brushes. Juice is there, but the motor simply won't run. I was told by somebody that these things have a thermal overload device that causes them to cut out, but where would it be on the Panasonic? What does such a thermal overload/cutout device look like?

Thanks!

MM

[Adrian]

MM gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Why so hung up on "upright"?

There is only one vac worth buying. And his name is Henry. Look in the back of a random builder's van at what vac he has kicking about in there. I'll put money on it being red with a smiley face. Same with various commercial establishments - hotels, restaurants etc.

They're cheap, and they're bomb-proof.

[Tim Downie]

Have you thought of oiling it? Clearly the motor is getting overheated because of a dry bearing somewhere, either in the motor itself or the brush bar.

[snip]

The cut out isn't the problem, it's only doing its job. Oiling may only be a temporary cure if a bearing is shot somewhere but it's certainly worth a go.

Tim

[John Rumm]

The other possibility is there is a blockage somewhere and the motor is not getting the flow of cooling air it requires. Many of them depend on a decent air flow to cool the motor - without it the things get hot, bearings can seize etc.

[Jules]

I always seemed* to end up completely stripping them down and cleaning them out at least once a year, along with checking the motor brushes. No matter what the design, dirt always seemed to find its way to the motor and then everything starts overheating.

• we're mostly on hardwood floors now, which makes life a lot easier!

[Steve Firth]

If it must be upright then there are Sebo vacuum cleaners. Hoovers are rubbish and have been for years. Dysons are also crap as are Electrolux. It seems as if the OP is magnetically drawn to low quality unreliable rubbish.

FWIW, I prefer an upright to a "cylinder" since the uprights make a much better job of cleaning carpets. However the Henry is available in various disguises and with a turbo-brush is almost as good as an upright. The Henry-Turbo HVR is better than any of the uprights that I have tried with a powered brush head for carpets.

Our first Henry, the basic model cost £70, the powered turbo version cast £140 and was IMO well worth it.

[Jules]

I still want one of those 'space age' spherical ones that were around in the 70's and which floated on a cushion of air - I've not seen one of those in years... (I think they were Hoovers, BICBW)

[The Wanderer]

That's the thrmal cutout, doing its job. Which means the motor's overheating.

Bearings drying out.

Are you keeping the air filters clean? Most modern vacs have one or two foam filters and a hepa filter. The foam filters need rinsing and drying out every three or four weeks. The hepa needs replacing every 6 months.

Just recently replaced an elderly upright with a modern Electrolux. Truly astonishing just how much dust and fluff it picks up each week - we blame it on the cats! But....

If the foam filters get clogged up the airflow through the machine drops dramatically and the suction falls off quite markedly.

[Tim Downie]

...and be thoroughly unpleasant to use in a house full of furniture. Any "pull along" vacuum cleaner will spend its time getting jammed behind chairs, stuck in doorways, chipping paint off of skirting boards and generally being a real pain in the arse. I hate 'em.

Being found in the back of builder's vans isn't a recommendation for a domestic vacuum cleaner. It just means that it's cheap, relatively robust and good as sucking up a few wood shavings and sawdust. Nor is finding them in hotels necessarily a recommendation either. Most hotels lack the clutter of furniture found in most home, have wide open lobbies, halls etc.

Each to their own I suppose...

Tim

[Adrian]

"Tim Downie" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I've always found having something small and light much easier to get into that kind of restricted space than something big, bulky and heavy. But, then, I'm not daft enough to expect to be followed faithfully by anything on castors without having to actually do a bit of guiding.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Hoover Constellation -- I've still got one, and it still works just as well as it did when it was new. It was my parents', bought in the late 1950's I think. I had hours of fun pushing it frictionless across their hall floor, long before I ever started physics lessons and we were introduced to frictionless pucks on an air cushion.

Excellent though they were at the time, a modern Dyson beats the pants off one nowadays for cleaning power, although not longevity I suspect. The Constellation rarely gets used.

[John Rumm]

Hoover Constellation probably...

