[Closed] Vacuum cleaner, repair or replace?

We have an older Miele cat & dog vacuum, that I'm replaced nearly every hose/head, over it's very hard life. I am more than happy to continue to 'triggers broom' it, as it's fricken ace (& I use pattern bags too). I'd say get it repaired.

We also have a (handheld) shark, as a lighter weight/quick blast round option & it is very good. BUT it fills with our(s) & the dogs hair in a second. So I'm still taking it to pieces, unwrapping hair from the anti-hair fittings. It can be annoying, running out of battery, when you half way through a clean. I think it's a great tool but I personally wouldn't replace my working Miele with a larger version of the shark.

I bought a Shark corded in first lockdown. Impressed with its performance and also how it came apart to suit different areas. However, it failed after about a month, only working again if I wiggled the power cable. We got it replaced only for it to happen again, we returned it and got a refund. Hope this helps.

Repair. I've just fixed out Neff dishwasher with £40 worth of parts and found it pretty satisfying.

Earned myself some "man points" doing it as well. Just need to work out how to actually cash those in.

How long did you run it after the bad noise? I have one that did similar, it sounded terminal. I left it running for a few minutes and it flung all the rubbish out and seems fine now, still going strong.

The Shark website is showing a vac down from £400 to 250. Corded “lift away” jobbie with anti hair wrap (I’m constantly dismantling the head of the miele to cut out the Mrs’ hair that wrapped around the brush bar). Sounds just the ticket but should I stick or twist?

We have a Shark cordless vacuum and four cats - the brush head is really good at coping with pet hair (and the wife's hair).

reduce, reuse, recycle an all that?

I repaired our Dyson Animal and gave it away as it was outclassed by the Shark.

As a general rule, the newer it is, the sooner it breaks.

New Miele Blozzard for the win. Last time I needed a new Miele I phoned customer service and as I had previously had a few they did a new one at 50% off. Might be worth a call?

We've just got a Shark. It's OK, does indeed deal with hair, but not cotton (wife sews). It's better pickup on hard floors, but no-where near as good as our Vax Steerable Lift on suction power.

You’ll probably find your old Miele has more power than anything new and will suck harder, so I’d consider repair.

For garage use, that suction is really handy.

Newer ones have Watt limits imposed for energy efficiency.

Fix it. I have just done the same on a similar age Miele. Mine was a frayed power cable at the inner end of the winder spool. Easy enough to take apart and access everything to fix.
They are built to take years of use so I would definitely fix it.

whether you buy another or not, im also in the 'fix it anyway' camp.

curiosity as to how things work, pottering about, satisfaction on something saved, man points, knowledge for future vaccuum fixes..... win win win win win.

btw, i think the answer to all stw vacuum cleaner questions is always 'Henry' 😉

i think the answer to all stw vacuum cleaner questions is always ‘Henry’

Only if it's a proper one with the power tool socket.

curiosity as to how things work, pottering about, satisfaction on something saved, man points, knowledge for future vaccuum fixes….. win win win win win.

Was very dissapointed changing the brush head motor on our old dyson, loads and loads of screws, all different though, just seemed overly complex and a total PITA to fix as I had 20+ black screws with about 5 different lengths and no way to work out which went where without an assembly diagram. Some times you pull things apart and think, that's been really nicely designed and some times you just think 'what a mess'.

You’ll probably find your old Miele has more power than anything new and will suck harder, so I’d consider repair.

For domestic use suction isn't that important - on hard floors you need hardly any to suck up dust etc and on carpets it's the brush head which does all the work. You could have a pure vacuum in the machine but that won't get cat hair out of a carpert. Our asthmatic cordless Shark was far better on carpets than the mains powered Dyson Aminal it replaced, probably 1/5 the actual suction; so I gave away the Dyson and we kept the Shark.

We needed a new vacuum and on the seeing th eye watering prices people seem to pay for them (£200 is never leaving my bank account for a hoover) I went on eBay and got one of these for £15.

https://www.johnlewis.com/sebo-x7-excel-plus-vacuum-cleaner/p5497925

You can take them apart ridiculously easily (brush bar is quick release!), all parts are available. They are designed to last in commercial environments hence easy to repair and tough.

