Consumer Reports hits a new LOW...(Vacuum Ratings)

[Metaphor]

I was at my favorite vacuum shop today. The owner is a licensed Kirby repair shop and has quite a few of them around. Two are out on the sales floor for very reasonable prices. As I was waiting my turn to pay for what I bought I said to the owner "next time I'm in if you aren't too busy maybe you can show me why Kirbys are such great vacuums".

Before the owner could reply the lady in line in front of me paying told me "I own one and they aren't so great" In short she found hers miserable to use. The store owner shook his head in agreement as she spoke. I have never used one, but moving them out from their displays to examine them I can't get past their weight and general clumsy bulkiness, and from prior experience avoid soft bagged uprights, even if they have a paper bag inside. I have passed up thrift store Kirbys in the $10 - $20 range more than once.

To be brutally honest I think people who buy such expensive vacuums feel they have to defend spending so much money on a common household item. Btw, I see the same dysfunctional justifications of buying expensive automobiles. They aren't worth the price. Maybe C-R sees this and offends those who popped for the high priced spread. They are making recommendations for normal consumers with limited household budgets, not vacuum collectors.

 

[kirbyloverdan]

Max I am a Kirby LOVER and

EXPENSIVE German automobile enthusiast & owner of 3 expensive (in your mind) autos and own over 20 NIB Kirby's plus many more I personally use daily and take offence to your nasty uneducated remarks .
Please learn to respect fellow members as this is not a site to bash people and their vacuum and automobile purchases !!!

Dan

 

[marks_here]

Things that make ya go hmmmmmm I wonder......

 

[tolivac]

I own all of the Kirby "G" series vacuums and don't find them "clumsy" at all.Their Tech drive makes a diffrence.Suggest you TRY a Kirby before knocking it!And older 500 Kirbys are lighter in weight and easy to push and maneuver.Again TRY the machine!!!

 

[kenkart]

Re CR

Cr very rarely got it right, Comparing a Hoover 150 with a GE of the same vintage would be like comparing a Falcom with a Town Car!..they always rated a Kirby as a poor rug cleaner, and they said he Preco air driven power brush was wonderful!!LOL..They also said for many years, that a Rexair/Rainbow was a dangerous machine because of the shock hazard...it goes on and on....they did however say in the 50s that the Apex Strato Cleaner had the highest suction ever tested...that was a true statement...

 

[Metaphor]

The comment on sleeve bearings is comparing apples to oranges. Those big industrial sleeve bearings mentioned above have full flow lubrication going to them to cool, lube and keep the bearing material clean. A sleeve bearing in a vacuum motor lives in heat and dirt, heat and the lubricant is never changed and does not circulate When the lube is used up and breaks down, as any lubricant will, there is nothing left to support the shaft and wear accelerates. Sleeve bearings in a small universal motor like a vacuum uses is a cost cutting kludge rightly condemned by C-R.

I will also bet those big industrial sleeve bearings are only supporting a vertically oriented shaft. If the shaft is on it's side a sleeve bearing will be chewed down on the low side very quickly.

 

[kirbyloverdan]

Wow Metaphor aka Desert tortoise

Why the name change ?

Dan

 

[Metaphor]

My apologies to upset you Kirbyloverdan. Sincerely. I didn't mean to get you mad.

I have had expensive Euro cars and bikes too. Over time I have come to regard all of that kind of thing as over priced for what you get. BMW charges a five figure premium for an M car over what they charge for the standard version. Same thing with their bikes, the R1200 is two grand more dear than the R850 version of the same bike. They both have the same parts count and are assembled on the same line using the same labor and the same number of assembly steps. The only differences are bore size and the mapping of the ECM, neither of which has any affect on manufacturing cost. It is every bit as expensive (or cheap) a bike to build as the smaller displacement model but you are charged two grand more for the 1200. Why? Image. You have a "bigger", even if the actual dimensions of the two bikes are identical, that you can thump your chest about so you are willing to pay more for it. The extra power doesn't get you down the road faster (no, it really doesn't) but people willingly pop the extra two grand so they can brag about their bike. It's silly to me. Same with their M series cars. That M series car doesn't cost ten or twenty grand more to build than the more pedestrian model. Ditto AMG Mercedes. The material costs are not ten grand different. The number of assembly steps are about the same. The bodies are basically identical. Most of that cost premium is pure profit for BMW or Mercedes and not justified by costlier materials and/or more assembly steps. It took me decades of over paying for things to finally figure this out. No more. You get older and money starts to matter.

It is the same thing with any high end product. The seller sells "exclusivity" and uses this as a form of monopoly pricing. But don't kid yourself that these products are necessarily worth their high price. I maintain that often they are not. Sellers are out to make a buck. Just because it is expensive doesn't mean it's good. But we see how offended those who paid the price get when someone questions whether the resulting quality justifies the high price. There is an interesting psychology in this and the reactions of people when you question spending such large sums for household goods that have a certain image attached are something I am fascinated with. People get emotionally attached to something they spent a bunch of money on, justified or not. We have seen this right here.