[Jim]

The trouble with the Dysons is that the dirt necessarily has to enter the vortex bit from the top. This means the suction takes a convoluted path up the back of the machine and there are lots of twists and turns to get clogged up.

They've improved things with the more recent ones but our DC03 was forever getting clogged. I had to keep a Vax around for cleaning up after DIY jobs.

[Steve Firth]

Hoover Constellation IIRC. Bloody useless. They blew up the dust from uncleaned areas, couldn't be used on stairs or ramps, grounded whenever the floor was boarded because the air blew through the gaps and wouldn't work when the bag was half-full.

[MM]

I have acres of carpet to clean and the cylinder kind is really hard work. It is much easier guiding an upright over the carpet instead of pushing the brushhead (on the long tube) of a cylinder model.

MM

[<me9]

I gave ours away in working order about 25 years ago, I wish I'd kept it.

The feature I liked best was that you could also use it as a blower. I can't think of any modern one like that.

[Andrew Gabriel]

The 1959 model 862 is exactly the model I have, and in the same colour...

The trouble with the Dysons is that the dirt necessarily has to enter

Across all our family, we're now exclusively Dyson. My brother got a second generation one originally. I used it a few times when I was doing bits of building work there, and it was much better than a Henry which I had used. So I bought a DC04 (3rd generation Dyson), when I needed a new household vacuum. Gradually, other family members saw and used these when they visited, and as vacuums came to be replaced, Dysons were bought. My DC04 turned out to be so much more effective at cleaning up building mess than the Henry (or Constallation), that after a short time, it got stolen exclusively for the purpose. Obviously it's more fragile, so you have to be more careful with it, but it is the only vacuum I've found which can come anywhere near coping with the volume of plaster/brick dust a wall chaser chucks out in real-time, and it does it without any trouble at all. I tried a number of other vacuums before the Dyson, including a large industrial hired one specially for the purpose, and they were all completely useless. It's a shame no one makes a more industrial quality equivalent to the Dysons (yes, I know they can't without a licence, until the patents expire for making small cyclones which actually work).

Yes, there are marked improvements between the model generations. Having dedicated the DC04 to building work, I later bought a DC07 for household work, and I think all the little niggles I'd had with the DC04 are fixed, and the DC07 is noticably more powerful and has a larger hose (probably as a consequence). I haven't tried the newer ones, but he apparently reached the limit of what is allowed for suction power in some countries on health and safety grounds, so I it may be that the newer ones aren't more powerful in that respect.

One of our family households has had trouble with their Dyson blocking, but that's because they never empty it. Whenever I see it, the muck is jammed right to the top of the canister, way above the full mark, so of course it gets sucked into the smaller cyclones which are intended for the second stage fine particle filtration, not large gobets of dust. It's actually not those which block, but the separated dust outlet path from them down the middle of the collection canister. First time I unscrewed it to empty it, but then I saw it's actually got bits of plastic in there which are intended to loosen any such stuck dust when you operate the trigger to open the canister bottom, and operating that a number of extra times clears it. I've never had that happen in mine, but I do empty it when the dust is up to the full mark.

[Tim Downie]

So not only do you have to guide the head where you want it, you've got to concentrate on guiding the body around. An upright is so much easier IMO.

Tim

[John]

I believe some (or most?) vacuum cleaners direct the filtered air through the motor for cooling (on Dyson a further filter removes any carbon residue from the brushes). So a blocked cleaner will lead to overheating very quickly. I know someone who seems to have problems with cleaners - when I look at them they are on their last legs - clogged through sucking up soggy food dropped by the kids

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Did you contact Panasonic? Most would expect an expensive vacuum to last much longer than this - unless it was a Dyson, of course. They tend to be fashion items and changed often to stay in fashion.

I have an MC-E452 which is somewhat over 10 years old, and despite having a long haired dog and a cleaning lady who loves Dyson and does her best to break it, refuses to die. It's only had the usual wearing parts replaced - although I gave up on the light after the second bulb failed in short order.