Motorhead

This person made several references to "XXX" vacuums on another website.  I had never heard of that name before, nor have I ever seen anything with that label.  At first I thought they were referring to TTI, but now there's enough evidence to believe these "XXX vacuum cleaners" are nothing but a figment of one person's very odd imagination. 

As for the Carpet Pro vacuums, those are great cleaners and an excellent value for the price range.  They're virtually identical to the Panasonic commercial line (specifically a rework of the old Jet-Flo design with some changes and improvements), but as someone else said, better built with *much* better quality motors.  Pair one of those up with synthetic bags and you have yourself a serious cleaning machine.

The pictures really don't do it justice, I've seen some of Mr. Brown's collection on another site and he has some AMAZING examples of early C and R-series Kirbys.  Why they are not shown here is beyond me.

Interesting how Britain's first vacuum cleaner museum comes only ~6 months after the Tacony Museum opened here, perhaps they looked at that one as a model and realized the potential for success?  I wonder if you can demonstrate those there as well, like you can with all 500+ cleaners here in several different rooms, each with several different piles of carpet.  Probably the only place where you can vacuum up Rice Krispies off of a vintage oriental rug with the 1914 Hoover Old Style Special.

The pictures really don't do it justice, I've seen some of Mr. Brown's collection on another site and he has some AMAZING examples of early C and R-series Kirbys.  Why they are not shown here is beyond me.

Interesting how Britain's first vacuum cleaner museum comes only ~6 months after the Tacony Museum opened here, perhaps they looked at that one as a model and realized the potential for success?  I wonder if you can demonstrate those there as well, like you can with all 500+ cleaners here in several different rooms, each with several different piles of carpet.  Probably the only place where you can vacuum up Rice Krispies off of a vintage oriental rug with the 1914 Hoover Old Style Special.

Severus wrote:
CR first tested the DC07 in '02 and Dyson has been above-average in reliability even concerning cleaners purchased before 2004 (in earlier articles).  But regardless of how you want to look at it, the fact that any cleaner can withstand 5+ years' worth of heavy use in the average American household these days is pretty damned impressive.  Besides vacuum cleaners, look at how most people treat their homes, cars, washing machines, etc...sure, we can argue that things may not be made as well as they used to be, but the idea of taking care of something so it can last has become a completely foreign concept.  Why do that when you can plunk down another $500 (or a few thousand, or 40 grand, depending on what it is...) when it breaks and have a new one? 

CarmineD wrote:
Hi Carmine,

As with any "average vacuum owner" we can probably take into account that a lot of these Fantom owners had no idea how to properly use and care for their machines, either.  The first Fantoms (and the previous SC Johnson Wax Vectron off of which the Fantom was based) did not have an exhaust filter...that was only added afterward, probably after the complaints of fine dust spewing from the machine while they were vacuuming with a much-too-full bin!  Incidentally, the Fantoms I referenced have all been well-cared-for examples...just goes to show you that anything, when not abused, will have a long and useful life.  These were also all Thunders, I have noticed that the Furys and Lightnings were not nearly as reliable as the Thunder seems to be what is mostly left nowadays.

You do bring up a good point though in the sense that Fantoms left a lot to be improved on, and Dyson learned from that.  I for one find them to be overly complicated and difficult to work on, and the brushroll was a weak spot for some (although there are plenty out there with good brushrolls, go figure!).  With this I am referring to the original Iona Fantom/later Thunder, I have limited experience with the Fury and have not had a Lightning apart, though I have used several since they first came out around 12 years ago.  I recently found a Thunder (from early '97) at the Goodwill and since it looked like it was in good shape I grabbed it.  The motor ran fine but it had a nasty blockage in the dirt path that required disassembling the entire machine to remove.  The original HEPA filter was also packed with dirt so it immediately went in the garbage.  After cleaning the machine entirely, I can't believe how well it works for a 12 year-old cleaner.  Also found out I didn't really need the exhaust filter, simply emptying the bin after each use as intended and not allowing it to become full eliminates that.

Once again, it all goes back to proper care.

-MH