 

[Metaphor]

Btw, I got bitten right here too believing the received wisdom of the senior posters when I was stalking this site earlier. My upright was a, uh, shall we say budget Hoover pushing two decades old. Based on what people were saying here I decided to pop for a high end German upright. It's a beautiful machine. Excellent materials and workmanship. Ought to last decades. Big suction and airflow. Everyone says such good things about it. The only problem is it bogs down in my home's deep pile carpet and shuts off. Querying the manufacturer they told me that deep carpet is a limitation for their vacuums with no remedy and no work around. So sorry. So all I can use it on is the indoor/outdoor carpet of the garage. Many hundreds of my hard earned wasted. The Hoover is nasty but has no problems with my home's deep carpet. The brand new high end euro vac gets condemned to garage duty and the decades old cheap Hoover plastivac soldiers on inside the home. So, yes, I have learned to question the efficacy of the claims made here and other websites regarding the supposed superiority of high end products. I finally went out and bought a modern canister, open box stock at a very low price (cuz the Eurovac cleaned my wallet even if it can't clean my carpet), for inside the home. It isn't ideal either but better than a tired old Hoover. At least I got value for money out of the Hoover.

 

[sebo_fan]

And yet, with all your experience, you didn't bother sticking with the previous Kenmore brand that your previous posts on here continually promoted?

Im glad you have returned - Im still waiting to see how easy it it to put a PN onto a canister vacuum. Im waiting for you to show me, with eagerness.

 

[turbo500]

Surely you could've returned your "eurovac" for a refund/exchange and got something more appropriate for your carpets?

 

[Metaphor]

No refunds. So sorry. How it goes. Kenmore? I was using a Hoover. I wanted something better and I needed HEPA filtration for my allergy suffering fiancee. This upright and the Hoover are HEPA. I have some very old Kenmores in the collection but they aren't so good for cleaning and have about zero filtration. They are just collectables. My old Panasonics are better for cleaning and so much quieter but hard to find parts for and likewise lack filtration. Hoses are impossible (same for the Kenmores) so a modern vacuum has to do the daily cleaning chores. I have an MC-CG902 that is an excellent machine in most regards. Last of the old school vacuums you can still buy new, but you will never read about one here. About all it lacks is adjustable motor speed. For that you have to pop for an MC-CG937. Another C note needed elsewhere.

 

[ralph123]

Metaphor/Turtle: So to what German brand and model are you referring?

 

[sebo_fan]

Yet again your ignorance does you no favours, Metaphor.

Courtesy of Google search, the following threads from Vacuumland dating 13th November 2013 clearly shows a member buying the Panasonic MC-CG902.

http://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?22905

Other posts also show some interesting discussions

http://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?18434

Simply by typing in the model number, brand and then vacuumland produces results, Metaphor. You should learn to use Google in this way for any archive posts by current members. The first post with the mere mention of the model number on here goes back to 2012...

 

[jaker15]

Okay already

We get it, sebo-fan, you always have to be right. As for you "waiting eagerly", leave Metaphor alone and drop it already! From what I'm hearing, the only ignorant one here is you. Knock it off. 

 

[tolivac]

Commercial-industrial generator bearings-as I indicated-these are used with pumpted and filtered oil.They support a generator rotor that can weigh up to 400 tons and turning at 1800(4 pole generator) or 3600 RPM(2 pole generator)Some very large syncronous "condensor" motors used for power factor correction at large substations have these bearings,too.The motors don't power a physical load.they are in a gastight enclosure filled with hydrogen as the generators are.The bearing pump system is designed where the motor or generator can't be activated unless the pumps are on and generating proper oil flow and pressure.The pressurized oil would actually be supporting the shafts.The generators above are in coal or nuclear heated powerplants.One of mans largest and most powerful machines!

 

[sebo_fan]

It's not about being right, Jaker

But then again, WHO ARE YOU to tell me what to do? I really don't care what "you have heard" and "what you have been told." Maybe you're young enough to worry about what people say about you.

For me, this site is mostly about being able to learn from others and to be able to pass that information on. That is why I chose to join this forum in 2012. I have learnt a lot about brands that we don't get in the UK and also being able to view and look at other vintage vacs. If you fail to see that, then you have a lot more to learn about vacuumland.

This isn't a place that you can necessarily shoot from the hip without much evidence, let alone not really check out other areas of the site. Due to changes to this site, I am still learning on aspects that I seldom use - but I read early on by Googling on how easy it was to find archive posts.

I have been a member of this forum longer than you, Jaker PLUS contributed greatly to this forum. I deeply resent your comment because you do NOT KNOW who you are dealing with.

Maybe you don't want to know - that is fine with me - but don't ever tell me to shut up when it isn't warranted.