I am in shock then Roger...
that a machine over in the USA, rated by CRI as "gold" and highly by Consumer Reports for years and years does very poorly on European "wilton" carpet. That carpet must not be anywhere close to the typical USA medium pile carpet. If that's the case, then you would need different carpet cleaning machines for European households.
If that label is accurate, a Kirby would:
1) spew out so much dust ("F" rating) that it should make most people sick or at least cough/sneeze when running.
2) Not be worth more than $100-something Euros, because don't you have similarly priced machines that also score a "C" rating for carpet?
Here's a link to CRI's certified vacuums page. Top listing? Kirby Avalir.
http://www.carpet-rug.org/certified-vacuums.html
Again, if the EU's testing methodologies are to be believed, there would be no point in buying one because most inexpensive cheap plastic vacs would meet or beat a Kirby. We all that's simply not true.
Oh, and the KirbyWHQ website is now down. For UK Kirby browsing, go to www.kirby.com/gb
Bill
[ATTACH=full]117753[/ATTACH]