Shark vacuum and 'right to repair'! Plus bonus ebay rant.

[R D S]

I bought a Shark mains vacuum some time ago, liked it, bought another.... now between home and work we have 2 mains powered and 2 cordless.

One of the cordless wasn't sucking and on inspection the hose in the base where the articulation goes on had split. So I pulled it apart, although not before buying tamperproof star keys (I had star keys but it seems manufacturers have gone to an added length to piss people off). Having got the part off and satisfied I could get it back together I went on their website looking for spares. It's obvious where this is going, they don't sell a hose but you can buy a whole new base. I emailed them and after a week of back and forth they confirmed that they do not supply parts, just whole new bases. Looking at the reviews on their site you can see many disgruntled people put out by having to buy a whole new base for the sake of a roller/pipe/belt etc.

I'm sure i'll find a suitable piece of hose and fettle it but this isn't really on, is it?

As for the ebay rant, One of the four vacs had a burnt out motor so I bought a whole new one 'reconditioned' on ebay, i'd never used the base and it was still in bubble wrap. I fished it out yesterday with the plan of robbing the bit of hose from it and lo, it was in worse nick than the one I wanted to replace but had a crock load of silicone sealant pasted onto it. Which I managed to easily remove with my fingers.

Therefore the hose appears to be a weak point in the design, but they don't facilitate changing it. So Shark are off my Christmas card list and I must thoroughly check ebay reconditioned stuff in future, I have learned many times now that stuff on ebay is on there because it is s**te.

[Jethro_uk]

As long as manufacturers are allowed to get away with shit like this, I find it hard to believe there's a climate crisis on.

I refer posters to the leaking seal on my dishwasher needing an entirely new door panel (at £60).

[Andy Burns]

vacuums aren't included in RTR, just washers, dryers, dishwashers, fridges, motors, welders plus "electronic displays"

[The Natural Philosopher]

Guess why so many of us eschew heavily advertised crap in favour of British made Henrys, which are cheap and totally serviceable.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Those of you who follow 'rainman rays repairs' on you tube will note the fact that a 20c failed aircon temperature sensor in a Ford truck required that the front seats and dash be totally removed and a whole new evaporator installed. Over $1000... The answer is simply. Don't buy a Shark. Or a Ford truck.

[John Rumm]

No, but it is a common trend, and the more manufacturers are allowed to get away with it, the worse it will get.

There are lots of rumblings in the US with some states getting close to implementing RTR legislation. The manufacturers are fighting, lobbying, and spreading FUD at every opportunity though. If one does however produce some workable legislation that ought to open the flood gates and lots would copy. Mort to the point, once the cat is out of the bag it won't stay local to one state.

Lewis Rossmann has being covering lots of it on his youtube channel in between his stuff on macbook repair:

The most recent one on Dymo and their insisting on DRM for the *paper* is a new twist.

[Jethro_uk]

I refer you to my previous comment.

If I wanted to tackle a climate crisis, it's shit like this that would be top of my hit list, not pissing around with millions of houses insulation.

See also flying empty airliners to avoid losing airport slots.

[Adrian Caspersz]

I'm so keen to make sure my next washing machine comes from this bunch.

Not stocked by John Lewis and Curry's etc ...

They have an explanation.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yup. And white knight makes driers and there is a British Fridge company. Belling still make cookers.

[Adrian Caspersz]

I see your four, and call our army of seven (!)

1. Henry
2. Heavy Panasonic upright for upstairs
3. Identical Panasonic upright for downstairs
4. Dyson handheld
5. Beldray handheld (crap)
6. Photocopier Toner vacuum
7. Bissell feather weight upright

I don't quite know how we got in this state, collecting so many ... eBay, Car boot sales and Charity shops have a lot to answer for.

I generally have my wits aout me, but on eBay there is the problem that among the official refurbishers, there are those individuals that have gambled on a pallet of Amazon or John Lewis customer returns, and after checking that the mains switch functions, can see no wrong by placing a presumed undeadly item out on sale.

For example, this dim wit.

I Bought a Pallet of RETURNS from JOHN LEWIS at AUCTION.. Returns Unboxing!

[Jacob Jones]

Insulation saves vastly more.

[Andy Burns]

I've often wondered, given they make dehumidifiers, why they don't make dryers or washer/dryers? The closest they get seems to be a clothes tent to go with a dehumidifier ...

[NY]

I was surprised when our battery-powered Shark started making a loud whistling/screeching noise and then cutting out with in a second of turning on, that they sent out a complete base unit (motor, battery, dust cylinder) rather than any smaller part such as motor or suction fan - or even the motor unit without battery/dust cylinder, which would have saved them a bit of money.