Due to the way the motor and belt system works - shutting off if it senses a problem - some people sell them as they think they are dead but often they are just blocked. My £15 one worked perfectly, only thing wrong was a blockage (which I cleared in 20 seconds using one of the inspection flaps). It didn’t come with all the tools so I bought another one for £10 off eBay which had all the tools and a new longer cable. So I have a spares machine (which I haven’t yet needed).

Service kit for £25 (filters and bags) made it brand new too. Works brilliantly.

Surprised you need it if you have a cordless. Does the cordless not have a powered brushbar? Our cordless Dyson has completely replaced the corded vac (except in the workshop where I have a Henry)

That said, I'd still fix it. Always good to fix things. People are often way to hasty to throw things away.

Was very dissapointed changing the brush head motor on our old dyson, loads and loads of screws, all different though, just seemed overly complex and a total PITA to fix as I had 20+ black screws with about 5 different lengths and no way to work out which went where without an assembly diagram. Some times you pull things apart and think, that’s been really nicely designed and some times you just think ‘what a mess’

Yeah, it's rubbish when its like that. The Miele is ok though. Pretty much one screw size only, the main circuit board comes off with a push fit connector, everything is accessible.

The dust/carp probably will not have damaged the motor.

Will need to be removed, split apart and a good clean out.

Have you got an air compressor, give all parts a good blast with the airline.

You might get away without splitting the motor if you do this.

I would repair a Miele every time.

@b230ftw
I do like your methods there. Never heard of that manufacturer. Under the radar type.

I went on eBay and got one of these for £15.

https://www.johnlewis.com/sebo-x7-excel-plus-vacuum-cleaner/p5497925
/blockquote>

Sebo's are brilliant - I've bought two this year and will buy more to give to the kids as they move into their own places.

Surprised you need it if you have a cordless.

We have a Dyson cordless as well and it's very good for the hard floors (with the hard floor head - which I'm not sure they still do), with the small powered head for doing the car/furniture and for very quick jobs.
But to do the whole house properly the Sebo is better and I'm sure will still be going strong long after the Dyson has died as it's all a bit flimsy and the battery will go one day.

 

and the battery will go one day.

You can swap the batteries easily. I got a v6 from a bin. £14 for a new battery. Two screws to swap it. Seems good as new.

Miele do a fixed price return to base repair service for vacuums. My mum and dad used it over 10 years ago for theirs and it is still going strong.

Quite pricy at £125 but will repair all faults and give them a year's guarantee.

Guess that muddies the options further.
https://www.miele.co.uk/c/repair-26.htm

You can swap the batteries easily. I got a v6 from a bin. £14 for a new battery. Two screws to swap it.

Good to know, thanks (I think I may have looked into this prior to purchase). TBH it's the way the main tube wobbles around when connected to the body that concerns me most - and the fact that the bin flap will probably break.
But it's good to have.

We have a Meile and aside from being the worst shape for a vacuum cleaner, it "turtles" repeatedly, it is great. However I have just picked up a Dyson V11 for the "daily" use and it is really, really good.

The Meile only gets rolled out on big cleaning days. The powered heads on the Dyson are fantastic.

That said the mother in-law's Dyson V6 we got her only lasted 13 months before the battery packed in, although I suspect that this is more to do with her repeatedly letting it go totally dead.

You can swap the batteries easily. I got a v6 from a bin. £14 for a new battery. Two screws to swap it.

I bought a OEM battery for our Dyson Cordless off Ebay or Amazon, £25 IIRC and seems to last longer than the original Dyson. As said above, 2 screws and 30 seconds to swap it over....

Edit: This one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07Q7PH73T/

That said the mother in-law’s Dyson V6 we got her only lasted 13 months before the battery packed in, although I suspect that this is more to do with her repeatedly letting it go totally dead.

The cells are protected to prevent them being fully discharged. I did read somewhere that it's this circuit board which dies on dyson battery packs when the cells are actually fine. Our one just slowly deterioted as the cells got worse and worse so was down to about 1 min run time by the time I bougt a new battery pack.

You know when you return an unwanted vacuum cleaner, some end up for sale here. Some absolute bargains to be had

https://www.directvacuums.co.uk/

Repair. Miele do a return to base refurbishment. Ours came back like new.

