Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

Hopefully this is available to non-subscribers:

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/home/2009/09/garry-ultra-light-vacuum-consumer-reports-review-best-vacuums-infomercial-dirt-devil-hoover-eureka-b.html

Inside Consumer Reports Test Labs: The Garry upright vacuum is a lightweight . . . in more ways than one

- good for bare floors and pet hair - not so great at carpet cleaning.

Hello Venson:

From the 10th post of 23 on the CR page with the garry comments, I excerpted this user's review:

"I don't expect  free shipping if I was using the product for 1 yr.+  However, to have to pay another $76 for shipping and processing after 4 months of use is quite a ripoff. "

I opined this is $38 to ship the old defective garry back and $38 for garry to ship the replacement.  Upon reading again, the poster says it cost $11 to return so the additional $65 is the garry charge for shipping a replacement.  As the poster says: a rip off.

Carmine D.

BTW Venson shipping and handling on an ORECK runs $25-$30 unless ORECK waives the costs as a special promotion to buy.  That's from the new plant in Tennessee, the city part not the backwoods part HS dwells in, to Las Vegas. 

Carmine D.

CarmineD wrote:

Once again your ignorance shows.  The factory is in the hills of TN.  I actually live a stones throw from Tom Oreck.

Once again HS you prove that my 5 year old grand daughter knows the difference between making a joke and ignorance better than you.   

WRT the shipping costs and garry repalcements, reading more of the posts, confirms Venson's view.  The $80 is for the replacement garry vacuum.  Have to wait to see how this plays out in Peoria.  I suspect garry will have to fine tune its verbage to get into legal conformity or risk legal actions.

Carmine D.

Pondering the garry vacuum warranty, it is quite a scam in addition to rip off.  Garry makes more money replacing defective garry vacuums than selling new ones and repairing in/out of warranty.   Doesn't give customers a warm and fuzzy feeling when dealing with new vacuum makers and their claims/technical jargon.   No surprise at all that these garry vacuums are not sold thru indy's.  Any bets on how long it will be in business?

Carmine D.

From the CR Web site that SEVERUS posted:  Here's how/why the garry posters write $80 for a garry vacuum replaced under warranty:

As with the bags, free isn't exactly no cost. You'll pay to ship the vacuum back to the manufacturer and $40 for shipment of the new model. All that on top of the $40 you spent on shipping in the first place.

In fact CR's figure of $80 understates the garry shipping costs.  Why?  As poster 10 says, he paid $11 to ship back the defective garry.  So the new/replaced garry cost him $91 not $80!  Suppose the 2nd garry fails, assuming another $11 to ship back and and $40 shipping for replacement.  Now, the shipping cost for the original purchase [with 2 replacements] is $142 [not counting the $200/$249 initial price paid and the bags every 4 months for $10 unless the buyer cancels them.  Very expensive proposition. 

Question:  What happens to the returned defective garry vacuums?  Refurbs?  Or dump junk?

Carmine D.

I'm sorry if I can't feel ANY sympathy for the burned consumers. Even if I wasn't a retailer I would still feel little for them. It doesn't take much to question the validity of a product that was advertised such as this was. The Consumers FIRST and foremost requirement was to buy by PRICE. They got what the wanted most... a cheap vacuum. They did not buy for quality, service or warranty. Shark products are the same. AS sophisticated as people THINK they are, they still can't figure out TV ADVERTISING. An Ad Agency is commissioned to sell a product, why would they EVER tell anything negative about a it, yet people are still surprised when they are duped? I would have a little more sympathy if they were misled by Consumers Reports because they try to be impartial. I do have to wonder, with all the amount of faulty picks, when they too will be of little reliability to the consumer.

Dyson, garry vacuum, fantom, halo, shark, and others reinforce the legitimacy and credibility of the indies like you and others who post here regularly.  When vacuum consumers get duped by the big box retailers, marketeers like Ken Garcia and the halo [recall a poster here who thought he was all that said FROM VIEWING THE HALO WEB PAGE ONLY that halo would sell a MILLION of them] and garry vacuums inevitably end up at their local vacuum indy for advice and help when things go wrong.  Never ever fails. 

Like I always say here, the vacuum indies are the backbone of the vacuum industry.  Always have been and will be.  The big box rip off stores come and go, the fancy schmancy marketed vacuums come and go.  The vacuum indies like you are here to stay.  In part to clean up the mess these fly-by-night crooks, thieves, scammers leave behind.  Threy give the vacuum industry a bad rep, not the indies.  BTW recall that former halo admirer typically bad mouths and trash talks the indies.  Offers no proof.  Gives no names.  Just the same panned meaningless empty words that bear no resemblance to the truth.  He gives the vacuum industry a bad name by trying to make a living off it. 

Carmine D.

The Garry vac was intended to be a play on the public desire to get something for nothing. (The lottery is the same deal.)

To my mind, Garry's idea all along was to present a cheap knock-off of a more expensive, more popular vacuum. And in this day and age of information where it takes all you can do to sell a fairy tale to a two-year-old, grown folks with a little spending change appear more than ready to buy into the one Garry's telling.

If you suddenly appear out of nowhere as Garry did and then hit me with me with spiels like, "Buy it and if anything goes wrong I'll send you a new one," or "I'll supply you with free bags for the life of the machine," I begin to wonder. I never got why it seemed no one else did.

Venson

Hello Venson et al:

You were skeptical and doubtful from the get go.  I went back and read the 50 or so posts on the original thread for this subject.  While I initially thought perhaps former disgruntled ORECK employees [if there is such a thing] were behind the start up of the garry, I hit a brick wall when I posed this theory to existing ORECK employees.  They were in the dark and surprised by the similarities but it ended there.  Obviously it is not the case. 

There is/was however ONE technical element with the garry that intriqued me, tho I was and still am skeptical.  The tools on board operation and performance.  This is the edge that garry has over the ORECK IF the tools give decent performance.  I wanted to check the tools out for useful and practical performance.  That was the issue that would make or break the appeal of this vacuum over the ORECK, IMHO.  CR was not impressed with tool use and I'm sure I won't be either.    Which bears out the suspicion I had with this vacuum.  Too small a motor for decent tool suction.

Carmine D.