We ended up with two batteries which is useful to have one on charge while the other is in use.

I suspect that some very fine dust got past the cylindrical foam filter and the HEPA filter and found its way into the fan/motor assembly, even though I cleaned the filters at the stated intervals. The problem started a few months after we'd had some building work done and each night we had to hoover up any plaster dust in the kitchen that the builders' own vacuum cleaner had missed. You'd think that a combination of cyclone action in the cylinder, normal filter and HEPA filter would be enough to stop dust going where it shouldn't, but evidently some made past all those lines of defence.

The real weak point of the Shark hose is that the inside is ridged rather than being smooth. This allows objects such as wooden splinters or Christmas tree pine needles to wedge themselves in the ridges which quickly leads to a complete blockage. The moulded-on handle is at a slight angle to the hose which means you can't just insert a rod (eg piece of dowel) to prod out any blockage; you need to use something rigid but flexible - I find that 15 amp twin-and-earth lighting cable makes a good flexible prodder.

All other vacuum cleaners that I've owned have had a hose which is ridged on the outside to give it flexibility but dead smooth on the inside to minimise the chance of objects lodging and causing blockages.

That little problem aside, the Shark is a damn good vacuum cleaner - so much better than the huge, heavy, mains-powered Panasonic that we had before. I have "fond" memories of carrying that up and down the staircase, which was a two-handed job.

[Tim+]

That sounds like a classic symptom of blocked filters! Motor overheats and the circuitry cuts the motor off.

Doesn?t need to get that far. Any filter blockage that affects motor cooling will cause that. There is no ?stated interval? once you start sucking up fine dust!

Yep, plaster dust will do it every time.

My experience is that cyclones can?t catch really fine stuff like plaster dust.

Tim

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

A lot of manufactured stuff competes by making the thing single use, no need to stock spares as they want you to buy a new one, The repairers are few, but since things will probably be going down the repair route they use the module approach to screw as much dosh out of the public as they can. Its not Just Shark is it? Many of the cheaper brands of TV seem to be the same. Somebody bought a branded Polaroid TV a few years back, but its really a cheap badge engineered mass produced telly, which nobody has spares for and the pcbs such as the are, are all surface mount hard wired unrepairable things. I notice even toasters and kettles are just made for life, riveted or glued or welded plastic and tend to go rusty on the elements etc. Washing machines fridges can be similar if you are not careful. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Although Bosch do sell spares for their vacuums, I do think that much like cars, these are over priced. If you built a vacuum from spares it would cost as much as a car. I think I mentioned before that a plastic clip broke on the output filter of my Bosch, and the wanted some ridiculous amount for a bit of plastic with slots in it, so I used two self tapping screws to secure it instead. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

A lot of it is design mistakes, It would be relatively easy to design things with easy to swap parts, but the designers are looking for cheapest nothing else. Its the same reason why no current washing machines of a reasonable price can be used by a blind person. Its not that its hard or costly to develop and build one, its just a few pence cheaper not to, and the loss of business from blind people is just tough. If things were designed with access and reparability from scratch you would not find it any more costly to buy things, I remember the old joke about a certain French car maker where engineers suggested that they built the heater and controls first then made the rest of the car around it. The other gripe I have, since we are having a whinge, is that somebody designs a very good cheap product that you can carry in your pocket, Lets say its a simple light detector for the blind. Then somebody redesigns it so its twice as big too daft a shape to fit the pocket and costs three times as much, or they decide it can be made into a smart phone app. A lot of things in this world had good designs and then somebody redesigned them worse.

Who came up with touch lift controls? People who have reasonable sight cannot even get the things to go to the right floor, never mind the blind. a simple array or push buttons was fine. Card readers for your credit cards had easy to use keys, then some bright spark made them touch screen and people often are changing their speccs and squinting too figure out what to do, after all they miss the actual act of pushing a button.

Brian Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

You cannot say that without knowing the details. That is a typical ArtStudent? response. Binary, Boolean and Stupid.

Insulating an unheated room saves precisely nothing. For example.

And further insulating an already well insulated room achieves extraordinarily little.

[Mathew Newton]

Yep, I'll be doing the same. They also support hot-fill too:

They also come with a 7 year parts and labour warranty which provides some peace of mind, and which knocks the spots of the 2 year warranty that Miele provides these days (long gone are the days of Miele providing 10 year warranties which I think just about says it all).

[Mathew Newton]