Or try Miele refurbished.

I have had a Miele for 20 years and it was faultless in all that time. Last year we bought a Shark with the animal / hair technology as the wife has never liked the Miele. I was against replacing something that didn't need replacing, but the amount the new Shark picked up out of the carpet made it clear that the Miele was really not up to scratch anymore. I have kept the Miele for if we buy a doer up house in the future and need a vacuum for really mucky use.

It happened to my C3 this time last year. In a hurry I bought an open box Miele Blizzard from Currys. It's been absolutely brilliant so far. I can feel, that it's marginally less powerful as my previous 1600W C3 but still plenty of power to do the job with turbo brush attached. Highly recommended!
I also have the newest Vax cordless cleaner. It does the job as an additional vacuum cleaner but in comparison with corded Miele, it feels very flimsy and on max suction power, 4Ah battery runs flat quite quickly.
Btw. I still have my broken C3 as i haven't decided what to do with it. I took it to local repair centre but I was told, that they don't fix this model.New motors can be bought for around £50 but mostly they're not original. Still it's an option to consider. Sending it to Miele service centre for a full refurb for £125 sounds like a plan, on the other hand my local repair centre have fully refurb powerful C8 for £100.

Right then, the two local vacuum repair shops wrote the Miele off and said it was uneconomical to repair. Whether this is the whole truth or not I do not know but they had no interest in blowing out the motor with an air line (I haven't got one either) and said it was basically toast.

Sebo x7 pet ordered on Monday afternoon and arrived this morning. It has been a revelation, it lifts fluff off the upstairs carpet (it clings onto fluff fir all it's worth) far better than the Miele could ever manage even with the turbo brush on and ramped up to 2200 watts. Got 75 quid off the price as well so dead chuffed.

I may still hold onto the Miele and see about having a tinker but so glad we've gone for the Sebo. Thanks everyone for thier replies and advice anyway, cheers. Have a good one, all.

Sebo x7 pet ordered on Monday afternoon and arrived this morning. It has been a revelation

Nice one.
If you don't have one get an extension hose and maybe one of these so you can get one of these dead cheap off eBay - I've found it to be great for cleaning stair carpets.
But defo get the extension hose.

I have a Vax 2200w jobbie that keeps randomly cutting out, but a shoogle of the cable gets it going again. We thought it was a loose connection on the power cable. I disassembled it last night, but everything looks fine, and the brushes look OK too. It was playing up again today, so is suspect a split in the power cable. I have ordered a replacement with 1mm2 cables as 2200w will draw 10A, which is probably too much for a standard 0.75mm2 core.

@sharkbait, the pet version cones with the extra stair hose as well as the mini turbo head so it's already kitted out. I dod see when looking at reviews of the standard models that a stair hose was lacking so that's why I went for this one but cheers anyway 👍.

the pet version cones with the extra stair hose as well as the mini turbo head

Cool.
You can also add two extension hoses to give a range of about 7m!

One thing I learnt from a vacuum forum (yes there is one!) is that machines lose their picking up ability from the bristles on the brush bar wearing down. So if you have one 5 years you might buy a new machine and think it’s better but all you needed was a new brush bar.
I bought a new brush bar for my Sebo and it took 20 seconds to fit and made it like new. They also do different stiffness brushes too - a less stiff one can be used if you have a lot of solid or delicate floors.

btw, i think the answer to all stw vacuum cleaner questions is always ‘Henry’

@Onzadog

Earned myself some “man points” doing it as well. Just need to work out how to actually cash those in.

These are like the tickets you get at arcades, you need a whole trees worth for a bag of crisps

I recently replaced a Vax with an 'opened-box' hence reduced Shark. It is infinitely superior, has done sterling service plus picks up masses of cotton from my sewist wife's activities. It also came with extra attachments like for under the sofa if you like clutter under the stairs.

A cable autopsy revealed a snapped "live" core where the cable emerges from the body. It is now 20cm shorter, and fully functional.

not sure about this…

Nor I.

We had a Henry at a place I worked once and it (excuse me) sucked. It could've been faulty I suppose, I've no idea, but the Henry's USP is that it's indestructible. As an actual vacuum cleaner it was awful.